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reswright
3850
Jul 5, 2019
So why exactly are the Chinese concerned so little with Western IP law and our claims of a morally superior system? Why don’t they take American accusations about human rights seriously? I am nobody’s idea of an expert on Chinese culture, but I know a couple of things to say. The first is that if the Chinese navy came to North America and literally shelled each of our ports until they surrendered, became Chinese held possessions, governed by Chinese martial law and run by Chinese business conglomerates who were legally granted the right to sell opium they farmed on plantations in India to Canadians, Mexicans and Americans in their enclaves, where, as second class citizens Westerners could literally be killed out of hand if they acted up? Put it like this: Half of America was occupied by the other half -- by other Americans -- at the end of the Civil War, with no morphine and massacres involved, and do you know folks are still fucking furious about it? Imagine if it had been the Chinese... Yeah, that’s the first thing. The second thing I know? The Western powers, primarily the UK but also the French, the Dutch, the Germans and Spanish and Italians, and definitely the US, actually and really did all this to China toward the end of the 19th century. The process which Americans learn as “opening Asia to Western Trade” is known to the rest of the world, I shit you not, as the Opium Wars. Google that if you like, it makes for quite a read. Even if you paid attention in history class, there's gonna be some new info for you -- it's a chapter the West glosses over, but it has its parallels today with Oxy Contin and prescription opiate addictions destroying Western families. If it had happened in America, to Americans, and the Chinese showed up and badgered me about copyright laws, I would be borrowing extra middle fingers just to explain exactly how I felt. And I know people who would become violent instead. We all do. Think of someone you lost to heroin. Now think of having the people in front of you who thought it was cool to sell it to him. Now think of them as obvious outsiders. Now think of what people would do. One thing I know for sure - I know nobody who whose first instinct would be to rush to stop whatever the Chinese were claiming was unfair patent infringement. None of this is justification for the Chinese or anything they do, either in this hypothetical or in real life. They can justify themselves if they want to. I don't want to be in the business of justifying the actions of totalitarian nations. But if you’ve ever wondered why the Chinese embraced Communism, and why they might not really care so much about our copyright and patent laws when we come knocking on their door, the answer at least partially involves this very close look they got at an incredibly ugly side of Western capitalism and ‘gunboat diplomacy’ back when we were hooking them all on opium and doling it out to anyone who could pay enough to go hear the dragon sing for a few hours, and literally shelling cities that resisted. And if you think this was a matter of bad apples doing this and most of the West wasn't party to it, you should know that some of the biggest families in America, including the Roosevelts and the Bushes, made lots of money selling opium to the Chinese. Because selling legal opium gets you ALL the money. It also explains why the Chinese are so strident when it comes to sovereignty and don't take us seriously when we complain about their very real human rights abuses; for quite a while, they were second class citizens in their own land, killed with no consequence. And Americans did their share of the killing. What? Did you think the Boxer Rebellion was just this thing where the US helped restore law and order in China? Out of the goodness of our hearts? Our soldiers were already there on the British concession (there’s another fun one to google, Western concessions in China). Ever wonder just why they were there? Ever wonder why the Chinese got angry enough to attack Western soldiers barehanded? Look into it. It makes for sobering reading. There’s a whole history underpinning everything the Chinese ended up doing in the 20th century. It's why, to this day, Chinese politicians can go directly to prison with a quick show trial if they're ever accused of subverting the sovereignty of any Chinese claim, including all those islands in the South China Sea. It’s why they have frightening penalties for narcotics trafficking to this day. We don't understand it until we place it in the proper historical perspective and then we go 'oh, that's where they're coming from'. It doesn’t excuse, but suddenly you understand it a whole lot better. And I'm putting it out here for that reason, purely within the context of understanding the provenance of these knives, so people know it when they wonder why the Chinese popularly DGAF about certain things like Western copyrights.
(Edited)
aclef
4
Dec 16, 2019
reswrightYou indeed have a much better understanding of Chinese mindset them most of the westerners! As a Chinese this put a smile on my face that there exists foreigners don't view China as the "big ass evil country" and I appreciate that :D. And I want to clarify the IP infringement issue in China in a chronological perspective, because what you have said is not wrong, but maybe no longer the status quo of the Chinese mindset on this issue. (I don't pretend to be the representative of all Chinese people, this is just based on my experience with my fellow Chinese so definitely take a grain of salt with what I say) The concept of IP infringement is of course 'nonexistence' before China take part in the globalization, because IP is the last thing (or never) come to mind when the both party mostly don't trade and can even possibly go to war in the near future. Also communism at the hight of itself is inherently disrespectful to almost any properties. After the end of cold war and the China's open to west and reform, at the period of accelerating industrialization in the 90s, you pretty much nailed it what Chinese feel about IP infringements, yeah we just want a better living, to pull everyone out of shit hole and after what happened to us in the past century, Chinese do feel licensed to don't give a F about IPIs. But after the explosion of educated population in China's demography, due to the enforced education(it's funny to hear that you are 'responsible and obliged' to take education no matter what you want to do with your life) program, I believe most Chinese, especially younger ones, would agree that IPIs are bad and won't try to justify it morally. It's considered a common trolling phrase to say "Any fee of IPIs are already paid during the Opium war" in China now. Why Chinese still do it anyway? I think the zeitgeist is, it's all about necessary evil. Chinese are extremely pragmatic people. We read the history and learned how Japan and German made it to developed countries on the post-war turmoil. Yes, ruthless learning and catching up with industrialization and ripping off, until they actually get to create great things on themselves. It's just the due process of becoming developed. It's somewhat bad, we're embarrassed by it, and we get really excited to see a Chinese company flourish by creating their own IPs, but we won't try to stop IPIs. This period is not going to last very long. Actually I think westerners shouldn't be worried and get infuriated by Chinese's IPI, the high time to worry is when Chinese stopped making IP infringements and it's the Chinese who want to end this era of IPI the most badly. Similarly goes for democracy. Now we understand democracy can be good, but after observing the three fact 1) None of those really successful democratic countries is actually democratic before industrialization. 2) Most of the newly democratic countries' system are forced upon and 3)These various democratic systems performed dismally, and didn't deliver the promise of democracy eliminating poverty and corruption, and bringing successful economy. Thus: 1) Democracy can be good, but that must be on a good background of industry and economy, and meritocratic authoritarian happened to work for giving us this background 2) It must be delivered by Chinese but not because westerners told us to. and 3) Democracy is definitely not the silver bullet of ultimate political system that solves all problem. Free lunch doesn't exist. Same thing about environment issue, labor protection, human right(but I do want to point out that many, if not most, human right violation allegation put on China is not actually factually based), etc. The list goes on. IMHO, that's how Chinese view authoritarianism as the necessary evil and why most Chinese had get educated and opened their eyes to the concept of democracy but still support the CCP government, which can be counterintuitive to people living in developed democratic systems. Are westerners actually thinking we are all brainwashed by CCP that democracy is evil and bad? But who's to judge that the idea of democracy per se is sacred. infallible and universally applicable is not another kind of brainwash? I'm not passing judgements, nothing ideology at work, just pure pragmatic, almost engineering view on this issue. I digress a lot :). Thank you again for doing justice on Chinese knives and sorry for any grammatical errors because my english is largely self-educated and I basically skipped the grammar part. Your great writing is both entertaining and very helpful for me.
reswright
3850
Dec 18, 2019
aclefThank you for your kind reply, and I would say that it's definitely true that everyone and all nationalities have their own set of absolute presuppositions, which we tend to call 'common sense' when it's us and 'brainwashing’ when it's some other nation's belief. It takes time to get to know a people, and in this the people of the US are at a disadvantage -- where we export our culture electronically, so that the world gets it pouring out its speakers and screens, we have physical barriers that isolate us from physical feedback from the rest of the world. If you're a country in the middle of Asia or Europe or Africa you simply have to know about all your neighbor countries, their cultures and languages, commonly held points of view, etc, because if you don't, the world comes knocking anyway and teaches you while you're at a severe disadvantage. But the US has the world's largest military, and only four borders -- two of which are the largest oceans in the world, the third of which is to a country that is 90% like us, and probably would be closer to 100% like us if they didn't have the benefit of seeing the US doing our schtick, and realizing they didn't like the look. We are currently trying to block the fourth border with a wall, and it's the only border that's even remotely like the borders between most countries in the world. Contrast that to countries in Europe or Asia that border on nine countries with different languages and military affiliations. Putting it simply, it's a lot easier when you're an American to just be concerned with American issues alone, and to have fairly naive opinions about the rest of the world that go challenged less often, because that's what happens when you have two oceans among your natural borders and the beefiest military in the world. We mostly see the rest of the world on our TV through the lens of incredibly wealthy media companies with their own entrenched interests. That isn't exactly a recipe for enlightenment. I appreciate and agree with your point that the Chinese attitudes toward IPI have changed with time. Speaking incredibly frankly, part of it is also that China now has streams of IP they need to protect, which will only continue to grow. That makes it real, where before it was speculative. In the American idiom we call this ‘having skin in the game'. When you have WE Knife sending cease and desist letters to other Chinese manufacturers, that impacts things in a way that it never did when KAI or Cold Steel was sending the letters. Moreover as you note, there will come a time when IP infringements trail off, and within a year or so of then, you all will find yourselves in our shoes, so to speak -- Chinese businesses will be suing the Vietnamese and the Filipinos and the Nepalese for IP infringement in order to protect your own IP. So the people with long term international business plans in China can see the need to transition from an economy that benefits most from lax IP laws to one that will depend upon them as the US does now. In other words market forces are going to bring IP reforms to China that international politicking are powerless to achieve, and when that happens within a generation your attitudes may well resemble ours. Perhaps more so than you'd wish! For what its worth, most Americans are extremely skeptical about the concept of exporting democracy these days; we not only see what you have seen, but we've lost friends and family in military service trying to ‘export democracy’ to Afghanistan and Iraq and so on. And we've never been more cynical about our own democracy, which seems more like an oligarchy to many of us as we see it today. We largely believe in the concept and many of us see ‘exporting democracy’ as including gender equality or other forms of social justice that we want to see more of in the world, out of empathy for the disadvantaged. Others see it simply as a chance to do international business on favorable terms! But we are realizing that any attempts to transplant democracy outright are bound to fail as kleptocracies gutted from within by the rich and predatory. Democracy has to take root from seed, so to speak.
(Edited)
aclef
4
Dec 18, 2019
reswrightThank you for your thoughtful reply! Actual intellectual exchanges online are rare these days, and I didn't really expected this to happen in this, well, forum about knives and other interesting utensils. Hats off to you, sir. I totally agree China is heading off to more IP protection, but I do have mixed feeling on this issue. IP Protection! Sounds perfectly righteous and indisputable. But since I get disillusioned on many glorious big words along the way(communism and democracy are the biggest ones of them), I'm more interested in what's actually working under the table rather than the big words. Why do we need IP protection in the first place, and is IP protection actually working for us, for the cause? I always suspect IP protection can be bad for the overall economy if badly implemented. Many real world big problems can be explained by focus on those big words, on what is immutable, seemingly metaphysically justifiable, monism claims, rather on pragmatic thinking. Maybe humanity is just not thinking hard enough. Like the glorious democracy is supposed to be responsive and flexible but, no offense, why if I'm in the Americans' shoes to choose between Hillary and Trump can get me suicidal? (To be fair communism also wreck havoc in Chinese history besides doing good, The Great Leap Forward, The 3 Years "Natural Disaster", The Cultural Revolution... you name it.). It's always beneficial to look under the table to see what's behind those big words. It's sounds schizophrenic that USA promoting democracy globally but Saudi Arabic remains one of US's most loyal allies. But peeling off the glorified skin of democracy, what US did is actually understandable from a neutral perspective. USA's financial system depleted it's own production prowess and turned the whole economy into a giant gambling game of very few rich people. Thus the petrol-dollar supremacy is becoming too big to fall that US is willing to send troop to protect. Otherwise next time financial crisis hits, no one can tell what would happen when the concussion can not be exported by printing dollars. It makes perfect sense for US to subvert any power trying to undermine the biggest pillar withholding the US economy, the petro-dollar. I'll certainly do it if I'm in charge. Countries around the world slowly selling off US national debt should be a wake up call. I can be (and very likely) totally wrong being no expert in all those topics, but my point is, never actually believe in big words, especially in the endeavor of politics. It will be naive or down right stupid if US government actually spend billions and get its citizens killed just for 'exporting democracy', while there's are many domestic problems to solve. It seems to me that this 'justification by big words' backfired and exploited by Trump for him to get elected.
reswright
3850
Dec 18, 2019
aclefI, too, didn't expect to have an economic discussion here today, but I am pleasantly surprised to discover one is taking place :) The truth is, whichever system you have -- a collective mindset or an individual mindset, democracy or communism -- the rules are designed to work one way but the most bold and predatory among us always find a way to bend them to work in their favor, at the expense of everyone else in the system. Europeans had witchcraft laws; they were used to seize property and ruin the enemies of the powerful. Americans have copyright and patent laws; the companies with the best R&D use these laws to protect their advantages by burying their opponents in litigation, and forcing them to take a loss as they try and bring products to market. Companies form a stock market, then you see people come up with 'short selling' and 'derivatives', and put them to work undermining the market for profit. So I, too, am wary of people who want to sell me on the 'big picture' without letting me see the small picture at work, because when the big people are selling you that big idea, they already have their plans for how the small picture's really going to work, and it usually isn't in your favor. Very few Americans actually understand the concept of the petrodollar or how much of our foreign policy is influenced by it, or what would happen in the short term to our economy if that system collapsed. I'm not sure there's a world population that understand it well outside of people that work in economics or the petroleum industry. And to be fair how would they? You do need to study economics a bit before you can understand how having the dollar being the currency of choice in petroleum trading will dramatically prop up its value in exchange rates. The oil companies certainly don't bring it up in conversation, because as you note they've happily used the concept to further enrich themselves, and they have no loyalty to America -- they see themselves as international. If they could find a way to make money by pushing the global oil market away from the petrodollar and into another currency like Euros or RMB, they'd have already done it with bells on and would be out the door to their tax havens. By the time Americans fully grasp the concept it will probably have been obviated, either because it's already happened, or by the emergence of new technology that reduces the importance of the oil industry. BTW: "it's funny to hear that you are 'responsible and obliged' to take education no matter what you want to do with your life" -- I believe I understand what you're saying, and I expect you may understand all this that I'm about to say already: but do not underestimate the jewel you hold in your hands here, with this attitude toward education. In America, much of the population has a somewhat antagonistic attitude toward higher education, and some of them extend it to all forms of education. And we have an increasingly anti-intellectual bent to our politics. In China, many if not most elected officials have degrees in sciences, engineering -- hard technical disciplines. You have an attitude of respect toward these disciplines. In America, we mostly elect lawyers who aren't afraid to disparage higher learning if they think it'll help their argument. Smart, well educated people aren't trusted by the average person in America, even though the rest of the world tends to send its best and brightest to our schools because they see the value. It's part of the reason we're in decline, which means it's part of the reason that demagogues are able to seize power by manipulating that sense of discontent, and why so many Americans are dissatisfied with their political choices. There's a growing movement in America to have a reckoning with a lot of this -- it's part of how Trump was elected and it's why Bernie Sanders is gaining momentum despite the degree to which wealthy media companies are antagonistic to his platform and try to keep it out of their headlines at all costs. But it's coming slowly, and at an awful human cost. Once you lose the respect for education in your system, it is extremely hard to get it back.
aclef
4
Dec 19, 2019
reswrightWell, I can assure you there exists a world population that understands petrodollar. Chinese Department of Education enforced a series of courses focused on Chinese socialism & Marxism, one of which is called "The status quo of the world and how it related to Chinese socialism". Basic economics and even how US economics works are covered(biased or not). These courses are mandatory for every college student in every university regardless of major, be it engineering, literature or even fine arts, to pass, if the student wants his diploma issued. (Most students do feel these courses are just too boring and irrelevant though, I've been there) And yeah I do understand the importance of education and fully endorse the mandatory education system rationally now, in fact I think it's the most important policy to ensure upward mobility in a society(And I believe even opt-in free education is not enough, some level of education should indeed be mandatory to break the barrier, sometimes self-imposed by less-educated people). One single exam for all and institutions don't get to choose who to enroll, but only capable of setting the enrollment lower-bound score. Students passed that bound and applied will be assigned to that school by the department of education. I believe it's healthy that students from impoverished areas can enter the top universities just by study hard, and the government go at length to persuade the people from remote mountain villages, who in effect broke the law, from keeping their child from school. It's just ranting, maybe a result from my bad memories of studying all day long and curse it everyday doing homework till midnight for the college entrance exam. Pressure and competition in Chinese high school are so extreme that some school adopted semi-military level management regime and resulted in students jumping off the school building. Forget about being the cool kid because students top the class is THE king! Western style political correctness, freedom and endorsement of diversity is nonexistence. Bad at study means humiliation, it's that simple. Although I can grasp the morale behind this and deemed it to be understandable or even necessary, but I can't help but feel something is less than healthy in this. Something too extreme is going to rebound, and rebound is going to overshoot in most cases, and then here comes instability and destruction. For a system this complex I'll bet my bottom dollar it's not going to be static stable. From this background of asserting the utmost importance of education, it was really hard for me to actually believe or comprehend the reality of antagonistic trend towards higher education in the US. It's a fact that best universities are in US and a majority of top notch tech companies are based in US, too. I did heard good students get mocked or bullied as nerds but I thought it's twisted misinterpretation by the pop culture, or propaganda against US, because all that seems to be in contradiction with the facts of US's power in education and technology. I can only speculate that the high education cost and endorsement based enrollment worked together to throttle the fluidity of the US society. Two giant echo chamber is formed and the vicious cycle continued to cause further segregation between intellectuals and less educated peoples. When education became as concentrated as wealth, the big tail of less educated population finally made the anti-education atmosphere a reality. And now that I think of, concentration of education is very likely to throw politics in favor of less educated population in a one-person-one-vote system, that's interesting to think. EDIT: News came in that Trump actually get impeached. And the whole Chinese internet is like "protect out comrade Trump!". Also interesting is that majority of Chinese netizens predict Trump will actually win the 2016 election after the party primaries, contradicting most polls in US of that time.
(Edited)
reswright
3850
Dec 19, 2019
aclef"When education became as concentrated as wealth, the big tail of less educated population finally made the anti-education atmosphere a reality. And now that I think of, concentration of education is very likely to throw politics in favor of less educated population in a one-person-one-vote system, that's interesting to think." Yes, we're seeing it now. In the US collegiate education has been 'two track' for as long as anyone can remember: you have a large body of 'state' colleges that are partially subsidized by the state, and you have a much smaller body of elite schools that it is very hard to get into without lots of money. Some state schools have high standards and some elite schools aren't really that elite, they just cost a lot. But by and large elite schools give you a much more comprehensive education and it includes priceless chances to network with the other future elites of America, and state schools only give you what you take out of them via dint of your own hard work, and sometimes that's little more than a diploma. It starts at the level of grade school, because for almost everywhere you go in America, education is funded by property tax. It follows that wealthy districts are better funded than poor districts. Americans bend over backwards and scrimp and save to move to a district with good rated schools when they can, so their kids can have that advantage. This demand for houses in that district further inflates property values in that district, etc. Those kids whose parents move in are usually made to feel out of place anyway, by their wealthier peers and sometimes their educators, and can find the entire experience very embittering. Those wealthy peers have the option of private school, which can cost as much per year as college does. Wealthy families can afford 13 years of that on top of college. Poor families cannot. What has really put icing on the cake is the fact that for the poor, the costs of college loans in the long term are really destructive -- so Americans put themselves through the grind of education in order to better themselves, but are even more under the gun when they graduate and must begin repayment. In America our parents and grandparents attended college at a cost that could be readily covered by a part time job while you went to college. Now if you go to a state school you can still end up paying it off for decades, and it's common for students at private schools to rack up well over $100k in student loan debt, trying to finance an elite education. This money must be paid off. Educational loans cannot be written off if you declare bankruptcy, as many other kinds of debt can be done -- you're stuck with it until it's paid off, and by the time you're done paying interest, you end up paying several times what you borrowed. So at the time that our parents and grandparents were graduating debt free, and maybe with a little help from their parents buying a house and a nice car and so on, today's students have to take on even more debt to buy those things, which makes it worse -- so much worse that many no longer even try to buy their own house. So the sense is growing, at least among the 'have nots' in America, that education in the US is a racket that is more concerned with writing crippling loans to young people than it is with the former educational standards this country was known for. Many people trapped in the system haven't really realized that it's all by design, but they definitely can tell that they're trapped in something. And there are of course all manner of other things going on to stress them out -- medical insurance and bills, drug addictions (many Americans become addicted to prescription painkillers and when those get cut off, they end up on heroin, which is wreaking havoc across America -- you see, our wealthy are currently waging their own Opium War against America's poor). You have government programs of assistance that have had their budgets cut for decades and are now no longer able to fulfill their basic tasks, and a full on corporate media blitz every time they turn on their TV. And in America we frequently set the poor against the poor -- the media portray it as 'Cops vs Black People' or something similarly inflammatory, so you have two groups of poor folks who hate each other and feel like the other's out to get them. It gets ugly quickly, everyone' stereotypes come out and are on prominent display. So you now have these cultural elites that are suddenly seeing tremendous unrest from the American populace. They do not know how to handle it. They are trying, but they can see it slipping out of their control. And frankly they're beginning to become terrified. If you studied the ancien regime that ruled France prior to the rise of the Jacobins, you can see lots of parallels to the present. Americans are even starting to refer to the guillotine in our political discussions... if all this litany of wrongdoing makes it sound like I hate my country, I love my country. Can't really help it, I suppose. But it's undeniable that it's a bad and dangerous time to belong to the working class in America, and many people are looking around for a solution, any solution that might work. Some of those solutions are pretty drastic.
reswright
3850
Dec 19, 2019
aclef"Well, I can assure you there exists a world population that understands petrodollar." This is a pleasant surprise. You must understand, in America, most people never hear of the concept, or if they do, it's just left at 'dollars are the exchange currency of choice for the petroleum industry' and the implications aren't ever really discussed. It's a little odd to hear that the Chinese Internet is reacting to Trump as a comrade. I suppose I can see the pragmatism in it -- Trump, for all his sound and fury, is diminishing US influence in the world, he seems much more content to let China be the hegemon of SE Asia and for Russia to fall into the Chinese orbit and for Europe to drift away from us militarily and economically. America has always had a strong strain of isolationism in our politics and he's very much appealing to that. He's turning the US eye inward, which suits many international purposes. Putin wants Turkey out of NATO and US eavesdroppers out of Turkey, he wants the Baltics back in his sphere of influene. Xi wants Korea fully within the Chinese sphere of influence and to expand Chinese power out across the Philippines even as China carries out its own 'nation building' investments through Belt and Road. These plans will probably bear fruit in the long run regardless of whether Trump is president, but he's making it easier for them to work.
aclef
4
Dec 20, 2019
reswright "It's a little odd to hear that the Chinese Internet is reacting to Trump as a comrade. " "These plans will probably bear fruit in the long run regardless of whether Trump is president, but he's making it easier for them to work. " Not quite, exactly as you stated, those changes will happen regardless of who's in charge of US. The reason why Trump is seen as a "comrade"(of course this is mockery but it's almost serious gratitude and appreciation!) is because something probably only Trump will do: the trade war against China. And almost all average Chinese DGAF about China's power and control over other countries, which is not our business(I believe Chinese govt. leaders will beg to differ), you may be surprised that the real issue is more domestic. There's a perennial dispute, or division in China that should China's economy, finance, industry and society to be more independent and self-sufficient or embrace global division of labor, open financial market to foreign firms, adapt to western systems in industry and academics, etc.? Take industry as an example, should China complete the full spectrum and master ALL fields of industry, or leave something to other countries because it would be safer and more cost-efficient? There are many dispute and criticism because some people think it's stupid to do it all by ourselves, e.g. we shouldn't develop the semi-conductor industry independently from scratch and rigorously pushed by state-owned companies, but import from USA is enough and much more cost-efficient.(their slogan being "Buying is better than making, renting is better than buying", which is a minority but rising in number before the trade war, I believe you'd understand a country suffered the century of humiliation will want to be as independent as possible). Regarding society and ideology, there is also a minority advocating for western-style democracy, capitalism and privatization.(I feel the need to point out that being a minority, they do enjoy freedom of speech and aren't prosecuted by the government, just getting constantly mocked or insulted by the majority of average Chinese, which is also freedom of speech. Actually those pro-liberals are getting momentum before the trade war!) After the trade war kicks in, sanctions inflicted on Chinese companies and the unrest started in Hongkong bla bla bla... All those pro-west minority actually getting momentum before the trade war got a giant kick in the ass and totally disappeared from the Chinese battle ground of idea. Now this internal division and dispute was complete eradicated, the patriotism of Chinese people(which is dangerous if got out of hand) and legitimacy of CCP governance is pushed to a historical high point. Hongkong system sympathizers that existed for decades are getting ridiculed, people against Chinese's independence in all of the fields and topics are distrusted and the Chinese govt. enjoy unprecedented power to push all sorts of reform and staggering-amount of investment in fields criticized being too risky. Above all, the actual sanction and tariff are the least to concern for Chinese, we all believe there's no way US can actually "win" or get any meaningful results from it. Previous internally disputed China becomes solid as a steel plate. This is the kind of change that is definitely not going to revert even if the trade war is gone. I believe this marks a huge boost in Chinese's confidence in it's own culture and system, and a complete break-off from western paradigm. The Chinese govt. wanted this to happen for a very long time, by reiterating the so-called "Four Big Confidences" all the time, who'd think it's comrade Trump actually made this happen?
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