Glasnost was Soviet Occidentalism. The parameters of what “could or could not” be discussed under Gorbachev’s paradigm was defined entirely by what was said about the USSR and the socialist project from the West. The damage done to public perceptions of the CPSU and Soviet socialism through Yakolev’s hijacking of the high grounds of media control was because these anti-communists began importing all the anti-Soviet ideology that was created and festered as a parallel structure of cognition through the decades since the October Revolution. It wasn’t as if Yakolev started to synthesize his own original critiques but that Western narratives were transplanted to frame the mode of critique against the CPSU and socialism that he promoted through his control of Soviet media. This is exactly what also happened on the micro-scale to every SSR that later seceded: anti-communist ultranationalist parallel histories in which the existence of those SSRs in the Soviet system could be completely re-interpreted were imported in wholesale from the West, where they were fostered by Soviet emigres in the decades since the October Revolution. The Baltic secessionist movements were precisely powered through the fabricated grievances that Soviet emigre in the West were able to re-introduce within the populace following the Glasnost period.
Facebook et al. have never been more openly partisan for US state interests and have no negotiating enticements to give whatsoever to the Chinese government to allow for their access to the Chinese internet. The only thing is if they completely excised Western propaganda points about China on their platforms or allowed Chinese moderation control but this would be the point where the US state would intervene to forbid such a mechanism. This is what happened in the early 2010s when Zuckerberg was bragging about his Mandarin and Google was trying to squeeze into China. Any requests for accommodation to the Chinese government concerns was shut down by Clinton as Secretary of State who intervened (or was recruited by those companies to bat for them) and wanted it to be a unilateral entry without any concessions to China. This is why they were denied entry in the first place. Google voluntarily exited the Chinese internet because, egged on by the Obama admin, it refused to meet any Chinese regulatory requests.
Chinese liberals, who just until recently apparently though you could live a Homer Simpson middle class lifestyle by being a dishwasher in America, have a hyped up view of Facebook, Google and other Western platforms as some Disneyland where there’s so much they’re “missing out on” but in reality, there is nothing of intrinsic value in those platforms compared to China’s own indigenous ecosystem. China should promote more international connections within internet space but this must be done on Chinese or “non-aligned” country platforms like Singapore where China can either set the terms of engagement itself or at least prevent the West from doing so like it does on the likes of Facebook et al. XHS is an example of this how this should be done. Something like this Shanghai Yakolev’s proposal would actually take the wind out of the sails of platforms like XHS.
After reading about Shanghai’s technology system a bit more after hearing about this, this seems more potentially like a petulant politicking scheme as most of those Chinese platforms were created and headquartered elsewhere in places like Shenzhen. Introducing Western platforms would be Shanghai’s way to admit they’re incapable of domestically competing and fostering similar companies (their major feather in the cap seems to be just attracting Tesla, so this may be them trying to ape the same playbook for the media sector) and simply flipping the table to sabotage and cannibalize the user-share of Chinese domestic media platforms, as this would be what such a Glasnost policy would entail in reality.
Glasnost was Soviet Occidentalism. The parameters of what “could or could not” be discussed under Gorbachev’s paradigm was defined entirely by what was said about the USSR and the socialist project from the West. The damage done to public perceptions of the CPSU and Soviet socialism through Yakolev’s hijacking of the high grounds of media control was because these anti-communists began importing all the anti-Soviet ideology that was created and festered as a parallel structure of cognition through the decades since the October Revolution. It wasn’t as if Yakolev started to synthesize his own original critiques but that Western narratives were transplanted to frame the mode of critique against the CPSU and socialism that he promoted through his control of Soviet media. This is exactly what also happened on the micro-scale to every SSR that later seceded: anti-communist ultranationalist parallel histories in which the existence of those SSRs in the Soviet system could be completely re-interpreted were imported in wholesale from the West, where they were fostered by Soviet emigres in the decades since the October Revolution. The Baltic secessionist movements were precisely powered through the fabricated grievances that Soviet emigre in the West were able to re-introduce within the populace following the Glasnost period.
Facebook et al. have never been more openly partisan for US state interests and have no negotiating enticements to give whatsoever to the Chinese government to allow for their access to the Chinese internet. The only thing is if they completely excised Western propaganda points about China on their platforms or allowed Chinese moderation control but this would be the point where the US state would intervene to forbid such a mechanism. This is what happened in the early 2010s when Zuckerberg was bragging about his Mandarin and Google was trying to squeeze into China. Any requests for accommodation to the Chinese government concerns was shut down by Clinton as Secretary of State who intervened (or was recruited by those companies to bat for them) and wanted it to be a unilateral entry without any concessions to China. This is why they were denied entry in the first place. Google voluntarily exited the Chinese internet because, egged on by the Obama admin, it refused to meet any Chinese regulatory requests.
Chinese liberals, who just until recently apparently though you could live a Homer Simpson middle class lifestyle by being a dishwasher in America, have a hyped up view of Facebook, Google and other Western platforms as some Disneyland where there’s so much they’re “missing out on” but in reality, there is nothing of intrinsic value in those platforms compared to China’s own indigenous ecosystem. China should promote more international connections within internet space but this must be done on Chinese or “non-aligned” country platforms like Singapore where China can either set the terms of engagement itself or at least prevent the West from doing so like it does on the likes of Facebook et al. XHS is an example of this how this should be done. Something like this Shanghai Yakolev’s proposal would actually take the wind out of the sails of platforms like XHS.
After reading about Shanghai’s technology system a bit more after hearing about this, this seems more potentially like a petulant politicking scheme as most of those Chinese platforms were created and headquartered elsewhere in places like Shenzhen. Introducing Western platforms would be Shanghai’s way to admit they’re incapable of domestically competing and fostering similar companies (their major feather in the cap seems to be just attracting Tesla, so this may be them trying to ape the same playbook for the media sector) and simply flipping the table to sabotage and cannibalize the user-share of Chinese domestic media platforms, as this would be what such a Glasnost policy would entail in reality.