There was incident like this in the "Virtual Youtuber" community last year. One of the biggest Vtubers, Kiryu Coco, is Japanese-American and speaks a mix of Japanese and English in her streams. Last year, she happened to show an image that included a Taiwanese flag (among many others), just to brag about how much money she was getting from various places.
That's... it. That's all it took. She didn't even mention the word "Taiwan". But it created this firestorm of Chinese nationalists trolling her everywhere, and demanding that her company fire her. I don't think they were bots or a government effort, it's just that China has so many of these weird crazy people on the internet looking to fight about the Taiwan issue that they can completely shut down your social media if they take notice of you.
In this case, the company actually did the right thing. They stood up for her, developed some better anti-spam technology, and eventually ended their China division all together. Then they created an English-language division. We won! But the trolls are still very active in attacking her.
I think it speaks to a sort of "eternal September" regarding China. Most of China isn't at all used to the western internet, and they don't speak much English. The same is even more true of us, regarding China. So things that seem really trivial to one side become this mortal issue to the other. I'm hopeful that it will actually get better over time, as we get to know one another better and their economy becomes more mature.
While I completely agree with the main idea in this post, there are a few details that aren't quite right.
1. The idea that Apple is a privacy-focused company is a very recent invention. They've leaned heavily on this in recent years to rehabilitate their reputation after the iCloud leak scandal (which, despite what news outlets or even courtrooms might claim, was mainly facilitated by social engineering, with a side of phishing; the Apple help desk would give account passwords to anyone possessing basic info like birthdays, credit card numbers, etc.). In general, Apple has spent most of its lifetime practicing "security by obscurity", which is not an effective way to protect users' privacy.
2. While I would agree that a lot of opposition to e.g. NAFTA comes from protectionism and anti-free-trade sentiment, the same is not true for all trade deals. In particular, TPP would have enshrined an extra-legal framework of extremely damaging IP protectionism, with little other justification. Those who believe in IP protectionism often worry that China is stealing American IP, but since China was not part of TPP, that's an irrelevant argument.
When you seek to influence the behavior of another country, engagement vs. isolation is always a judgement call. I think in this case engagement was the right call. The world's largest, purest experiment in communism, socialism or whatever you want to call it had failed so miserably that even the diehard "commies" who had marched with Chairman Mao saw that they had to try something different. This was a good opportunity for "engagement".
In the long run (ok, maybe VERY long run), I think there is hope for democracy and human rights in China. A market economy nurtures a culture of people making their own decisions, thinking for themselves instead of blindly following a Dear Leader.
When it comes to relations between countries and who will have more influence on who, a good rule of thumb is probably that most of the time the dog wags the tail, not the other way around. So we should be very open and engaged with smaller countries we'd like to influence (eg Cuba) and more cautious about engagement with countries that are bigger than us, such as China - in that relationship, we're more likely to end up as the tail if we're not careful.
It looks like unless something major happens that changes the trajectory of economic growth, eventually, China would beat the U.S. at our own game. It's kind of a race then to see who collapses from internal divisions first. That, or someone figures out how to change the game.
Unfortunately for most of what passes for the free world, the U.S. is currently in no condition to change the game on account of being nearly paralyzed by those internal divisions.
OT, but I had leftover stir fry from earlier this week, and some tortillas, so now I'm having stir fry tacos for lunch.
What China is doing to cause corporations to self-censor is very bad. It's also bad when the woke (and "anti-woke") mobs cause organizations to do bad things like firing Emily Wilder, David Shor, and the editor of Teen Vogue. There's way too much self-censorship going on.
Granted, China is far worse for obvious reasons -- the whole Hong Kong, Uigher, etc thing. But wherever it comes from it's bad.
One thing I think may work in our favor, even if not in the short term, is that China may be very bad at playing this game, and overplay its hand. Imagine if they take great offense at some ABC News story and demand Disney retract it, or see all Disney operations in China be halted. I could imagine in that situation that Disney balks, maybe due to counter-pressure from its workforce, and just refuses. I can then imagine China caving. I'm not saying China would be viewed as a paper tiger, but the fear corporations currently feel would be greatly reduced. This game will take a long time to play out, with the outcome by no means certain.
That said, the idea of congressional hearings is great.
China has been extremely receptive to America's principal ideological export, capitalism. Why anyone imagined this wasn't part of capitalism is a mystery to me. Using market power to shape public discourse is a time honored American tradition. I have to say the idea that this values thing is diodic is odd. If American values weren't spreading in China the government wouldn't be going to such lengths to suppress it. What can you do about it? Essentially nothing. Except maybe not pushing issues that the PRC can use to unify public sentiment behind the government. Oh wait...you can't do that either.
Your paragraph clarifying that you don’t want a war (shooting or cold) with China reminds me of a frustrating tendency on the Left to take any criticism of China as “oh the US is trying to manufacture consent for a war.” Freddie DeBoer actually had a post where he said “your government is laying the groundwork for an actual war with China.” It’s depressing for a few reasons: it suggests that the Left has lost its former capacity for internationalism (with the exception of Palestine, I guess), and it suggests that either we’ve greatly over-learned the lesson of Iraq (now *that* was a government laying a groundwork for war; the China thing looks nothing like it), or that those who got Iraq right did so out of pure dumb luck, and their vindication on that point prevents them from learning to make distinctions.
I think a fair number of people on the US left believe one of the following: (1) As a US citizen you must and may oppose only America's sins and possibly those of its allies, but other countries' bad acts are the business only of the people who live there and it's wrong to stick your nose in their business. (2) Even though other countries do many bad things, the main problem with the world is that the US is too powerful, causing it to be the main source of harm in the world, and thus the overriding priority of all world citizens should be to form a united front against it, and to set aside any differences with any other country. (3) The US is, in fact, the world's most evil country and the overriding priority of all world citizens should be to form a united front against it, and to set aside any differences with any other country.
If you subscribe to any of those premises, then everything you described will kind of flow naturally from it.
So the Cena thing is pathetic and embarrassing. But here's a devil's advocate view:
As far as we're in a rivalry with Beijing, exporting Hollywood, and entertainment in general, is as lopsided an economic deal as can be made, with all of the geopolitical benefit going to the exporter. In other words, if Cena's apology means $25M of ticket sales flow East to West, it seems like that clearly benefits the USA's position.
In most other economist relationships it's tougher to find a winner and loser, for example who benefits more from the large number of Chinese students at American Universities, China (through education) or the US (through $ spent). I don't know! But I am comfortable declaring the export of entertainment a win for the exporter. It's great to enjoy a movie, but it's not spending that supports the nation your a part of if it goes overseas.
I mean, that’s the problem. Corporations legitimately do have a ton of money on the line, so they make concessions to China. Our broader culture suffers while the benefits mostly go to a few corporations.
That’s not the end of the world in specific cases, but it actually is a slippery slope. First major celebrities and actors have to keep their mouths shut about China doing bad things, but it can easily go further than that over time, especially given how large these corporations are.
Matt’s post mentioned that newsrooms could start seeing pressure to portray China well to avoid having China punish their parent companies. That seems like an obvious concern.
It also just means media that China opposes either doesn’t get made or is harder to access.
Look at what happened with the horror video game Devotion. It was made by a Taiwanese developer and received rave reviews by critics internationally.
Someone found a placeholder file in the game that the developer forgot to remove that referenced the Xi Jinping/Winnie the Pooh meme. There was a huge backlash and the game was removed from purchase anywhere within a few days even though the placeholder was patched out.
Later, the online video game store GOG announced they were going to let it be released again on their store. But shortly after that GOG announced that they were pulling out and would not actually go through with the release.
In general I think Americans would be more relaxed about trade with the PRC if they had but an inkling of the gargantuan power of American brands (here) in China. When I moved to China in 2014, I was obviously aware that, sure, some US firms and brands did a good business in the Middle Kingdom. But I quickly found the reality was/is truly staggering. In China, no other country's brands/firms come even remotely close to the power of those based in the United States. I'll list a few that I see constantly in advertising, in malls, and on Chinese people or on Chinese plates: Nike, Disney, Coca-Cola, Microsoft, Oreo, NBA, WWE, Taylor Swift, Apple, Buick, Domino's, Jeep, Dunkin Donuts, Tesla, Levi's, Lay's, Snickers, Hershey, Dove Bar, Haagen Dasz, Caterpillar, Boeing, Dell, Colgate, Listerine, Papa John's, Tide, Dial, Marvel, DC, 3M, Star Wars. Harvard, Stanford, MIT, Yale, McDonald's, KFC, Pizza Hut, Burger King, Pepsi, M&Ms, Cheesecake Factory, Starbucks, Van's, Dickies, Wrangler, Cadillac, Bose. Etc (I could definitely go on, and there are many, many US firms that do well here - banks, consultancies, industrial goods manufacturers, etc -- that aren't consumer brands).
Steve Jobs was/is a massive hero here. So is Warren Buffett. So are Michael Jordan. Steph Curry, Lebron James and the late Kobe Bryant. (And Michael Jackson is still huge in China, too).
Anyway, this descended into a ramble, but, I think my point was: the US still (perhaps surprisingly, after four years of Trump) possesses a lot of soft power in the PRC, and considerable reserves of goodwill. It seems to me we might try using it to defend and further our interests. Xi's a brutal, arrogant, dictator, but he's not all-powerful, and he's certainly not omniscient or mistake-free. Neither is his party.
Yes, though if you're of the view that the business of Hollywood is the production of culture, not just entertainment, it's a little less lopsided if our culture industry is making content tailored to the values of somewhere else. You can almost start to see why the French got so upset about American movies in the post-WW2 period.
Aside from whether trade is as zero-sum as you suggest, the larger issue is that when it comes to cultural exchange, economic considerations are not the only ones. I live in LA, so presumably I get some benefit from the extra tax revenue pulled in by these entertainment companies, but if the price is an increasingly unwatchable slate of popular films I don’t think I like that deal.
I hope I didn't suggest that trade is zero sum. But I think there's varying benefits to both side, and within specific realms. I don't dispute the entertainment costs and benefits and that there are individual winners and losers. I agree with you on that. It's just that within the national rivalry sphere I wonder if there's more benefit to propping up that specific trade (movies for $s) than is given credit for. It's not something I even have a set opinion on, just think it's worth thinking about
I wonder if the Chinese will think of the obvious expedient of sending not an ambassador but an immigrant. A Chinese Rupert Murdoch if you will. Who once they have obtained American citizenship and with adequate funding can set up or buy their own network to advance Chinese government interests.
100% agree that something needs to be done on this, but I'm not sure why breaking up media companies really helps. Even if you have smaller firms, many of them will still have interests in selling media products in multiple markets, and we are back to square one.
If we need these companies to not be dependent on Chinese pressure, isn't the solution to actually take some action against that directly. Outright ban exporting movies to the PRC, or selling sports rights there?
I'm not crazy about the "free markets to democratization" thesis, but my not that polished take is that China is such a huge society that it's still too early to be able to judge if it actually failed or succeeded in China. People seem pressed to provide a verdict more because of recent Chinese assertive behavior.
I think it's normal for domestic issues like policing to have far more salience to NBA players than a pro-democracy movement in Asia.
If you're LeBron, is money a bigger factor in determining where you stand on the latter than it would be for the former? Sure, but if you squint then the fact that it hasn't always been that way is some measure of progress - Jordan infamously said "Republicans buy shoes too".
If celebrities are going to weigh in on any political topic, it’s only natural that there will be an expectation for them to be intellectually consistent to avoid bad faith attacks from people like Howley.
What I don’t understand is why that same standard wouldn’t apply to politicians.
There was incident like this in the "Virtual Youtuber" community last year. One of the biggest Vtubers, Kiryu Coco, is Japanese-American and speaks a mix of Japanese and English in her streams. Last year, she happened to show an image that included a Taiwanese flag (among many others), just to brag about how much money she was getting from various places.
That's... it. That's all it took. She didn't even mention the word "Taiwan". But it created this firestorm of Chinese nationalists trolling her everywhere, and demanding that her company fire her. I don't think they were bots or a government effort, it's just that China has so many of these weird crazy people on the internet looking to fight about the Taiwan issue that they can completely shut down your social media if they take notice of you.
In this case, the company actually did the right thing. They stood up for her, developed some better anti-spam technology, and eventually ended their China division all together. Then they created an English-language division. We won! But the trolls are still very active in attacking her.
I think it speaks to a sort of "eternal September" regarding China. Most of China isn't at all used to the western internet, and they don't speak much English. The same is even more true of us, regarding China. So things that seem really trivial to one side become this mortal issue to the other. I'm hopeful that it will actually get better over time, as we get to know one another better and their economy becomes more mature.
I always wish people in media would refer to him as “then-Speaker and later-imprisoned-serial-child-molester Dennis Hastert” and they never do.
While I completely agree with the main idea in this post, there are a few details that aren't quite right.
1. The idea that Apple is a privacy-focused company is a very recent invention. They've leaned heavily on this in recent years to rehabilitate their reputation after the iCloud leak scandal (which, despite what news outlets or even courtrooms might claim, was mainly facilitated by social engineering, with a side of phishing; the Apple help desk would give account passwords to anyone possessing basic info like birthdays, credit card numbers, etc.). In general, Apple has spent most of its lifetime practicing "security by obscurity", which is not an effective way to protect users' privacy.
2. While I would agree that a lot of opposition to e.g. NAFTA comes from protectionism and anti-free-trade sentiment, the same is not true for all trade deals. In particular, TPP would have enshrined an extra-legal framework of extremely damaging IP protectionism, with little other justification. Those who believe in IP protectionism often worry that China is stealing American IP, but since China was not part of TPP, that's an irrelevant argument.
When you seek to influence the behavior of another country, engagement vs. isolation is always a judgement call. I think in this case engagement was the right call. The world's largest, purest experiment in communism, socialism or whatever you want to call it had failed so miserably that even the diehard "commies" who had marched with Chairman Mao saw that they had to try something different. This was a good opportunity for "engagement".
In the long run (ok, maybe VERY long run), I think there is hope for democracy and human rights in China. A market economy nurtures a culture of people making their own decisions, thinking for themselves instead of blindly following a Dear Leader.
When it comes to relations between countries and who will have more influence on who, a good rule of thumb is probably that most of the time the dog wags the tail, not the other way around. So we should be very open and engaged with smaller countries we'd like to influence (eg Cuba) and more cautious about engagement with countries that are bigger than us, such as China - in that relationship, we're more likely to end up as the tail if we're not careful.
It looks like unless something major happens that changes the trajectory of economic growth, eventually, China would beat the U.S. at our own game. It's kind of a race then to see who collapses from internal divisions first. That, or someone figures out how to change the game.
Unfortunately for most of what passes for the free world, the U.S. is currently in no condition to change the game on account of being nearly paralyzed by those internal divisions.
OT, but I had leftover stir fry from earlier this week, and some tortillas, so now I'm having stir fry tacos for lunch.
What China is doing to cause corporations to self-censor is very bad. It's also bad when the woke (and "anti-woke") mobs cause organizations to do bad things like firing Emily Wilder, David Shor, and the editor of Teen Vogue. There's way too much self-censorship going on.
Granted, China is far worse for obvious reasons -- the whole Hong Kong, Uigher, etc thing. But wherever it comes from it's bad.
One thing I think may work in our favor, even if not in the short term, is that China may be very bad at playing this game, and overplay its hand. Imagine if they take great offense at some ABC News story and demand Disney retract it, or see all Disney operations in China be halted. I could imagine in that situation that Disney balks, maybe due to counter-pressure from its workforce, and just refuses. I can then imagine China caving. I'm not saying China would be viewed as a paper tiger, but the fear corporations currently feel would be greatly reduced. This game will take a long time to play out, with the outcome by no means certain.
That said, the idea of congressional hearings is great.
China has been extremely receptive to America's principal ideological export, capitalism. Why anyone imagined this wasn't part of capitalism is a mystery to me. Using market power to shape public discourse is a time honored American tradition. I have to say the idea that this values thing is diodic is odd. If American values weren't spreading in China the government wouldn't be going to such lengths to suppress it. What can you do about it? Essentially nothing. Except maybe not pushing issues that the PRC can use to unify public sentiment behind the government. Oh wait...you can't do that either.
Your paragraph clarifying that you don’t want a war (shooting or cold) with China reminds me of a frustrating tendency on the Left to take any criticism of China as “oh the US is trying to manufacture consent for a war.” Freddie DeBoer actually had a post where he said “your government is laying the groundwork for an actual war with China.” It’s depressing for a few reasons: it suggests that the Left has lost its former capacity for internationalism (with the exception of Palestine, I guess), and it suggests that either we’ve greatly over-learned the lesson of Iraq (now *that* was a government laying a groundwork for war; the China thing looks nothing like it), or that those who got Iraq right did so out of pure dumb luck, and their vindication on that point prevents them from learning to make distinctions.
I think a fair number of people on the US left believe one of the following: (1) As a US citizen you must and may oppose only America's sins and possibly those of its allies, but other countries' bad acts are the business only of the people who live there and it's wrong to stick your nose in their business. (2) Even though other countries do many bad things, the main problem with the world is that the US is too powerful, causing it to be the main source of harm in the world, and thus the overriding priority of all world citizens should be to form a united front against it, and to set aside any differences with any other country. (3) The US is, in fact, the world's most evil country and the overriding priority of all world citizens should be to form a united front against it, and to set aside any differences with any other country.
If you subscribe to any of those premises, then everything you described will kind of flow naturally from it.
So the Cena thing is pathetic and embarrassing. But here's a devil's advocate view:
As far as we're in a rivalry with Beijing, exporting Hollywood, and entertainment in general, is as lopsided an economic deal as can be made, with all of the geopolitical benefit going to the exporter. In other words, if Cena's apology means $25M of ticket sales flow East to West, it seems like that clearly benefits the USA's position.
In most other economist relationships it's tougher to find a winner and loser, for example who benefits more from the large number of Chinese students at American Universities, China (through education) or the US (through $ spent). I don't know! But I am comfortable declaring the export of entertainment a win for the exporter. It's great to enjoy a movie, but it's not spending that supports the nation your a part of if it goes overseas.
I mean, that’s the problem. Corporations legitimately do have a ton of money on the line, so they make concessions to China. Our broader culture suffers while the benefits mostly go to a few corporations.
That’s not the end of the world in specific cases, but it actually is a slippery slope. First major celebrities and actors have to keep their mouths shut about China doing bad things, but it can easily go further than that over time, especially given how large these corporations are.
Matt’s post mentioned that newsrooms could start seeing pressure to portray China well to avoid having China punish their parent companies. That seems like an obvious concern.
It also just means media that China opposes either doesn’t get made or is harder to access.
Look at what happened with the horror video game Devotion. It was made by a Taiwanese developer and received rave reviews by critics internationally.
Someone found a placeholder file in the game that the developer forgot to remove that referenced the Xi Jinping/Winnie the Pooh meme. There was a huge backlash and the game was removed from purchase anywhere within a few days even though the placeholder was patched out.
Later, the online video game store GOG announced they were going to let it be released again on their store. But shortly after that GOG announced that they were pulling out and would not actually go through with the release.
In general I think Americans would be more relaxed about trade with the PRC if they had but an inkling of the gargantuan power of American brands (here) in China. When I moved to China in 2014, I was obviously aware that, sure, some US firms and brands did a good business in the Middle Kingdom. But I quickly found the reality was/is truly staggering. In China, no other country's brands/firms come even remotely close to the power of those based in the United States. I'll list a few that I see constantly in advertising, in malls, and on Chinese people or on Chinese plates: Nike, Disney, Coca-Cola, Microsoft, Oreo, NBA, WWE, Taylor Swift, Apple, Buick, Domino's, Jeep, Dunkin Donuts, Tesla, Levi's, Lay's, Snickers, Hershey, Dove Bar, Haagen Dasz, Caterpillar, Boeing, Dell, Colgate, Listerine, Papa John's, Tide, Dial, Marvel, DC, 3M, Star Wars. Harvard, Stanford, MIT, Yale, McDonald's, KFC, Pizza Hut, Burger King, Pepsi, M&Ms, Cheesecake Factory, Starbucks, Van's, Dickies, Wrangler, Cadillac, Bose. Etc (I could definitely go on, and there are many, many US firms that do well here - banks, consultancies, industrial goods manufacturers, etc -- that aren't consumer brands).
Steve Jobs was/is a massive hero here. So is Warren Buffett. So are Michael Jordan. Steph Curry, Lebron James and the late Kobe Bryant. (And Michael Jackson is still huge in China, too).
Anyway, this descended into a ramble, but, I think my point was: the US still (perhaps surprisingly, after four years of Trump) possesses a lot of soft power in the PRC, and considerable reserves of goodwill. It seems to me we might try using it to defend and further our interests. Xi's a brutal, arrogant, dictator, but he's not all-powerful, and he's certainly not omniscient or mistake-free. Neither is his party.
Yes, though if you're of the view that the business of Hollywood is the production of culture, not just entertainment, it's a little less lopsided if our culture industry is making content tailored to the values of somewhere else. You can almost start to see why the French got so upset about American movies in the post-WW2 period.
Aside from whether trade is as zero-sum as you suggest, the larger issue is that when it comes to cultural exchange, economic considerations are not the only ones. I live in LA, so presumably I get some benefit from the extra tax revenue pulled in by these entertainment companies, but if the price is an increasingly unwatchable slate of popular films I don’t think I like that deal.
I hope I didn't suggest that trade is zero sum. But I think there's varying benefits to both side, and within specific realms. I don't dispute the entertainment costs and benefits and that there are individual winners and losers. I agree with you on that. It's just that within the national rivalry sphere I wonder if there's more benefit to propping up that specific trade (movies for $s) than is given credit for. It's not something I even have a set opinion on, just think it's worth thinking about
I agree the government needs to step in to change the rules of the game. Stopping foreign censorship isn’t going to be easy, but it is neccesary.
I really like the idea of splitting the conglomerates up to separate the companies with chinese markets from key institutions like the news.
I wonder if the Chinese will think of the obvious expedient of sending not an ambassador but an immigrant. A Chinese Rupert Murdoch if you will. Who once they have obtained American citizenship and with adequate funding can set up or buy their own network to advance Chinese government interests.
100% agree that something needs to be done on this, but I'm not sure why breaking up media companies really helps. Even if you have smaller firms, many of them will still have interests in selling media products in multiple markets, and we are back to square one.
If we need these companies to not be dependent on Chinese pressure, isn't the solution to actually take some action against that directly. Outright ban exporting movies to the PRC, or selling sports rights there?
You're a little late to be worrying about foreign influence on American news. China? Pshaw. How about those Australians?
Even to people living on the island of Taiwan, Taiwan is not a country. The Republic of China is a country, and it includes the the mainland!
Depends a bit on who you ask. There are people who are pro-independence.
I'm not crazy about the "free markets to democratization" thesis, but my not that polished take is that China is such a huge society that it's still too early to be able to judge if it actually failed or succeeded in China. People seem pressed to provide a verdict more because of recent Chinese assertive behavior.
I think it's normal for domestic issues like policing to have far more salience to NBA players than a pro-democracy movement in Asia.
If you're LeBron, is money a bigger factor in determining where you stand on the latter than it would be for the former? Sure, but if you squint then the fact that it hasn't always been that way is some measure of progress - Jordan infamously said "Republicans buy shoes too".
If celebrities are going to weigh in on any political topic, it’s only natural that there will be an expectation for them to be intellectually consistent to avoid bad faith attacks from people like Howley.
What I don’t understand is why that same standard wouldn’t apply to politicians.