Not yet no. So that they are completely intertwined in our economies. Soft power becomes hard power. Just wait and see. And if you buy Chinese mobile phones, you directly contribute to this.

Euhm, all you can buy and do you nothing, contributes to the intertwining of the Western and Chinese economies. Why cell phones specifically are a problem escapes me.

You can already see that when Ping visits our country we have to put up screens to literally protect him from his (former) residents protesting against him.

The fact that states protect visiting foreign heads of state from demonstrators (from their own diaspora) is for all times, and is not typical of this or another form of government. It does not prove that a particular country encroaches on the liberties of the inhabitants of another country.

(Also, regardless of the intentions of the person I’m responding to, don’t forget the origins of all this anti-China squabbling. In the US, both Team Left and Team Right have their own geopolitical men. For the Left, it’s Putin, for the Right, it’s the “Chinese Communist Party.”) Opinions on these two topics are articles of faith in the political tribal Christian teaching, completely immune from empirical reality.It is believed that the Chinese Communist Party controls Western politics at the same time.The way a certain youth subculture insists that everyone should wear a certain type of shoes to fit in. And since we in Western Europe transmit from the US via social media, these likewise become articles of faith for team left and team right.)

You can already see, for example, that soft power is becoming hard in Africa, which has a new colony master.

Example? By “hard power” I mean direct interference in the internal affairs of another country.

Now, that China’s economic and geopolitical strength is increasing fact. This is both inevitable and desirable, because China thinks in terms of tangible costs and benefits, while the West thinks in terms of cheap moral sentiments (“One Love”, “Believe All Women”, “Black Lives Matter”, …) and hot air (Trump, Musk, Crypto, …). However, it remains to be shown that current trends will continue. In the end, Westernophobia is not necessarily a matter of claims that lack any connection to reality. Sinophobia often consists of promoting predictions about what China might do one day, while ignoring the fact that its geopolitical camp is already actively and openly doing similar things. Likewise in this case.

[Reactie gewijzigd door EmbarrassedBit op 26 november 2022 01:49]