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China's ability to completely control the domestic narrative is really really underappreciated in my point of view. Not that it is positive from a personal lib

China's ability to completely control the domestic narrative is really really underappreciated in my point of view. Not that it is positive from a personal liberties standpoint, but in that sense that it is an incredible strategic asset. Imagine if the second world war had been fought today in the era of entertainment journalism, twitter reactionism, and professional punditry. It would be laughable. The war effort would stall before it began. My grandfather talks to me about how he would enthusiastically walk the streets with his friends after school looking for chewing gum and cigarette wrappers in order to pull the aluminum foil out of the discarded packaging and send the resulting accumulated metal scraps to recycling centers to be made into fighter planes. Things like that would never happen today. 25% the country would insist that Hitler doesn't actually exist, 25% would say the Axis powers are actually doing the right thing and that Pearl Harbor was deserved, 25% would maintain that all calls for intervention are propaganda from the military industrial complex looking to line their pockets at the expense of the public purse, and the remaining 25% would be branded war-mongerers by everyone else. China does not have that problem. Whatever the government in Beijing wants, ~1.4 billion humans also genuinely want.

danrocks 5y ago
Good comment. Additionally, we can't forget the fact that, for all their external policy blunders (which are many), the Chinese leadership is extremely skilled in manipulating domestic public opinion. They have mastered the weaponization of online mobs and are using them to foster a nasty brand of ethno-nationalism that can force even the biggest corporations and foreign celebrities to bend to their will.
axguscbklp 5y ago
US citizens' desire to fight in WW2 perhaps largely came from propaganda to begin with - maybe in the absence of propaganda most of them would have been fine with doing nothing to help Britain, France, etc. About 60% of US WW2 soldiers were drafted, not volunteers. So it is not so much a question of no propaganda in the past versus propaganda today, it is more of a question of more tightly controlled propaganda in the past versus more diverse propaganda today.
- missedthecue 5y ago
  But that is my point. Most people got the latest war news from the government sanctioned newsreels playing in the movie theaters. Any photos of the war were approved by the government before they were run in printed media. Letters home were famously read individually to cross out unacceptable content under the pretext of protecting frontline strategies. The government had a very strong stranglehold on what information the population received. Today that is not the case, and there are very good reasons for it, but in the event that world war three occurred, it would put the West at a severe disadvantage. World War Three is a dramatic thought, but it isn't even happening and the West is already feeling the pain of this situation. Destabilizing election and covid misinformation being spewed by China and Russia are prime examples.
  - axguscbklp 5y ago
    Got it, thanks for explaining so clearly. The way I see it, because of nuclear weapons, no other country can actually conquer the US, so I much prefer free speech to any sort of propaganda initiatives meant to strengthen the US against other countries. We are already basically almost completely protected from other countries by our nuclear weapons. We do not need censorship and propaganda to add any sort of meaningful further protection.
    - baybal2 5y ago
      > We are already basically almost completely protected from other countries by our nuclear weapons. US nuclear weapon stockpile will only be enough to neutralise just one military superpower. A country with resources, and economy to survive the first strike, can realistically rebuild, and come back with vengeance. I always retold my own variation on the Einstein's quote on WW3 as "WW3 will be started with nuclear weapons, but will be ended with trench warfare"
      - beerandt 5y ago
        >US nuclear weapon stockpile will only be enough to neutralise just one military superpower Well that's not true. And it's especially not true with the new ICBM fuses and bomber launched stand-off missiles. The newly equipped icbms are an approx. 3x multiplier compared to having the same number of weapons a decade ago. Which frees up weapons to be shifted either to new targets, or from strategic use to potential tactical use, with the new lower adjustable yields. So even WW3 trench warfare has a good chance of still being nuclear warfare.
whoaisme 5y ago
I dont agree. If the Chinese ever kill a bunch of americans like the Japanese did the whole country won't rest until the whole of Asia is a wasteland. 3000 americans died and it took us 20 years until we decided we killed enough Afghans.
yongjik 5y ago
You know what other country didn't have the problem either? Imperial Japan. Didn't serve them well in the end. You don't fight a modern war with patriotism - you may find a million soldiers ready to die for your country, but without weapons, fuels, and food, that's what they will do - die. The comparison with modern America doesn't really work - nobody in the US is thinking of scrapping aluminum, precisely because the country's so rich that it can fight local warlords across the world, while its citizens barely even noticing it.

danrocks 5y ago

Good comment. Additionally, we can't forget the fact that, for all their external policy blunders (which are many), the Chinese leadership is extremely skilled in manipulating domestic public opinion. They have mastered the weaponization of online mobs and are using them to foster a nasty brand of ethno-nationalism that can force even the biggest corporations and foreign celebrities to bend to their will.

axguscbklp 5y ago

US citizens' desire to fight in WW2 perhaps largely came from propaganda to begin with - maybe in the absence of propaganda most of them would have been fine with doing nothing to help Britain, France, etc. About 60% of US WW2 soldiers were drafted, not volunteers. So it is not so much a question of no propaganda in the past versus propaganda today, it is more of a question of more tightly controlled propaganda in the past versus more diverse propaganda today.

missedthecue 5y ago
But that is my point. Most people got the latest war news from the government sanctioned newsreels playing in the movie theaters. Any photos of the war were approved by the government before they were run in printed media. Letters home were famously read individually to cross out unacceptable content under the pretext of protecting frontline strategies. The government had a very strong stranglehold on what information the population received. Today that is not the case, and there are very good reasons for it, but in the event that world war three occurred, it would put the West at a severe disadvantage. World War Three is a dramatic thought, but it isn't even happening and the West is already feeling the pain of this situation. Destabilizing election and covid misinformation being spewed by China and Russia are prime examples.
- axguscbklp 5y ago
  Got it, thanks for explaining so clearly. The way I see it, because of nuclear weapons, no other country can actually conquer the US, so I much prefer free speech to any sort of propaganda initiatives meant to strengthen the US against other countries. We are already basically almost completely protected from other countries by our nuclear weapons. We do not need censorship and propaganda to add any sort of meaningful further protection.
  - baybal2 5y ago
    > We are already basically almost completely protected from other countries by our nuclear weapons. US nuclear weapon stockpile will only be enough to neutralise just one military superpower. A country with resources, and economy to survive the first strike, can realistically rebuild, and come back with vengeance. I always retold my own variation on the Einstein's quote on WW3 as "WW3 will be started with nuclear weapons, but will be ended with trench warfare"
    - beerandt 5y ago
      >US nuclear weapon stockpile will only be enough to neutralise just one military superpower Well that's not true. And it's especially not true with the new ICBM fuses and bomber launched stand-off missiles. The newly equipped icbms are an approx. 3x multiplier compared to having the same number of weapons a decade ago. Which frees up weapons to be shifted either to new targets, or from strategic use to potential tactical use, with the new lower adjustable yields. So even WW3 trench warfare has a good chance of still being nuclear warfare.

whoaisme 5y ago

I dont agree. If the Chinese ever kill a bunch of americans like the Japanese did the whole country won't rest until the whole of Asia is a wasteland. 3000 americans died and it took us 20 years until we decided we killed enough Afghans.

yongjik 5y ago

You know what other country didn't have the problem either? Imperial Japan. Didn't serve them well in the end. You don't fight a modern war with patriotism - you may find a million soldiers ready to die for your country, but without weapons, fuels, and food, that's what they will do - die. The comparison with modern America doesn't really work - nobody in the US is thinking of scrapping aluminum, precisely because the country's so rich that it can fight local warlords across the world, while its citizens barely even noticing it.