Look, maybe the problem is that a lack of education is responsible for my ignorance of american attempts to restrict chinese economic growth.
I don't think it's a lack of education. Until very recently there was no reason or incentive for Americans to care about what the Chinese think. And until now there's been no reason for American media or policy wonks to represent Chinese perspectives.
WW2 -> chicoms defeat republican china -> korean war (attempt to constrain china's hard power, not economic power)
From 1949 until Nixon, the US maintained a comprehensive embargo on China (through CoCOM/CHINCOM, which is even stricter than against the Soviets). You can frame that as anti-communism and constraining hard power, but it absolutely hurt and was meant to hurt the Chinese economy, which was already reeling from internal mismanagement and near-total isolation from the productive world. It's hard to imagine a country acting militarily against another without also acting economically, right? I'm not assigning blame here, because China did align with the Soviets.
sino-soviet split (leading to us/china rapproachment) -> vietnam war (again, not an attempt to restrain china's economic power specifically) -> nixon goes to china -> US/chinese economic alignment (including chinese stealing american IP) -> modern worsening of relations.
A few things worth noting in this timeline.
There is a genuine window of collaboration, after Nixon and most notably during the Reagan era.
In 1989 after Tiananmen the US and the west placed comprehensive sanctions against China. The US suspended military sales, blocked World Bank loans to China, and imposed restrictions on technology transfer. Some of these were never fully lifted to start with.
In 1996, CoCOM, a Cold War era economical sanction against the eastern bloc, was succeeded by the Wassenaar Arrangement, which continues to prohibit a wide range of goods and technology sales to China. So even during the period of supposed "economic alignment," the US and its allies maintained significant restrictions on technology transfer. And there are the Cox Report followed by the Wolf Amendment, which China sees as baseless.
It's also important to consider the reasons the US gives for sanctioning China, usually framed around "dual-use technologies" and "human rights abuses." Especially given how the current administration behaves, it is very difficult for us to believe that these measures are genuinely motivated by concern for human rights in China, and even if a fraction of the American policy makers did genuinely believe that, I think they're usually carrying water for the hawkish Cold War types still. They are far more easily read as a hypocritical use of human rights to justify economic encirclement. And also what exactly do Americans want China to do to lift those sanctions? Regime change is off the table, there is a period (2000-2010s) where there is genuine improvement on the human rights front, does that lift the sanctions? My reading is that nothing can result in lifting the sanctions because sanction is the point.
And one cannot expect the other party to overlook outright provocations even if not economic, most importantly US arms sales to Taiwan, especially in the period surrounding the Third Taiwan Strait Crisis. For added context: during that period the US Congress and the State Department were sending contradictory signals, which is part of why I've argued that the current worsening of relations is often an extension of domestic politics. In this case, it was the active sabotage of executive branch policy by the opposition party in Congress. One example here:
After Lee (then Taiwanese president) had decided to visit Cornell, U.S. Secretary of State Warren Christopher assured PRC Foreign Minister Qian Qichen that a visa for Lee would be "inconsistent with [the U.S.'s] unofficial relationship [with Taiwan]." However, the humiliation from Lee's last visit caught the attention of many pro-Taiwan figures in the U.S. and this time, the United States Congress acted on Lee's behalf. The lobbying firm Cassidy & Associates worked to obtain Congressional support for the visit.[2] In May 1995, a concurrent resolution asking the State Department to allow Lee to visit the U.S. passed the House on 2 May with a vote of 396 to 0 (with 38 not voting), and the Senate on 9 May with a vote of 97 to 1 (with 2 not voting).[3] The State Department relented on 22 May 1995. Lee spent 9–10 June 1995 in the U.S. at a Cornell alumni reunion.[1]
Edit: and this soured the relationship from the very beginning. Another example of the president's policy being sabotaged by opposition.
Things like this happens multiple times and I don't want to list them all. Just to show you that from the Chinese perspective it is difficult to trust the Americans, because when you negotiate with Americans you cannot guarantee that the other branches of the government, or the next government, will honor their promises. I think Iran understands that pretty well by now.
Again I think this particular practice of finding out who shoot first is unproductive. I think for China and the US, we're roughly even. And more importantly moving on is to find common ground and collaborate, which I think has great potentials.
Meyerlemon
2d ago
Looks like I’d have to do this particular dance again.
First of all, “I really struck a nerve”. What does that mean? It means I feel strongly about something you said. Does that automatically mean I’m wrong? This “oh you’re angry, hohoho, pwned” routine while basking in one’s own intelligence is boring and unbecoming of a decent discussion. One of the most commonly used tactics by Chinese nationalists back home is to say you’re “急了” (angry). You’re probably more familiar with the term “triggered,” though you didn’t exactly use that phrase.
I feel protective about China, yes, but I also feel strongly about arguments I find silly. I felt the same way about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict when people argue over who started it first. You’d “strike a nerve” there too with those arguments.
However, we cannot trust you.
You’re missing my point. I know very well that your people and your elite do not trust us. The fact that you feel the need to spell this out tells me you’re not getting what I’m saying. I acknowledged in my original post that there is little trust between the two countries.
The characters of both our countries have meaningfully changed in the past 80 years since the founding of the PRC. Neither yours nor mine can claim a coherent, consistent goal throughout that period. Saying “we trusted you in 1911, so we already gave you a chance” makes little sense. Your country now and Woodrow Wilson’s America are different in fundamental ways. And however much kindness and selflessness your missionaries and China hands showed, your country’s leadership has never had altruism at heart.
I’ll say it again: I’m against the whole exercise of assigning blame for complex events spanning decades or centuries. It isn’t helpful or constructive. By the same logic, I don’t think Chinese hatred toward Japan over wartime atrocities is particularly healthy either.
And this point stands: mistrust doesn’t matter, because the optimal choice is still engagement and dialogue. Mistrust can only be resolved through engagement, not sanctions, and certainly not violence. Maybe violence works for your mistrust toward Iran, though even that is doubtful. Needless to say, we are not Iran.
read that book, or at least the LLM summary.
I’m not going to read that book, because I already know that history. I did read the AI summary you suggested, so I held up my end. Would you mind having your AI summarize our grievances in return?
I don’t agree with your grand historical arc that China betrayed America while Americans were being taken advantage of. Your people have a particular tendency to frame things as others failing you. It has happened multiple times with me on this forum, and at some point that pattern is worth reflecting on.
That said, I partly agree with you. Before the PRC, America was, as I’ve said elsewhere, one of the only Western powers that helped China in its direst moments. America did not participate in carving up China. It helped return Boxer Indemnity funds, along with numerous policies during Wilson, and it helped us tremendously, bravely fight the Japanese of course. But it also passed the Chinese Exclusion Act and exploited Chinese labor to build its railways. Taking everything together, America was still probably the most beneficial Western country toward China during that era, with Germany perhaps a close second.
But after 1949, America was hostile. Are you denying that? The US government, driven by anticommunist fervor, treated China as an enemy and actively worked to obstruct Chinese development through sanctions, coordinated pressure from its allies, and most significantly, the continued disruption of reunification with Taiwan. You could argue that was opposition to communism rather than to China specifically, but I don’t think most Chinese people do or should care about that distinction. The rapprochement after the Sino-Soviet split was transparently a strategic compromise on both sides to counter the Soviets. You don’t get to claim naivety or selflessness for that.
You, and many others, have a habit of emphasizing your contributions while minimizing your gains. American actions are first and foremost in the interest of Americans, whether all Americans or specific segments of them. When those actions have genuinely benefited China, I have no problem acknowledging it. But if you insist on pretending America always acts out of the goodness of its heart, you’re certainly free to believe that. That’d just be naive.
Meyerlemon
3d ago
I thought you'd mention that they put the first man made object in space and first human in space. Aren't those the most obvious accomplishments? Is it because those do not count as innovations in your mind, a mere extension of rocket technologies?
Meyerlemon
3d ago
The dudes at Huawei certainly work 996, but otherwise I do not disagree with you. It's a very "first world" problem for the Chinese as a whole.
Meyerlemon
3d ago
China can claim the british/japanese started things even firster,
I don't count Japanese crimes as American crimes. I don't really think British crimes should be laid at American hands either, though Britain is no longer a country I can hold a grudge against. For many people, everything white people did naturally falls on the major white country with agency, but I don't agree with that view.
the boxer rebellion,
I agree with you that the Americans were particularly benevolent even during the most chaotic years of the Chinese nation. Of all the powers, America perhaps took the least advantage of us and helped us the most, owing partly to the missionaries and the old China hands. I think the Boxer Indemnity Scholarship Program is obvious evidence of that. It is taught in Chinese schools.
the United States didn't make any particular effort to stifle china's economic growth until well after china began it history of stealing american IP.
I disagree. The US was hostile toward communist China well before China began its history of stealing American IP. You can argue the hostility was directed at communism, not at the Chinese people, but for the Chinese people, like the Iranian people right now, what difference does that really make? Should we really say thank you?
Anyways, I don't think this discussion is particularly fruitful. These "who's to blame" questions make my country revanchist and give us an inferiority complex that's hard to root out. It's also not helpful for Americans to see things through that lens, for the reasons I've already said.
Meyerlemon
3d ago
This is our repayment for saving China from Japan, I suppose. The Hump, the Burma Road, all the Australians, Americans, Brits who bailed out China ended up fighting them in Korea, getting displaced economically later on.
You're implying that we're the party responsible for this. When will you learn that your own elite is responsible? Go find them and voice your concerns. If you fail, try again until you succeed. What is this nonsensical lashing out at others, grasping at every straw to dodge your own responsibility? Also you did not save us from Japan. You're Australian if I'm not mistaken. The Americans can claim to save us from Japan and they'd be partially right, and they are quite the benevolent empire from the very beginning. You cannot.
Unfortunately for China, I think it's too late. The compute advantage is too great, singularity too close, Chinese fabs too far behind. Chip sanctions, albeit inadequately enforced, albeit undermined by Jensen's heroic lobbying/bullshitting efforts, will be sufficient. Mythos and its successors will overmatch Chinese human capital. The ultimate outcomes may well be bad for most of humanity but it'll surely be crushing for China.
You've said similar things before about how formidable our industrial base is and how the West basically lost. Hyperbole is a pattern with you.
I don't understand this mindset of sneering at the other side for being 'defeatist' if they pursue their strongest strategy in a straightforward competition, while simultaneously bragging about one's own power and the inevitability of their defeat. At least Jensen is trying to sell his chips, what are you trying to sell to a presumably mostly white, mostly American audience? It's not defeatist to take the most plausible path to success, jettison all the cope about magic dirt and wield some power.
Save me this insinuation. I am not sneering at the other side. I am sneering at the people who deserve to be sneered at, and that's not everyone on "your" side.
I have also not bragged about China's power or the inevitability of your defeat. Are you unable to read?
I have been very clear about what I was trying to sell to this mostly white, mostly American audience: there is risk to confrontation, and it does not have to be this way. What are you trying to sell to your fellows?
Meyerlemon
3d ago
The most central example of stupid and failing half measures is covid lockdown in the US, of course.
Meyerlemon
3d ago
You cannot be super China either. Your state simply does not wield enough power to be super China, and your bureaucracy would not have the competence to pull it off. It's funny that people always say "I don't want to become China" as if that were an option they're deliberately turning down. You don't really have that option.
Meyerlemon
3d ago
Claude Mythos and Project Glasswing found many (thousands?) of serious vulnerabilities in common software.
My understanding of those "many serious vulnerabilities" is that they're egg fried rice, egg fried noodles, egg fried vermicelli, shrimp fried rice, shrimp fried noodles... It basically boils down to a few categories of serious vulnerability, and the "many thousands" claim is marketing. Correct me if I'm wrong, though.
Meyerlemon
3d ago
ACX comment chain is boring and filled with midwits. That's why they follow the Great Man with such fervor.
Meyerlemon
3d ago
There's a lot to respond to, but I feel like these points are repeating themselves, and I'm getting tired of it.
I think the insinuation that we will always cheat and always take advantage of naive white men is idiotic. You are one of the people who hype up our capabilities enormously, to the point where I'd love to live in the imaginary world you inhabit.
It might be true that with a larger population, even assuming equal productivity per capita, China will be four times more productive than America, and America will inevitably lose. But is that reality in the room with us right now? And do you think those puny measures of chip sanctions, McCarthyism against Chinese scholars, and "eagle warrior" diplomacy can level the playing field created by this stark difference in power and human resources? That's laughable. If we will always, eventually get there with all this power, wouldn't it make more sense to kowtow now to avoid the "revenge for past humiliations, real and imagined"?
It's defeatist, exactly like what Jensen said. He's not a loser, and he doesn't think the United States is a loser. He believes there is something intrinsic to the US, magic dirt, puritan spirits, "freedom and democracy", whatever, that makes it competitive against China even with these disadvantages in human capital. I don't know if I necessarily agree with him, and I'm not sure he meant everything he said, but he runs a trillion-dollar company and rose to the very top of humanity from the very bottom. I trust his instincts more than most.
Meyerlemon
3d ago
China has been kind of historically incompetent at producing novel art or aesthetics
We loved your aesthetics. Your people do seem to be better at imagining the unimaginable.
I'd like to know what an Indian, diaspora or not, thinks of India. There was someone (mrvanillasky?) who posted something before, but I think he's nuts and I didn't take it seriously. If you have time to write something, that would be great.
Meyerlemon
3d ago
That only a superhuman model can beat China seems to be what Dwarkesh agrees with, and it is a point repeatedly made by many AI "salesmen" if you will (and also endorsed by some truly intelligent man). Do they not know the material constraints?
Meyerlemon
3d ago
Do you feel there is indeed less interest on the part of China to export its cultural views, its political system, its military bases compared to the US?
I do. I do not care for countries I have not meaningfully immersed myself in (which is to say anywhere outside China and the US, basically). Having been influenced by said "proselytizing cultures", this admission makes me feel wrong and guilty, if you will. I can try to make myself care, but I don't.
Meyerlemon
3d ago
I do not like this "you started it first", "no, you started it first" nonsense. As with every competition before and after this one, the situation is complicated and dynamic. It does not have a simple, elegant explanation you can point to and say, "this is why we hate them!". I do not want to waste your time or mine digging up why the Chinese think it was the Americans who failed us. You can try asking Claude or ChatGPT or GLM or whatever, it will give you our point of view more eloquently than I can. It's a paralyzing train of thought, and it is why I think many disputes can never get resolved, whether Republican-Democrat fissures or the conflicts in the Middle East.
It means nothing to me, because it is not constructive. Where we go from here, and how people can solve this without putting everyone's lives on this planet at risk, that is what matters.
Of course there are plenty of people in China who don't think this way, mainly businessmen, but China is structured in such a way that those people are subject to the control of the ideologically driven politicians.
I don't intend this as confrontational, but you are also controlled by ideologically driven politicians. This is a simple fact. You yourself are also likely not one of those ideologically driven politicians. Your position is not meaningfully different from that of the Chinese businessman you disagreed with.
I have never understood this point about "being controlled by X". What does that even mean? Everything is "controlled" by something else if you think about it long enough. What is the whole point of pretending to have "individual thoughts" (of course it brings you comfort and I think that's good) in a debate? Have you ever thought about where those individual thoughts come from?
Meyerlemon
3d ago
I see that you read Tanner Greer perhaps, and those books from the red princelings.
I don't pretend to know what the Standing Committee of the Politburo thinks. But the fact is that China is less meaningfully communist, in both the ideological and material sense, than it was in Mao's era, and even less so than in Deng's era (yes, even that; Deng was surrounded by old guard revolutionaries, and of course he himself was one). If you read whatever documents they publish in Chinese now, they do invoke "socialism", "core values of socialism", and all sorts of jargon frequently. But what are these socialist core values? "爱国、敬业、诚信、友善 (Patriotism, Dedication, Integrity, Friendliness)." Tell me what's socialist about that. "Patriotism" is literally the first value they think individual Chinese citizens should have. The "Socialist Concepts of Honor and Grace"? "以热爱祖国为荣 以危害祖国为耻 (Love the motherland as an honor; harming the motherland as a disgrace)." Tell me again what's socialist about these values.
"Socialism with Chinese characteristics" is transparently a middle ground between communism and Chinese nationalism. The old aesthetics of red banners, "Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution", and steel-jawed workers have been replaced by LED hellscapes, "the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation", and steel-jawed workers. I understand that it is possible that none of the material conditions matter to the Great Man, as they have proven again and again. But even they cannot pretend that they will certainly, certainly get to their communist paradise one day. They will not live to see it; they cannot guarantee it. What they do know, perhaps, is that the Chinese nation will outlast them, for millennia to come. Mao himself certainly knows that and acknowledged that. I hope they realize this sooner rather than later, and I think they do.
I find the comparisons to the Soviets beside the point. I do not think we are as ideologically devoted as the Russians were, in fact that's partially what's charming about the Russians, that their populace truly believe those nonsense. China have not exported the ideology abroad since Mao, and even Mao himself was, like Stalin, a "socialism in one country first" type, less ideological fervor than proselytizing Trotskyites. Our people have been materialistic, or what I prefer, realistic, in the sense that actions are dictated by things on "this shore" (I believe this is a Buddhist term, "this shore" being our world, "the other shore" being the spiritual world).
Mao, megalomaniac as he was, and a sincere believer in communist ideology, was both a Chinese nationalist and a communist. He behaved like the emperors, he ruled like the emperors. He had communist ideals and aesthetics, but he was not meaningfully different from the First Emperor and many after him. He even compared himself to the first emperor, a lot in fact. I do not know if Stalin thought of himself as the latest repetition of the Tsar lineage, but Mao certainly did to some extent, as did his wife, who compared herself to Wu Zetian or Empress Lyu. He destroyed a huge fraction of meaningful Chinese culture, but that impulse was not atypical for 20th century Chinese intellectuals, who believed the root of all ills of the Chinese state was Chinese culture itself, who wanted to abandon Chinese characters, Chinese clothing, and Chinese ways of thinking. The Nationalist KMT is filled with those people too, who think Chinese culture is what's stopping China from being powerful. Are they communists too? All of them were still Chinese at their core. The Chinese communists did not reject communism; they did believe in it. But I have a hard time believing that they placed their ideology above the Chinese state.
The Chinese state is the Chinese religion. It is what people believe in. It is "the other shore" of the Chinese people.
In my understanding the idea that the communists are being ideologically sidelined in the party elite is more of a fantasy of very online Chinese nationalists who are more ambivalent on Marxism and the CCP (even if they're often very careful to only imply this rather than say it outright) and who care more about a grander trajectory of Chinese civilization to which the ideology of 1947-present isn't central.
Guilty as charged. I do not think the communists are being ideologically sidelined; I think they are less communist than you believe and more nationalist than you give them credit for.
How many very online Chinese nationalists have you actually interacted with? The majority of them practice a confusing and self-contradictory brand of Chinese nationalism, syncretic with socialist third-worldism. It is not a clean or coherent ideology and I do not like it.
But to the actual rulers of China, the children and grandchildren, by and large, of the revolutionaries themselves, it is central.
It doesn't matter. Like the Manchus before them, they are surrounded by, and have to source talent from, a largely Han nationalist base. Are the revolutionary families breeding like rabbits? Unless they are, I don't see how they can maintain their true communist selves without being absorbed by the nationalism around them.
Meyerlemon
4d ago
Which is it, the Godless part, the Communist part, or both? The communist part is less and less true by the day, unless you're the communist plan trusters who think we'll get there eventually and all these reforms are just means to an end. I think there are true communists among the high echelons of the party, but if they keep going down the current economic path they're not going to get what they wished.
the overwhelming weight of my concerns about China are the ends they are using their economy and political and military and cultural influence towards.
Which ends? What do you think the endgame for the godless communists is? World domination? World revolution? Spreading atheist ideology across the world?
Meyerlemon
4d ago
Dwarkesh Patel interviews Jensen Huang.
I'm no tech expert, and I'm pretty much a single-issue poster on China here, so I pay attention only from the 57th minute. It's worth a listen.
Here's my interpretation of the case laid out by Dwarkesh, although he didn't spell it all out. Some in the US, especially the Silicon Valley tech bros (exactly the kind of attitude Dwarkesh puts on display, and also Dario Amodei and his cult followers, and some here), believe that in the brief window before we hit the technological singularity, America can and will ride its computing power advantage to total dominance over AI and, by extension, the future of humanity. Under this logic, any computing power exported to China during this window is a direct blow to American national interests. The goal is very focused: sprint past the finish line, and everything else will sort itself out afterward, China included. If you want to solve the energy crisis? Invest in AI. If you want to end world hunger? Invest in AI. If you want to make sure the yellow vermin stay in their place? Invest in AI, told you already.
But 1) how far away that singularity actually is remains unclear (I'm not sure, again I am no expert on AI or anything this forum is familiar with, so feel free to lay out your thoughts on why the tech singularity is in sight). 2) US-China competition is a long game. Both countries are formidable, and in different ways. Both countries largest threat is from the inside, not the outside. There is no silver bullet that delivers a knockout blow. It's naive to think that restrictions on computing power, rare earths, or the like can permanently lock the other side out. What it will for sure do is generate animosity and bellicosity, with intensity up to a scale never seen before on this planet. This is probably partly why rare earth controls, effective as they are, haven't been deployed on a permanent basis. 3) There is a profound deficit of goodwill between the US and China, and that poses an enormous security risk to both nations and the world at large. This risk is far more real than the doomsday anxieties peddled by those types who love to brand themselves as "effective altruism" advocates, wringing their hands over alignment and the specter of a superintelligent AI annihilating the world. Export controls and measures of that sort are therefore much harm and dubious gain. At their core, they reflect a desire by certain people to take a shortcut, convinced that this one move alone can defeat China and "secure the light cone." I think this is pure fantasy, likely just another manifestation of a weird complex.
Which brings me to something more personal, because I realize I can't talk about this purely in the abstract. I love my country (contrary to what some seem to believe, people in China do love China, not all, but still. I can't believe this needs to be spelled out but apparently so). But I also like the Americans, in fact more so than most other peoples. I like power and I like a country that is strong and powerful, and I think that is a virtue in its own right. It demonstrates the vitality of the culture that country is founded on, which I think provide a lot for Chinese to learn from. I think for the most part the Americans I've met and know have treated me well, and respected me, and I think it is my duty to return that. But something has been puzzling me for some time, maybe because of my apparent inability to understand conflict. I do not understand why China and America have to be in conflict. I don't think the current situation is only any particular country's fault; it's complex and in many ways an extension of domestic issues; it's fueled by mutual misunderstanding which I think is somewhat lopsided given the lack of American in China but not vice versa; it's also because China for a long time until recently was not a functional society and ran by either corrupt (physically and/or spiritually) or megalomaniac people, and that itself creates all sorts of troubles that overflow beyond the border; it's also because of the growing anxiety among Americans due to societal rot, and the impulse to seek a simple explanation and target to avoid facing the real issues. But I do not understand it. To use what Xi said, the Pacific seems wide enough to contain two powers, and I think the years of collaboration and positive competition between China and the US have benefited both, tremendously so. I also believe that the right position on a wide variety of social and economic issues is somewhere in between those of China and the US, and that losing either one is like losing a mirror to reflect upon, which hastens the decadence of each. I can't think of "rational" reasons why this has to be confrontational.
Maybe this is all motivated reasoning, but all reasoning is motivated. Anyways, thoughts?
Meyerlemon
5d ago
People are increasingly realizing they cannot sit in China and keep making money without major disruptions. See Iran, Netherlands (Nexperia), Venezuela, and Panama for example. The inertia is strong (the propaganda of China as peaceful and non-expansionist runs deep but it’s delusional, Chinese empires have historically expanded to the maximum extent permitted by technology, chiefly the military technology and information technology required to maintain hierarchical bureaucracy). I doubt the non-expansionism can stay mainstream for much longer as the country’s power keeps growing.
Meyerlemon
6d ago
You’re more online than me :( honestly they all look the same after the makeup…
Meyerlemon
6d ago
Yes, the Qinling-huaihe line is the traditional north-south boundary. It roughly matches the 800mm isohyet and divides China into the more arid, wheat-based north and the more humid, rice-based south. You probably know this already.
On the boundary question: you’re right that the Huai has historically served as the natural border between eastern Jin and the northern states (and roughly the boundary through most of 南北朝), and later between Jurchen Jin and Song. But the boundary kept shifting throughout the three kingdoms and the northern and southern dynasties. Sun Wu mostly held the Yangtze as their line against Wei, and by the end of Liang the southern dynasty had retreated to the Yangtze, where it stayed until Sui. Throughout 魏晋南北朝 the frontier generally is somewhere between the yellow river and the Yangtze, with the Huai as the midpoint and a major river for fortification. 所谓守江必守淮. I’m not sure why the Yangtze as a border is more fragile than the Huai though, so if you know that I’d love to hear.
For some reason in my own mental map I still place the boundary at the Yangtze. I know cities like Hefei and Yangzhou are solidly southern, but for some reason I still feel like the line should be drawn there. Apparently not just modern Chinese like me, Book of Southern Qi:
魏主甚重齐人，亲与谈论。顾谓群臣曰：“江南多好臣。“侍臣李元凯对曰：“江南多好臣，岁一易主。江北无好臣，而百年一主。”
They seem to think they’re “江北” and the southern Qi “江南”. Not exactly matching the map.
Maybe the Yangtze is just a stronger mental image than the Huai, and that was already true before the Huai ceased to be a meaningful independent river after it merged with the yellow river 夺淮入海.
Meyerlemon
6d ago
So when Chinese say "southerners", are they referring to everyone from Shanghai to Hainan to Sichuan?
Yes and no I guess? In my mind (I'm from the north but my ancestors lived in Zhejiang for millennium) southerners means people who live within 300km of Nanjing, basically those in Jiangsu, Zhejiang, Shanghai, Anhui. But I asked my wife and for her it means anyone who lives south of the Yangtze.
If that's the case, are there real unifying cultural reasons or is this more of a definition by exclusion on the part of northerners to group "everyone that isn't us"?
I think there are cultural reasons. Northern China was under nomadic rule for longer, and cultural customs are similar enough there although not entirely homogeneous. Southern China was mostly under Han Chinese rule, and is more culturally diverse (Southerners from Shanghai, Guangzhou or Chengdu are meaningfully different than northerners from Beijing and Shenyang, at least in my mind).
Meyerlemon
6d ago
What's wrong with the term Chinaman? I know we don't say 'Mexicoman' or whatever, but we have lots of 'China buffet' and no 'Mexico restaurant', so it's at least consistent.
Honestly I don't know. It seems innocuous, but media and my liberal friends keep telling me it's not a good thing to be called Chinaman. Maybe for historical reasons but I'm not building railways and we have our country in order again, so why do I care. Granted they're quite sensitive with words and I personally don't mind harmless racism; it's endearing sometimes. I've encountered some, but at least from what I observed on my Transamerica trip, middle Americans are generally friendly and trustworthy people if a bit blunt, not the racist hillbillies my liberal circle usually insinuates through their jokes and chit chats. But what do I know? I'm not going to disagree with them on English.
I kind of assume men looking for Asian porn specifically want women who look more... stereotypically Asiatic. It's probably a fetish.
I honestly don't think that look is stereotypically Chinese. Mongolians yes, Chinese northerners maybe but not really. At least not the non-malnourished Chinese.
Otherwise why would they look for Asian porn? White women are more attractive(and Chinese beauty standards certainly seem to gesture in that direction).
Certainly white beauty standards spread to all corners of the world where there are things that can be called civilization. I'm sure our beauty standards are influenced to some extent, but as you noticed the slim anorexic neotenous look is not something Americans exported to us. You don't prefer that look anyway.
Meyerlemon
6d ago
Thank you. Obviously it’s not everybody, but I have a general feeling that the Japanese know very little about China, even less than your typical American, to a point I find genuinely irritating.
Part of it is the lack of cultural export, and the perception of us being (not necessarily incorrect) low class. Like their typical Chinese girl in anime still have that twin hair buns or wear Qipao and good at Kongfu or whatever, some century old stereotypes. Cultural inertia is another piece. But sometimes they're just oblivious enough to, for example, think obviously Chinese gacha games are made by Japanese companies. Really? Like freaking Arknights or whatever has a whole storyline built around Chinese-flavored characters and New Year events. It's right there. I mean they have people who know us really well, the old 漢學家 but I guess they’re on their way out.
Re the buxom women, I feel like they somehow associate bustiness with promiscuity (not sure, that’s a feeling through second hand cultural exposure), and it’s sad those models ended up where they are.
I’m sorry, but this is self-serving, if I may, lies.
Your state constantly engages in lies and deceptions. What is the Iraq war but lies and deceptions? What is the Tonkin incident but lies and deceptions? Look at the current administration. Trump is probably the most quintessentially American president, as far as the rest of the world is concerned. What does he engage in? Lies and deceptions, constantly, to the point that people here argue you have to read him “seriously but not literally”. What is that but a convenient excuse for lies?
Your claim that “Chinese strategy is based off the Warring States” and the implication that this strategy is lies and deceptions makes little sense, and, to be very polite, smells of selective reading and biased thinking. The Warring States period left us with two major branches of thought: Confucianism, which grounds itself in virtue, idealism, and hierarchy; and Legalism, which grounds itself in force, realism, and statism. The rest of Chinese political history is the struggle and synthesis between these two schools, to put it simply. Legalism prevails during chaotic periods of imperial collapse and subsequent re-establishment. Confucianism wins during periods of peace and prosperity, and eventually leads to decadence and complacency until the empire shatters again. There is nothing insidious in this, as you implied, and if you want to know more, there are plenty of books on it.
Anyway, I’d like to thank you for sharing your opinions. It is, I admit, a bit shocking to see what some Americans really think of us. Shocking perhaps because I was slow to believe it. I never thought reasonable people actually held these views, and always wrote it off as politicians stoking fear, business as usual. I still think this is something that dialogue and engagement can help.
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