Why China Sucks at Soft Power — China's Reckoning (Part 4)

Audio editing by Eric Schneider
Motion graphics by Vincent de Langen
Everything else by Evan

Thanks to Ma Con for the Vietnamese subtitle translation.

This includes a paid sponsorship which had no part in the writing, editing, or production of the rest of the video.

Video supplied by Getty Images

[PolyMatter]

If the music video clip at the beginning felt a little off, that's because it had to be dramatically altered for fear of getting demonetized by YouTube. In addition to the bonus video, the Nebula version of this video has my original uncut vision of that intro. I never want to be forced to censor my content and don't want you to feel like you're getting a "lesser" version of the video on YouTube, but the truth is that YouTube has forced me. I hope you understand and if you have Nebula, I hope you'll watch the full version there. Thanks and hope you enjoy this end to the series! -Evan

[zmei]

fun fact: the three singers in the beginning of the video singing Beijing welcomes you, one is from hong kong and the other two is from taiwan. by western standard non of them are chinese.

[nomoreusernamesleft]

"the only country to not experience this trend was japan, because it already maxed out" *spits out coffee*

[bplup]

"Beijing welcomes you."
*In front of the Great Wall*

I'm getting mixed messages here.

[gimmethehealth]

I think out of all the speculation, we gotta go with Occam’s Razor. China has become so inflammatory in its rhetoric because simply, it’s leader changed and so did their policies. Deng Xiaoping was actively trying to open the country up and of course, had to show that China was now approachable. Jiang Zemin and Hu Jintao pursued a policy of non-confrontation and thus, had appeased the West. Xi is a nationalist, thus China has become nationalist with him, enough said.

A major issue with looking at China is how many people view the Communist Party Administration as a contiguous entity, when its changes through the last couple of decades might as well make it seperate governments.

[secondfinance]

Next video on Wendover Productions:
The Logistics of Being Insecure

[bat]

“Appear weak when you are strong, and strong when you are weak.”
― Sun Tzu, The Art of War

[ZhangtheGreat]

Let's understand something in context: this generation of Chinese leaders experienced their youth during one of the most chaotic events in modern Chinese history - the Cultural Revolution. As many of us who've grown up know, youth is the time to be learning about how to properly engage with respective audiences (e.g. understanding that talking to our friends is not the same as talking to our bosses). Well, this generation didn't have those lessons drilled into them during those years. Instead, what did they learn at that time? To take pride in their country, Chairman Mao, etc., and to call out or make an example of anyone who says or does anything that can be perceived as going against that grain. Now that they've ascended to positions of power, we're seeing those unlearned lessons play out in much more impactful ways.

[Raptorsified]

Not a cheery video but as a Canadian I can say that it's nice to see our boys down south still showing us love

[skeetrix]

"the only country to not experience this trend was japan, because it already maxed out"




fucking savage

[cosmos]

Honestly, as much as Curiosity Stream and Nebula has been advertised to me, this series is the first to make me consider subscribing to it.

[coachrenaldo]

Funny thing about bringing up Wolf Warrior in this video:

The franchise got criticized about how the main protagonist can one man army everything and when the director was asked about this, his response to that was something along the line of “well, how come when an American movie does that, it’s fine, but when we do it, it’s not?”

[qwerasdliop]

This series has been a gold mine of insight

[rohitbumb]

Only one nation to not observe this trend is Japan which is already maxed out....
Someone was right when he said Japan does today what you are going to do tomorrow 😂😂😂

[intoverf]

"How strong is this [Chinese] national honor if they have to ban joking about it in video games?"

- Ruben Sim, gamer, reaction to China UGC Guidelines

[TheOis]

this abandonment of soft power abroad is idiotic. This is actually the perfect time for China to adopt a friendly attitude when US reputation abroad is in tatters. That way China could hold sway to its neighboring countries like the South East and East Asian countries and create a strong bloc to remove US dominance on the Asian continent.

and by being the dominant and benevolent power (at least regionally), it is inevitably raise its status both domestically and internationally.

[eleinaedelweiss]

"uniting south east asian nation closer together" as a Chinese Indonesian i can assure you even i dont like the current ccp president so yeah its indeed uniting.

[euanwalsh]

00:19:
"Let's share the sun and air"
Think I'd rather breathe water than Bejing air...

[solidoxygen]

This is incredible and I've seen it in my own Chinese mainland relatives. Nationalist sentiment has been increasing fervently and now I know why

[shonenbag]

The image of a guy saying "Beijing Welcomes You"in front of a structure designed to keep people out is a pretty good analogy for the way China works as a whole nowadays.