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The problem is that the CCP has nothing to replace this cultural vacuum with. They want to legislate a return to "old" (post 1949) values by banning foreign tut

The problem is that the CCP has nothing to replace this cultural vacuum with. They want to legislate a return to "old" (post 1949) values by banning foreign tutors, suppressing dissent on WeChat and Weibo, and doing generally authoritarian shit to encourage nationalism. Meanwhile, young, educated people almost exclusively consume the cultural products of the West, Korea, and Japan. And they find the North Korean style propaganda embarrassing. The disconnect really cannot be understated.

mc32 5y ago
I'm sure this is one aspect of it. They surely don't want "foreign decadence" to influence their youth --which is part of losing control over narrative. It's kind of typical socialist thinking that you can have forever revolutionary songs and chants, forever reconstruction and forever community activism (for the party of course). Obviously, that can work in tightly controlled environments such as North Korea, and it looks like they are taking some of that social control back so they can better dictate what they population should do (for its own good as they see it, obviously).
georgeecollins 5y ago
>> The problem is that the CCP has nothing to replace this cultural vacuum with. I am no expert, but I disagree and I think this is the kind of thinking that has failed the west for the last thirty years. I think the idea started with the fall of the Soviet Union. That culture and ideology was bankrupt. So a lot of western people thought that when there was a free exchange of ideas with China, the Chinese would eventually reject the CCP. My experience of people in China-- admittedly a long time ago-- was they are generally very patriotic or nationalistic, like Americans. They appreciate the CCP and what it has accomplished. They have a strong domestic arts industry making movies, books, games. Sure lots of people disagree with the party, but that doesn't that they want a western liberal democracy. So lots of people will speak in favor of a benevolent elite and against populism or what they see as western chaos or oppression. When people are against the government, they aren't wishing for a different government system, just less corrupt or more benevolent authoritarians. Anyway, that is the way I am thinking about these days. But I could be very wrong and I would love to hear from people who are from or spend time in China.
- refenestrator 5y ago
  There's an interesting phenomenon, specific to US tech, where there are a ton of Chinese who quietly have a problem with the recent anti-china rhetoric, but they're not going to put a target on their back over it, they stay quiet. How do you even engage with someone who doesn't speak a word of Chinese and is so confident that they know all about China? Meanwhile, the anti-china folks blithely go on about how much better freedom of expression is in America, and assume that silence means they are right.
  - marderfarker2 5y ago
    I feel like a lot of frustration in the west are due to a lack of voice from within China, who can explain the context and give their point of view. Instead all you get are these disjointed news and headlines without any depth to it. People then make assumptions based on it.
    - sudosysgen 5y ago
      Well, yes and no. Go to reddit for example, you can find endless amounts of people explaining the Chinese perspective and getting voted down and accused of being wumaos, and you'll get banned for it in many places too. At some point I imagine it gets tiring.
      - Steltek 5y ago
        Isn't that the problem though? How do you know you're getting a genuine opinion when there's a public, broad, and well funded astroturf campaign? What even is a genuine opinion or free thought when the government employs such ruthless censorship?
        refenestrator 5y ago
        If you're not open to other opinions, you will hear none, and that's entirely on you. In extremely broad strokes, China has gone from colonized and poor to powerful and rich. Is it so hard to believe that the average Zhao is pretty OK with things?
dirtyid 5y ago
> exclusively consume the cultural products of the West There's more penetration of western media and products in PRC, but vast majority of consumption is still domestic even among educated. And trends show the young are more nationalistic than ever, especially among those with more exposure to the west. >North Korean style propaganda embarrassing. The disconnect really cannot be understated. Yeah, folks are embarassed at the style of propaganda, ran by old cadres from for a bygone era. Not the idea of propaganda itself. They want better, modernized propaganda that effectively reinforces nationalism, especially abroad.
- magicsmoke 5y ago
  On the one hand, they're right to cringe at the tone-deaf socialist era government communist propaganda. "How do you do fellow kids" with a communist flare. Clearly produced by cadres in their 60s in a communist bubble. On the other hand, the current nationalist Chinese bubble is not that much better. Listening practice on Bilibili would be a lot better without the equally tone deaf comments about how all their neighbors are puppets of the US without any personal agency and owe their culture and history to 5000 years of glorious Chinese civilization. The current anti-Chinese sentiments in the west would be far worse if your average American spent even 30 minutes on Chinese websites. They can complain all day about how biased BBC is towards China (arguably true), but I don't see CGTV overtaking BBC globally in popularity anytime soon. One whiff of that smug self-superiority is enough to make anyone regret learning Chinese.
  - dirtyid 5y ago
    Nationalists everywhere are insufferable. The aspiration for "lovable" PRC propanda is just aspirational. IMO very little chance PRC will be able to out-propagandize west/US especially among west/US aligned partners. Language/cultural divide too big. I think domestically people will just settle for less cringy interntionational rhetoric, which itself is a losing game since western media will interpret translations with liberty regardless. It doesn't matter that PRC citizens are relatively apolitical on the whole, with 1.4B population statistics there's will always be too many absurd nationals to paint narrative. Really PRC strategy of maintaining different internet/cultural bubbles and targetting msgs at more receptive Chinese diasphora audiences is on point. Once attempt at "lovable" propaganda fails, PRC will pursue Russia style disinformation because ultimately that's whats most pragmatic given the divide and realities of competition. Also more of those PRC cartoons that called out western hypocrisy that was well recieved domestically and made western media look ridiculous by coordinated labelling them photographs. Or calling out Canadian indigenous drama, Australia enviromentalism etc, stuff that has had more ramifcations on the domestic politics of Canada and Australia leaders than west pressing on XJ/HK/Tibet, which Xi doesn't lose sleep over.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
tablespoon 5y ago
> Meanwhile, young, educated people almost exclusively consume the cultural products of the West, Korea, and Japan. What now? China has a pretty extensive film and television industry, and as far as I know it's very popular. > And they find the North Korean style propaganda embarrassing. The disconnect really cannot be understated. And in that case, the most logical reaction is political disengagement, which is completely A-OK in the CCP's book.
- blacksmith_tb 5y ago
  You might think so, but slacking now seems to be considered to be dangerously rebellious[1] by the CCP. 1: https://qz.com/2019322/why-lying-flat-a-niche-chinese-millennial-meme-alarms-beijing/ https://qz.com/2019322/why-lying-flat-a-niche-chinese-millen...
  - tablespoon 5y ago
    That's different, the "slacking" of which you speak is a kind of dissent. What I mean by "political disengagement" keeping a distance from political issues and otherwise "saying withing the lines," so to speak.
    - blacksmith_tb 5y ago
      I see what you mean, it's "going through the motions" without trying too hard, compliance but not enthusiasm.

mc32 5y ago

I'm sure this is one aspect of it. They surely don't want "foreign decadence" to influence their youth --which is part of losing control over narrative. It's kind of typical socialist thinking that you can have forever revolutionary songs and chants, forever reconstruction and forever community activism (for the party of course). Obviously, that can work in tightly controlled environments such as North Korea, and it looks like they are taking some of that social control back so they can better dictate what they population should do (for its own good as they see it, obviously).

georgeecollins 5y ago

>> The problem is that the CCP has nothing to replace this cultural vacuum with. I am no expert, but I disagree and I think this is the kind of thinking that has failed the west for the last thirty years. I think the idea started with the fall of the Soviet Union. That culture and ideology was bankrupt. So a lot of western people thought that when there was a free exchange of ideas with China, the Chinese would eventually reject the CCP. My experience of people in China-- admittedly a long time ago-- was they are generally very patriotic or nationalistic, like Americans. They appreciate the CCP and what it has accomplished. They have a strong domestic arts industry making movies, books, games. Sure lots of people disagree with the party, but that doesn't that they want a western liberal democracy. So lots of people will speak in favor of a benevolent elite and against populism or what they see as western chaos or oppression. When people are against the government, they aren't wishing for a different government system, just less corrupt or more benevolent authoritarians. Anyway, that is the way I am thinking about these days. But I could be very wrong and I would love to hear from people who are from or spend time in China.

refenestrator 5y ago
There's an interesting phenomenon, specific to US tech, where there are a ton of Chinese who quietly have a problem with the recent anti-china rhetoric, but they're not going to put a target on their back over it, they stay quiet. How do you even engage with someone who doesn't speak a word of Chinese and is so confident that they know all about China? Meanwhile, the anti-china folks blithely go on about how much better freedom of expression is in America, and assume that silence means they are right.
- marderfarker2 5y ago
  I feel like a lot of frustration in the west are due to a lack of voice from within China, who can explain the context and give their point of view. Instead all you get are these disjointed news and headlines without any depth to it. People then make assumptions based on it.
  - sudosysgen 5y ago
    Well, yes and no. Go to reddit for example, you can find endless amounts of people explaining the Chinese perspective and getting voted down and accused of being wumaos, and you'll get banned for it in many places too. At some point I imagine it gets tiring.
    - Steltek 5y ago
      Isn't that the problem though? How do you know you're getting a genuine opinion when there's a public, broad, and well funded astroturf campaign? What even is a genuine opinion or free thought when the government employs such ruthless censorship?
      - refenestrator 5y ago
        If you're not open to other opinions, you will hear none, and that's entirely on you. In extremely broad strokes, China has gone from colonized and poor to powerful and rich. Is it so hard to believe that the average Zhao is pretty OK with things?

dirtyid 5y ago

> exclusively consume the cultural products of the West There's more penetration of western media and products in PRC, but vast majority of consumption is still domestic even among educated. And trends show the young are more nationalistic than ever, especially among those with more exposure to the west. >North Korean style propaganda embarrassing. The disconnect really cannot be understated. Yeah, folks are embarassed at the style of propaganda, ran by old cadres from for a bygone era. Not the idea of propaganda itself. They want better, modernized propaganda that effectively reinforces nationalism, especially abroad.

magicsmoke 5y ago
On the one hand, they're right to cringe at the tone-deaf socialist era government communist propaganda. "How do you do fellow kids" with a communist flare. Clearly produced by cadres in their 60s in a communist bubble. On the other hand, the current nationalist Chinese bubble is not that much better. Listening practice on Bilibili would be a lot better without the equally tone deaf comments about how all their neighbors are puppets of the US without any personal agency and owe their culture and history to 5000 years of glorious Chinese civilization. The current anti-Chinese sentiments in the west would be far worse if your average American spent even 30 minutes on Chinese websites. They can complain all day about how biased BBC is towards China (arguably true), but I don't see CGTV overtaking BBC globally in popularity anytime soon. One whiff of that smug self-superiority is enough to make anyone regret learning Chinese.
- dirtyid 5y ago
  Nationalists everywhere are insufferable. The aspiration for "lovable" PRC propanda is just aspirational. IMO very little chance PRC will be able to out-propagandize west/US especially among west/US aligned partners. Language/cultural divide too big. I think domestically people will just settle for less cringy interntionational rhetoric, which itself is a losing game since western media will interpret translations with liberty regardless. It doesn't matter that PRC citizens are relatively apolitical on the whole, with 1.4B population statistics there's will always be too many absurd nationals to paint narrative. Really PRC strategy of maintaining different internet/cultural bubbles and targetting msgs at more receptive Chinese diasphora audiences is on point. Once attempt at "lovable" propaganda fails, PRC will pursue Russia style disinformation because ultimately that's whats most pragmatic given the divide and realities of competition. Also more of those PRC cartoons that called out western hypocrisy that was well recieved domestically and made western media look ridiculous by coordinated labelling them photographs. Or calling out Canadian indigenous drama, Australia enviromentalism etc, stuff that has had more ramifcations on the domestic politics of Canada and Australia leaders than west pressing on XJ/HK/Tibet, which Xi doesn't lose sleep over.

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

tablespoon 5y ago

> Meanwhile, young, educated people almost exclusively consume the cultural products of the West, Korea, and Japan. What now? China has a pretty extensive film and television industry, and as far as I know it's very popular. > And they find the North Korean style propaganda embarrassing. The disconnect really cannot be understated. And in that case, the most logical reaction is political disengagement, which is completely A-OK in the CCP's book.

blacksmith_tb 5y ago
You might think so, but slacking now seems to be considered to be dangerously rebellious[1] by the CCP. 1: https://qz.com/2019322/why-lying-flat-a-niche-chinese-millennial-meme-alarms-beijing/ https://qz.com/2019322/why-lying-flat-a-niche-chinese-millen...
- tablespoon 5y ago
  That's different, the "slacking" of which you speak is a kind of dissent. What I mean by "political disengagement" keeping a distance from political issues and otherwise "saying withing the lines," so to speak.
  - blacksmith_tb 5y ago
    I see what you mean, it's "going through the motions" without trying too hard, compliance but not enthusiasm.