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What's next? She didn't break up with me, I broke up with her?
China has been desperately chasing allies for decades. When the Sino-Soviet split happened, China was left in the Cold. Since then they've been wildly pursuing allies like a realestate agent at a local barbecue. Either Blunderous demands of allegiance or paying off weak nations with checkbook diplomacy that lasts about as long as the infrastructure project takes.
It just doesn't work. China tried to bully a third world Pacific nation by screaming at a foreign affairs minister in his own office:
Fast forward and:
China literally cannot work out how to make friends. They sign projects worth billions of dollars with desperate pacific nations who pocket the money and then swap back to the US as soon as a new Blackhawk variant is released. When China tries to bully instead, countries just form new defensive blocks against them.
Portraying a total inability to do diplomacy on any level as a conscious choice by the CCP is absolute cope. They are desperate for allies, they want allies, they're paying big money for allies, and they cannot get them.
If you are posting CCP propaganda with a straight face, I don't think I have anything else to say. It goes without saying that CCP members saying "We come in peace" can be regarded with some skepticism. I have never met a China analyst, either Western or Chinese raised, who doesn't quote the CCP position and then instantly translate it into what it actually means: usually domestic virtue signaling. Sometimes a balancing act against perceived criticism. Never the words that were said.
Yeah so let me reiterate: even in your most motivated, pro-China reasoning, you cannot envision a world that doesn't immediately freeze trade with China and pray to god that Trump fixes it. We both conclude that chortling Frenchmen would rather the despicable Trump sends a hundred thousand marines to machine gun down the CCP headquarters than live in a world with a victorious China.
So... what's your actual criticism of my previous post? You made a whole new post to attack my previous one, but when it comes down to it, you agree I'm right. What's going on here? Because right now I would suggest that your post is exactly the type of bizarre and inconsistent messaging from Chinese media/political/cultural exports that the rest of the world finds so uncharismatic and unconvincing.
Notably, none of this has any relation to «cultural exports» which you started with in your argument about WWIII alliances, so I assume you've quietly conceded the point.
Still, I think this is cope and embarrassing narrative peddling.
They have terrible diplomacy, sure. Just like they have terrible propaganda. But you're desperately trying to shoehorn trade deals into the form of alliance building. I believe they genuinely expected that dysfunctional African or Oceanian states can be a good investment and grow even at a fraction of their speed. You're imagining that all those BRI projects are some very long, awkward, failed foreplay to a military alliance. I'd need to see actual Chinese proposals to this effect to believe it. Papua New Guinea signs defense treaty with Australia. Is this really a big deal? China has a profitable bilateral relationship with Australia as such.
Wolf warrior diplomacy is commonly understood to have been an appeal to domestic audience in the age of social media, like bizarre American behaviors are.
And yet your only scenario for the war is «South China Sea». They are openly saying they intend to take Taiwan, «easy way or the hard way», in Trumpspeak. This is what that navy is primarily for, as well as other assets in the theater – overmatch against any conceivable allied fleet. Is it common among «analysts» to interpret it as the first step to world domination?
Your analysts must be trying too hard. People usually mean what they say.
I guess your kind of jaded analysts who don't believe propaganda, all these think tank morons with Chinese characters in Twitter handles, who have lived in China long enough to infer menacing signals from how many cups are before Xi, also analyzed Chinese Miscalculation last October, when they Showed Their Hand and Revealed Being A Bad Actor Before the World, Inviting American Retaliation. Do you remember that phase? I do, the entire Analyst Community, people like Greer, Doshi, they were unanimous that China just can't into diplomacy and blundered to save face again, or it was a rogue MOFCOM or MSS agent, or that the Analysts (and Bessent) need to publicly insist on this to give Xi «face» when he rolls export controls back, etc. etc, all this condescending and ignorant garbage from a position of control. How has that worked out? The US was the one miscalculating, Xi never had to save face, Trump fumed a bit and went to Busan to ask for a ceasefire, and that was that. And then Korea signed on to the currency swap with China. In general, for all that they're failing in diplomacy, the decoupling from them is going very poorly indeed.
No, I do not permit you to «reiterate». No, we do not both conclude. I didn't say that, your rephrasing is a retarded American fantasy. Why do you need to do this? Just directly mock what I actually say, if you would be so kind.
I meant more like «Macron freezes those optically significant FDI projects he's been begging China for in Davos». Not even trade with Russia is totally frozen. You're delusional if you believe Europe reacts stronger to Taiwan because «China cannot into diplomacy» and ultimately «China bad media exports». All those lurid images are completely detached from the scenario I mentioned.
I suppose what is going on here is that, at least for the purposes of this debate, you're incapable of communicating in plain language, and it's obnoxious of you to pretend to, so I won't cooperate.
Yeah sorry mate, this is too tiresome for me. Nothing you've said changes that in practice, on the ground, Chinese cultural exports, political engagement and geopolitics don't work. I use the phrase "uncharismatic" but sub in "ineffective" or whatever you need. China has no allies, nobody likes what they produce, and nobody likes what they say. China got rich building things that were invented by westerners. Not by producing novel goods that everybody loves. Yes yes, you can say "that doesn’t prove anything" all you want. But it does.
Your whole assessment of my statement was that I must be a dumb American with no sense of China. You were wrong on both points.
I have no secret agenda of pro-American sentiment. My last post was attacking a guy who said the US policy re: Greenland made sense.
You need to do better than this to be taken seriously while talking about the CCP. Obvioisly stated intentions matter. Obviously stated intentions aren't the full story when said by a notoriously propaganda driven political party.
You can hardly accuse me of being unfair after making a whole post which concludes that I am "projecting" as a "true American" who knows nothing and doesn't want to know anything about China. You agreed the world would cut ties with China and back the USA. Don't get pissy about me mixing in a joke.
I can only roll my eyes so much.
You made a post and used me as an example to prove your point. You got embarrassed because your foundational premise was wrong. Next time, just say "lol my bad. I still think Americans exhibit this behaviour" and I wouldn't even have engaged. But you're tripling down into CCP fantasy land where no failed project is actually a failure, no diplomatic incident means anything, and no allies was actually the plan all along!
That'll be all from me. I'm fine for some interesting China shilling, which can be genuinely good to read. China is an interesting place that we don't talk about enough. But no, Chinese culture is brittle, and the CCP knows this. Hence the top down protectionism.
?? If that's the case, why do they have an absolutely gigantic trade surplus despite being the world's largest raw material importér?
We were talking cultural and political exports. I should have been clearer.
Give it a few years. You remind me of the Europeans saying this same shit about America back in early 1900s.
E.g. Wilde with his quote ~"America is the only nation that passed from barbarism to decadence without ever having been civilized".
You can find plenty of examples here
If the CCP releases control over Chinese society, and allows e.g. the internet, China will have a massive cultural impact on the world. As it stands, they don't.
Chinese have internet, dude. They're extremely common in online games. Some probably even post on theMotte.
You can go on Chinese twitter, loads of action, mostly related to advertising pornography and prostitutes.
Yes, they literally have the internet. They block e.g. google, facebook, wikipedia. They block particular words and statements on other sites. They're barred from like everything that one could reasonably call the main cultural centres of the online world.
Twitter is technically blocked too. But yeah, I wouldn't class this type of stuff as... charismatic from a cultural sense, right? I think my point stands, unless that's your joke and I'm misunderstanding your dry sense of humour.
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