cross-posted from: https://lemmygrad.ml/post/5649906

https://responsiblestatecraft.org/china-cold-war-2669160202/

Nice to see your hard earned tax dollars are going towards such a fabulous cause. Meanwhile I’ve heard it said that Chinese and Russian bots exploit divisions in the Western world by talking about things like poverty, homelessness, gun violence, racism and sexism. Well maybe you should start doing something about those issues to stop them being used as fuel for alleged foreign propaganda efforts hmmm?

      • darkcalling [comrade/them, she/her]@hexbear.netEnglish
        29·
        2 months ago

        And they have an advantage in that they own the biggest global media production and distribution houses. They can just pay some Hollywood producer a few million to insert some anti-China lines or propaganda in random movies or TV shows and it goes global just like that (though it’s usually a bit more complex and would involve wining and dining various people via think-tanks paid to to do this and sharing talking points with them). And China has no real power to push back on that outside its borders and given its foreign policy of non-interference they couldn’t if they wanted to without doing a dramatic change there.

        Compare to the US reaction if China tried shopping around a TV series or show that had some minor anti-US and pro-China sentiment? US and aligned media across Asia would light up screaming about it being China propaganda, about how it has to be censored, about how weak any given country will be if they allow it to be shown and stirring up a shit-storm over it. So the US is definitely able to actually make use of their dollars here and get good value. China by comparison can spend as much as they want on shoving propaganda into products, the US will handily get a large chunk of it censored or subject to boycott.

        People need make no mistake. This will go to think-tanks who will produce slander which is picked up by western and non-western news and ran near verbatim as stories. They will create chains of citations and credibility in academia and in the NGO world about China being up to no good. This will filter into western and non-western media, public consciousness, etc. It will likely end up nearly as complete as the propaganda about the USSR was for Americans and the western world. Just like indoctrinated Americans who can go to the DPRK and see what they want to see instead of the reality, even travel will not dispel this for many and at that point the task is simply to make it impossible to challenge their narrative, for any westerner who speaks truth to be cast as mad, as a bot, as a propagandist, as indoctrinated by China, as fooled by potemkin villages, as gullible, naive fools.

        And that’s just the west, their real goal is to propagandize to Africans, to people in Asia, to potential partners of China, to undermine the material goods Chinese projects do with suspicion, lies, and fantasy about what it’s all /really/ about to create space for the US to drive a wedge and to operate, to create terrorists and coups with some amount of popular support to remove China-friendly governments and replace them with US friendly puppets. Such is the problem of short human lives. Though the older generations may remember and know of what the colonizers did, the young may buy the “that was the old us but we’ve changed” routine the US has so perfected. And without class consciousness this can work.

            • PolandIsAStateOfMind@lemmygrad.mlEnglish
              15·
              2 months ago

              Zhdanov was probably the only USSR official after Lenin that realized the importance of mass media, role culture plays in class war on global scale and the fact socialism is under constant and relentless attack from capitalists powers via its extensive propaganda apparatus disguised in myriad ways. He devised the doctrine (called “Zhdanov Docrine”) to counteract this, but it wasn’t implemented.
              History vindicated him because it is precisely this cultural and propaganda invasion that was one of main reasons socialism was destroyed in Europe and almost destroyed everywhere else and the attempts did not ceased for even a moment. DPRK cultural politics and things like Chinese great firewall are similar policies, not only sorely needed but China (as the only country in position to do so) need to also go on the offensive.

              • Frogmanfromlake [none/use name]@hexbear.netEnglish
                12·
                2 months ago

                China most likely won’t and it’s one of the more frustrating things about them. They actually have better soft power than the USSR did but will continue not to go on the propaganda offensive while the US relentlessly attacks their ally’s and China’s credibility.

                • PolandIsAStateOfMind@lemmygrad.mlEnglish
                  15·
                  2 months ago

                  Yeah, for example, westerners are constantly whining how Tencent, the biggest game making conglomerate in the world, is supposedly “CPC propaganda”, but they still play in their games. Golden opportunity just lying there on a silver platter, cmon China, do it!

              • CleverOleg [he/him]@hexbear.netEnglish
                7·
                2 months ago

                Yakovlev taking over the glasnost media and immediately putting anti-communists in every position of power is a big reason why we don’t have the USSR anymore, IMO. Just to further your point about Zdhanov.

        • TechnoUnionTypeBeat [he/him, they/them]@hexbear.netEnglish
          6·
          2 months ago

          reaction if China tried shopping around a TV series or show that had some minor anti-US and pro-China sentiment?

          I remember for a while that Hollywood was trying really hard to play to the Chinese market and so for a few years you actually did have films with positive leading rolls for China, with some like Arrival showing China as basically the good guys who made an honest mistake with the aliens, vs the US who’s troops were listening to Alex Jones the entire time and ready to massacre the aliens

          Of course chuds lost their shit with these kinds of movies. How dare we show a Chinese person as being normal, Hollywood must be bought out as Chinese propaganda

          It’s just gonna get worse

        • DragonBallZinn [he/him]@hexbear.netEnglish
          8·
          2 months ago

          I love how the US has totally abandoned the idea of simply doing anything to prove itself as a worthwhile country worthy of respect.

          If anything it feels more like this country is actually just Europe’s Israel. The US is Europe’s personal attack dog to do the dirty work while European nations can pretend their hands are cleaner than they actually are.

          Then when you suggest actually making stuff, like something as simple as California to stop passive-aggressively taking its time on the hsr to try to get people to want to cancel it. The entirety of the American people look at you like you have two heads.