Seriously, both large American companies and American government have adopted the attitude of “Haha we’re fucking up everyone’s lives and the world for our own benefit, watcha gonna do about it?”. That leaves the space wide open and the bar so low, that China’s government and companies can clear it and appear like decent actors, even if some of my gripes with both remain.
It’s certainly an opportunity in global soft power for the CCP, but I think the headline here is better framed as a shift in global economic power, specifically in tech. The current American government is certainly fucking things up for American soft power globally, but the political capital built up over the decades just can’t be ignored as that just doesn’t disappear overnight. Not to mention the human rights violations in Xinjiang, government corruption problems, aggressive naval maneuvering, and recent isolationist past that the Chinese CCP needs to overcome to become a serious contender as the new number one. They’re kinda making their way through it, but it’s definitely not inevitable, and too many short-term and long-term metrics are working against them. This particular situation could certainly be a solid foundation to build on, but the CCP and many Chinese vulture capitalists have a history of shooting themselves in the foot for short-term gains.
Xinjiang human rights violations [against the Uyghur population], aggressive naval maneuvering [in South China Sea], corporate vulture capitalism
I’m glad you have mentioned some of the biggest of my gripes, because I didn’t get to it in my original comment to keep it succinct and cohesive. And we’ll see what happens, I agree it’s not inevitable but this is like China’s best shot at world dominance through soft power that its had yet. I think certain members in the CCP have some awareness that invading Taiwan is going to, maybe counterintuitively, blow up the opportunity and the soft power credibility they built through Belt and Road.
Yeah, I think that really is the foundational tension in China; the internal power struggle of a deeply authoritarian CCP versus the cooperative stance needed to gain/build political capital worldwide. As it stands, their system will resist any legitimately populist movement and disincintivize honest efforts to dismantle harsh authoritarian policies and violent state oppression. You don’t maintain power (or your life) in a quasi-dictatorial party without keeping those who benefit from the system happy.
Yeah, with Trump and the weak Biden administrations they got what they wanted, complete immunity.
The only thing causing issues for them now is the EU, but they have pointed their massive lobby machine toward them.
I seem to recall the EU being fucking stupid and signing a deal that they will accept US safety standards on US made cars.
Wasn’t there also a law that said that American cloud providers that wanted EU business had to build EU only datacenters for the EU customer’s data that would not be shared with the US, the providers promptly broke that law and the EU ignored it
Seriously, both large American companies and American government have adopted the attitude of “Haha we’re fucking up everyone’s lives and the world for our own benefit, watcha gonna do about it?”. That leaves the space wide open and the bar so low, that China’s government and companies can clear it and appear like decent actors, even if some of my gripes with both remain.
It’s certainly an opportunity in global soft power for the CCP, but I think the headline here is better framed as a shift in global economic power, specifically in tech. The current American government is certainly fucking things up for American soft power globally, but the political capital built up over the decades just can’t be ignored as that just doesn’t disappear overnight. Not to mention the human rights violations in Xinjiang, government corruption problems, aggressive naval maneuvering, and recent isolationist past that the Chinese CCP needs to overcome to become a serious contender as the new number one. They’re kinda making their way through it, but it’s definitely not inevitable, and too many short-term and long-term metrics are working against them. This particular situation could certainly be a solid foundation to build on, but the CCP and many Chinese vulture capitalists have a history of shooting themselves in the foot for short-term gains.
I’m glad you have mentioned some of the biggest of my gripes, because I didn’t get to it in my original comment to keep it succinct and cohesive. And we’ll see what happens, I agree it’s not inevitable but this is like China’s best shot at world dominance through soft power that its had yet. I think certain members in the CCP have some awareness that invading Taiwan is going to, maybe counterintuitively, blow up the opportunity and the soft power credibility they built through Belt and Road.
Yeah, I think that really is the foundational tension in China; the internal power struggle of a deeply authoritarian CCP versus the cooperative stance needed to gain/build political capital worldwide. As it stands, their system will resist any legitimately populist movement and disincintivize honest efforts to dismantle harsh authoritarian policies and violent state oppression. You don’t maintain power (or your life) in a quasi-dictatorial party without keeping those who benefit from the system happy.
Yeah, with Trump and the weak Biden administrations they got what they wanted, complete immunity.
The only thing causing issues for them now is the EU, but they have pointed their massive lobby machine toward them.
I seem to recall the EU being fucking stupid and signing a deal that they will accept US safety standards on US made cars.
Wasn’t there also a law that said that American cloud providers that wanted EU business had to build EU only datacenters for the EU customer’s data that would not be shared with the US, the providers promptly broke that law and the EU ignored it
To clarify, I think you are talking about “US companies and their lobbyists” when you say “they” here. And I agree with you.
Yeah, you got me right