
Why is China so Uncool? (2017) - baylearn
https://foreignpolicy.com/2017/03/08/why-is-china-so-uncool-soft-power-beijing-censorship-generation-gap/
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smacktoward
It’s just hard to imagine a society with a culture bubbling over with
creativity that can simultaneously accomplish feats of thought control like
making the massacre at Tiananmen Square disappear down the memory hole.
Anything you do to encourage the one aspect ends up discouraging the other
one.

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coldtea
> _There’s been much talk in recent weeks about China’s potential role as
> world leader, during a time when Trump’s America is erecting walls. China
> has nearly all the characteristics to lead effectively, with its willingness
> to engage in global trade and its promises to fight climate change, all
> backed by its economic and military gravitas. Despite all this, China still
> isn’t beloved abroad, at least not to the extent that America is. China’s
> music, movies, and fashions are relatively unpopular. Put another way, China
> is not seen as cool; its pop culture and pop stars lack global swagger. The
> question is why, and whether that matters._

First, when we say "soft power" to the "world", by "world" we often mean "the
US/Europe". As for Africa and Latin America, most of the countries in these
places were for long European colonies, and so, inspired and conditioned into
a mix of indigenous and western culture. But there are billions of people in
Asia, in countries that are not China, who do look up to some degree to China
(and historically, even more so), and which we don't even count.

Second, the eastern cultures and western cultures had not really much of an
exchange between them, and and different priorities, lifestyles,
sensibilities, and heroes for millennia. So there's a gap there, that doesn't
exist between the US and Europe or Latin America for example, and makes
transmission more difficult.

Third, it's usually the richer (in money) country that gets to enjoy the soft
power. China might be coming close in GDP, but that doesn't make it as rich,
because the per capita is still lower, and a population three times the US are
still poor. Japan itself didn't get to enjoy its influence in soft power
(gadgets, anime, manga, street fashion, food, etc) until it got economically
strong in the late 70s and 80s, to the point of US media always fearing about
the Japanese buying companies etc.

[1] With Japan it's a little different, because Japan itself got obsessed with
certain western ways and fashions and incorporated them into their output - so
people in the west e.g. consume Anime (an art form itself west inspired, in
fact whose technology and first works originated in the west (animation) -,
not so much traditional Japanese culture and its modern developments.
Kurosawa, for example, which somehow made it to the west, is still heavily
inspired by western cinema. Mizoguchi, which was far less, is ignored. Even
someone like Murakami might as well have been born in Boston, as far as his
work is concerned. Food of course, whether Japanese or Chinese, is more easily
shared.

