Last month, I spent 2 weeks in China - I visited Beijing, Chengdu, Emeishan, Chongqing, Shanghai, and Hangzhou.

I can’t even. Two choice bits:

Beijing’s urban design looks like something straight out of James Scott’s “Seeing Like a State”. The city is dominated by these enormous apartment complexes - blocks of 10 adjacent 30-story buildings demarcated by 8-lane roads. The government buildings follow the same pattern: huge structures divided by extremely wide boulevards. This layout seems designed partly for social control - during zero-COVID, authorities could lock down 10,000 people by simply guarding a few entrance gates. The wide roads would also make it easy to move military forces through the city.

I kept asking young people about the public intellectual landscape in China - who are their equivalents of Jordan Peterson, Joe Rogan, Lex Friedman, and Sam Harris? The sense I got is that this kind of popular intellectual ecosystem just doesn’t exist there. Sure, there are viral Bilibili videos from professors talking about practical matters like how to manage your finances. But grand takes about what’s happening in the world and what we should do about it? Not much going on.

  • Sleepless One@lemmy.mlEnglish
    0·
    1 month ago

    If I was the US President, and I wanted to win hearts and minds in China, here’s what I’d do. In every single speech where I’m talking about China, I’d make a conspicuous effort to complement Chinese people, Chinese values, and Chinese culture. I’d talk about how my Chinese staffers are the smartest and most hardworking people I’ve ever worked with (which honestly is probably true). I’d talk about how much my daughter is obsessed with ancient Chinese dresses. I’d talk about how I’m learning Mandarin in my free time, and have a live “Aw shucks” conversation in Mandarin.

    These clips would go viral on Bilibili and TikTok. And they’d probably stay up because it would just be a weird thing to censor. The CCP might even think that these displays of affection aggrandize them. But in reality, showing our admiration for Chinese people and their achievements (who genuinely are fucking killing it everywhere where they’re not held down by communism), undermines the central narrative of the regime - that the West is hell bent on holding Chinese people back, that they have no respect or understanding of their culture, and that the CCP is a necessary bulwark against these imperialists.

    Yes, I’m sure your typical burgerlander, who totally only hates the Chinese government and not its people, is going to give no pushback for all of these public displays of praise for China \s.