Bear with me, on this boba liberal’s video.
She talks a bit about restriction, censorship, and standardization of exported media by the ebil CCP /s, but rather focuses it on its consequent dullness, on-the-nose approach and cheapening of its media products…
How would you respond to this, point by point? (Sorry if I may sound like I argue in bad-faith)
Additional thanks if you don’t rely too much on whataboutism (yes, we can apply the artificial-politics-imposed media label, associated with CPC, on U.S media, like G.I Joe and Rambo, some of them even funded by the Department of Defense)
I mean, China has lots of ‘cool’ things, but it is actively suppressed by the media landscape in the west. It should also be noted that China lacks soft power only in western countries. According to the Bennett Institute, China is more popular in the global south than the US.
I can see that, but besides hard power like economics and geopolitics, what are some examples of these cool things, if not shared trends and memes? Of course, without too much of the western hegemonic influence.
If we’re talking about cultural exports, then I would highlight the three body trilogy, which is a Sci-fi trilogy which actually did become quite popular in the west. China of course also has quite a big gaming industry (genshin).
There are a lot of good shows in China, easily equal to any South Korean or American tv show. I don’t think their animation industry is quite as developed as Japans, but they still produce plenty of animation (and arguably, much better stuff than 90% of anime, seriously, anime can be amongst the worst things created by humans sometimes.)
The problem is that Chinese media rarely gets exported to the west in the same way media from western allies do. It isn’t a lack of capacity or ability on China’s part, it is a lack of willingness on the part of westerners to consume media from “the enemy.”
does china really NEED media exports to appease westerners though? of course on the western internet china will seem “uncool” or be the punchline in jokes, because the western internet is full of racist, anti-communist liberals or neo-nazis. china is powerful enough on the overall world stage, and especially the global south, to not need to have “soft power” propped up by capitalist media that westerners eat up like kpop or anime (that is also rife with exploitation in their respective industries as well). to me this just kinda seems like “why doesn’t china make itself look nicer for the western internet users???”.
Previously this may have been true, mostly because South Korea and Japan have been embraced by the US as vassal states. Obviously China will not have the same level of cultural exchange with the US.
For example, do we complain about a lack of Cuban, Vietnamese, or Laotian soft power in the West? No, because those countries are also marked as enemies by the US.
Today, Chinese cultural exports are starting to be able to stand on their own in the global market without extra help from Western governments. For instance, Genshin Impact, made by miHOYO from China, earned the highest ever first-year launch revenue of any video game.
Her analysis is insanely narrow, and fails to take into account any of these historical issues. Her conclusion boils down to: “China should make the West happy so they buy more C-pop.”
All her videos boil down to ‘ccp bad’ lol. I can not think of a better ‘boba liberalism’ example than this girl.
