Tik tok has been trying to distance itself from China due to US government breathing down it's neck and genshin is just an extension of anime but owned by Chinese. They do spread some Chinese culture sometimes though.
Genshin maybe, but it's hard to think of something more relevant in internet culture for its association with China than TikTok, especially given how discussed it's been since the US government started targeting it.
China has a huge cultural potential, if only their government let it shine, I just read the Three Body Problem trilogy and I'm still baffled that this book series made it out of China intact and had success in its home turf too. It's one of the best book sci-fi book series of this generation.
What I find fascinating is how the Chinese government decided to "strongly discourage" the airing of danmei-adapted dramas and donghuas just as The Untamed had become an international phenomenon. Instead of embracing that momentum and fostering it, they intentionally slammed the breaks. This would be like the government of Korea banning K-pop in 2012, just as it was really starting to be noticed in the West. Basically, they want soft power, but they also want to dictate the terms of that soft power (largely for reasons of domestic policy). But it just doesn't work like that. They smothered the spark in its infancy, and there's no telling when or if it will ever catch again.
Yeah, I really got into The Untamed and into Danmei and Wuxia novels through that. And shortly after the Chinese government tightened its grip on media like that and many of the novels I liked got banned from their platforms.
That's sadly very true... I'm still mourning over the fact that the actors of untamed cannot interact with each other anymore due to the government policies... 😭😭😭😭
The truth is that China culture industry is always in a messy. On the one hand, Chinese censorship is often considered too strict. And in the past 20 years, it got more stricter because government finally have time and space to focus on these things. In the early 10s, you can easily find many illegal things on Chinese internet, so does some books strongly-against government, literary and artistic works were more willing to talk about politics. But after these things got more industrialized, they behave worse and started to produce massive similar junks which doesn't have too much meanings but just for fun. They avoid to mention politics, aggressive opinions, blood, dark stories, because censorship is too sensitive. They need to consider if it can deliver a "optimistic opinion", "could it make children grows more violent", "would it have negative social influence". Censorship is kind of overprotective， which is also disliked by Chinese. The censorship allows the work to talk about serious things but it considered more. Its purpose is not letting people stop talking about anything serious but since it is easier for industries to pass it and make money, it indirectly made donghua more under-age and more like a big advertisement for toys. On the other hand, the communists do changed a lot of old negative stuff in ideology and cultural field in the last century, but many Chinese, especially the last generation, may still hold some obsolete opinions and values. The wouldn't like danmei, they would worry if their kids would become gays, who could not live a normal life, got married and have some grandson or granddaughter in the future. These parents thinks donghua are just for kids, they are just for fun, so it have negative influence on kids' study, it is harmful. So once something passed the censorship, it has to pass parents' check, or they may got public tip-offs from these parents (or competitors who pretend to be parents). And once it is noticed by the government, be classified as something has negative social influence, it is gone. Actually since 2006, the government always have a support policy to donghua industry. But it only creates massive studios living on swindling subsidies that creates nothing but shit videos which looks like it is made by graduates. And the industrialization of culture industry is another disaster process which is still continuing. Most companies just want to make money quickly, don't care what shit they made. And they don't even dare to try something new, which made the whole culture industry are full of useless junk with similar topic, plots and even characters.
You need to understand that a BIG part of the historical heritage was straight up destroyed when CCP assumed; the very lil that survived is simultaneously what foreigners want to see and what they do not want to broadcast. The “preserve traditional practices” is a fairly recent movement and will take time to we see the results.
I know I'm not adding anything here, but it really is such a baffling move. They did something similar in 2018 with Yanxi Palace. Yanxi and Untamed were actually getting positive press in the western media, which is UNHEARD of for a Chinese series. It's baffling to me that Communist Party can be so BAD at the soft power game.
It's also hard to connect socially via the internet with people in China. They can't legally access a lot of the sites we use, including TH-cam, so maybe they're also just not sharing a lot of their stuff with us either. It's really hard to do cultural exchange this way.
Yeah, this is why I'm glad I was born in Canada. (I'm Chinese by blood) I totally agree with the exchange of culture point; it's hard to see a country's culture when censorship is literally in every piece of media from that country.
@thetreekeeper143 Okay, I looked it up, and you're right. It's not illegal to watch it, but it is censored and blocked, making it less accessible to most people in China. I suppose it's not the same, but functionally, I do think having big online cultural hubs like that separated from the rest of the world does hurt cultural exchange. I have students in China, and I can't send them videos or articles a lot of times that I think they'd like because they can't access the site. I can access BiliBili if they want to show me something, though.
As a Chinese, I can tell you that most Chinese people are not interested in foreign Internet. First of all, most Chinese people don't speak English well. Secondly, foreign culture is no longer attractive to the Chinese, and the Chinese have even lost patience and confidence in American culture. Secondly, many Chinese people can access foreign social platforms, but they are too lazy to discuss political topics, because most Chinese people love their country, are confident in their history and culture, and are proud of it. Third, the Chinese know that what is happening in the world is that there are a lot of Chinese people moving content from the "foreign Internet" to Chinese social platforms, but in general, cultures outside of China are not attractive to the Chinese
As a massive Wuxia and Xianxia novels fan, i'm glad you mentioned the novels space. Chinese novels are probably the biggest powerhouse when it comes to internet novels. And as someone who has red a unhealthy amount of them i can tell you that it serves as soft power rather well. And surprisingly can get away with certain amounts of speech freedom, although not too much. (It could be translators just leaving it out). And in general i think that the mythical stories and tales of China have so much potential which unfortunately is not shown to the west in the capacity it should be shown in my opinion.
Yes! Recently got into Wuxia and also am a big fan of Chinese sci-fi (the Three-Body Problem specifically). It's sad that they're not known at all where I live. I think seperating the chinese Internet from the rest of the world has really delayed some really great stories and worlds from being appreciated sooner and influencing other countries. The same way for some western modern genres, like Wild West cowboy movies, were spread even more by being reflected in some japanese animes for example
They censor lots of bl novels (danmei) though. Also if I'm not wrong, My Iyashikei Game was supposed to be a full-on horror type of novel rather than the VR-horror kinds if there's no censorship
They censor many things (like below the neck etc.). They also have this sort of 'China is the best why other country copy us etc. sentiments' hahaha (I feel like it may be to increase social credit??) but say other than those I am really a big reader of Chinese light novels ranging from romance to danmei to mystery anything. Unlike japanese and korean their availability and accessibility on the internet is massive (and much easier to google translate). I think because they have a large population many people also have big brains and imagination. I really hope their literature industry will prosper more and more.
censorship is ruining the art though. also there's too many dramas and arts telling the same story it's getting really stale. It's not like China lacks creative powerhouses, e.g. Liu Cixin, they are just suppressed into mundanity and mediocrity.
Personally I haven't read many web novels (only two that had adaptations as web "comics"). And in comparison to that, I've read quite a few manhua (CH), manhwa (KO), and manga (JP). It really feels like the chinese stories are way too often some kind of variation of the cultivation genre where women don't play an active role and are relegated to eye-candy (which are then censored making it even worse lol). Not really my cup of tea... The translations also seem to be of worse quality. In comparison, manga have way more detailed story lines and variations, while most of them are not using color (which is sad). They're also incredibly "wordy" and have more text than picture sometimes. Manhwa on the other hand are colored and more succinct (though probably because colored drawing takes more effort, there's a few reused assets which I haven't noticed yet in manga). I just can't read chinese manhua... they got stale and off-putting way too fast. It's funny how you can immediately tell from which country the web comic is produced.
I've been complaining about this for a while now, and you make very good points. Growing up as a Chinese-American, being able to speak Mandarin was never "cool". People flocked to learning Korean and Japanese, because it enables them to watch their favorite Kpop videos or Kdramas without subtitles, or watch anime and import Japanese video games without needing to wait for them to be translated. The Chinese language never commanded such cultural respect among younger generations. When people wanted to learn Chinese, it was mostly for business-related reasons. Everyone knows Chinese food and kung-fu, but these things never really drove people to learn the language or visit the country with the same passion as they do for Korean or Japanese. I remember that whenever I visit Taiwan, all the music that you hear playing in restaurants, coffee shops, and stores would either be Japanese or Korean music. Never heard Chinese music. Japan has weeaboos and Korea has koreaboos, these are well-known. But why doesn't China have any equivalents? To be honest, I was a bit salty about this growing up. Why are Japanese and Korean the cool languages to know, and nobody pursues learning Chinese? I was jealous because being able to speak Korean or Japanese was seen as "cool", while Chinese to them was "just another language". Genshin Impact was a HUGE cultural export out of China from recent years, but even it can't be completely attributed to Chinese soft power. They lean heavily into the Japanese anime aesthetics, and they even feature Japanese voice acting. A lot of gamers still don't even realize that Genshin Impact is Chinese, since they promoted the Japanese voice tracks heavily and got some A-list Japanese voice actors. A lot of players still use the Japanese voice tracks, despite the Mandarin voice track being the original artists' intention. So while yes, it is a Chinese game, it still had to ultimately rely a LOT on the soft power of Japan to achieve its success. In a way, you could say that it's not even spreading Chinese cultural power, it's spreading Japanese cultural power.
It was a shock to me when I learned Genshin was from Shanghai. Hate to admit it, but all the Chinese content I consumed prior really didn’t wow me. I’ve been fascinated with China for most of my life, but most of what I learned about China was from my studies and seeing firsthand.
@@Acrnavy That's exactly that I mean. A lot of people don't know that Genshin is a Chinese game, because it relies so heavily on Japanese aesthetics and traits. Japan has anime, manga, and video games that captivated the entire world. Korea has Kpop and Kdramas. I know that we generally like to make fun of weeaboos and Koreaboos, but sometimes I wish that Chinese had an equivalent, if only to demonstrate how much cultural power they have.
Growing up, I always loved Kpop, and I remember getting really into c-pop and c-dramas. Looking back now, I realize how many were actually just Taiwan and Hong Kong, rather than mainland China
When Google banned China from accessing its service, China lost the most popular way to export information, culture, media etc. Things can come in, but nothing goes out. From then on what is happening to China is mostly covered by the media, which can be censored and altered themselves.
Because mainland Chinese entertainment industry start quite late, around 2006-2010,from there, it truly start. Prior to that, there is only some singer or celebrity/drama, and mostly depandant on cooperation between mainland, HK and Taiwan, not as well build industry as it is now. Before that, the singer and more mostly just singing in bar or stage, no really TV show or variety show to attend, such as Zhang Chu, Liang Long, Dou Wei and more... Before this, everyone from mainland that really want to be a celebrity, they go to HK. For example, Faye Wang. And a lot more are born in China and go HK since young such as Raymond Lam, Michael Miu and more.
@@TheExtraterrestrial99 China has had its own massive entertainment industry for a long time. The problem is that a lot of it was either such obvious propaganda, so that it's just too cringe. Or it was really low quality imitation of what's popular in HongKong, so... who would want that if they can choose the original Hong Kong version? China always had a rich pool of talented singer, actors, writers, etc. The production being government-directed was what kept it down.
@@TheExtraterrestrial99 You can look at Russia's current entertainment industry and media, and compare it to how it was 2 years ago. It's night-and-day difference. Sometimes it's the same exact artists, but now they're semi-forced to make these extreme cringe and obvious-sell-out and it just feels souless. It's the same thing with China back in the days.
I spent a month in Hong Kong and posted a lot about my positive experiences there. What I remember was friends in the United States (where I'm from) being quite surprised and saying they had not really ever wanted to go there and my posts were changing their mind. I have definitely noticed what you are saying from talking to people about China.
China is an amazing country. Tgey are the onlj country to pull 800 million ppl out of poverty. The infrastructure public transportation system is the best in tge world on top of it being extremely safe clean convenient amazing cuisine with so much sights and activities. The western media always pumps out lies and disinformation about china bc they are threat to the emprerial west. On the other hand china doesn't involve in smear campaign propaganda like the west and are busy building a better quality of life for it's citizens.
I dropped my jaw when you mentioned this is only your second video, it popped up on my homepage and I thought this had to be a long-established essay channel because of how natural and captivating you are and how your arguments flow well. Keep on with such work, and thank you!
The moment she said the word “CCP“ I know she is about to say a bunch of Anti China Propaganda the actual word is “Communist Party of China “ and it should be “CPC” but Western Media like to call it “CCP” that way just for easily impressive people that are ready to listen to whatever anyone says on the Internet . China’s Orwellian Social Score Credit System doesn’t produce an actual score or assessment, it’s just a Rating system which is common everywhere in the World including in the US . To see wether what you are selling is clean or not, to spot fraud or public offence, it also includes pollution, and so on. Stop lying and stop the lies.
@@MelisaenHongKong you wrote a lot of words to say something completely useless. It takes one episode of one Chinese drama or webtoon to realise how heavily propaganda influences them. That’s absolutely natural and it’s easy to spot because we in the West have propaganda as well. I’m a communist, I think it’s important to be realistic though. I suggest you adopt a more pleasant approach because you are going to persuade people of the exact opposite just because of how arrogant and obnoxious you are. Bye.
I don't think he sees that as a problem. China will undoubtedly be the first world power. In addition, the Chinese influence already exists in certain areas of pop culture. In particular the company Tencent which bought several big video game companies like riot game. If it's really an image problem and the other Asian nations are beginning to overshadow the Chinese giant, he would just have to print money and buy back part of this market.
@@brazzif6285 china will never have soft power of their own as long as notorious ccp still at top.china have very bad images internationally so with bad images there will sure no soft power bcs a country will have soft power when international people love that country
😊:)As a Chinese high school student,I watched this video completely then I started to reflect on our soft-power that I have to say I’m totally agree ur perspective ,I mean probably the older generation didn’t aware of the significance of culture spreading but the youth in China literally impressed by Korean and Japanese impact on the soft power.However,the main problem is the internet banned in China that despite the innovation in soft power in youth couldn’t get rid of the policy that’s literally bad
I’m a long-time cdrama watcher but I think in recent years the quality of dramas coming from Mainland China has steadily declined due to excessive censorship and forced patriotic and “positive” motifs shoehorned in the plot. The whole industry is also so corrupted and manipulated by capitals that it feels like there’s no room anymore for real talent and interesting stories. Dramas and all that comes with them (fandom, music, sponsorships) could be one of China’s main soft power weapons but their volatility and precariousness prevents that. When actors get “canceled” and dramas get pulled off the platforms every day, often for no reason, foreign viewers will turn to more stable sources of entertainment (like I’ve turned to kdramas instead).
@@joelgarcia3354 For BL adaptations, I recommend The Untamed, Winter Begonia and my favorite one Word of Honor (which was subject to said cancellation but is still available on international sites). Police/thriller: Reset, The Bad Kids, Someday or One Day (from Taiwan) Historical/palace: Nirvana in Fire (both 1 and 2), Ode to Joy (this is also a bit sci-fi), Scarlet Heart, Story of Yanxi Palace Other genres: Hikaru no Go (a manga adaptation), Cross Fire (about gaming) There are also a lot of BL adaptations that have been filmed in the last couple of years but will probably never see the light at this point... which is sad because I was really looking forward to some of them like Mo Du or Chasing the Light
Couldn’t agree more. Since Xi got into power the censorship has gotten 100 times worse. As have the state-sponsored internet brutality by Pinkies (小粉红or ccp supporters). The red line is so thin and most importantly very vague and ambiguous. For example, a very good video uploader channel called PaperClip 回形针got cancelled because it did not include Taiwan in the map of China in one of their vids and one of their employees had allegedly ties to foreign capitals. Or 王志安 Zhian Wang, used to be one of china’s largest independent Journalists with 100 million views on each videos, got banned randomly one day without any reasons or justification. (Btw he is on youtube so have a look) So for chinese like myself who know exactly the reason why China is in the current shitshow, it’s quite laughable to see this kinda video discussing china like some normal country. How come nobody talk about softpower for North Korea or Saudi Arabia? Well those are the exact countries China is heading now since Xi just got his third term. 海外中国人求求你别海外爱国了，回去建设祖国，享受全过程民主，动态清零静态封控多好
True about forced patriotism. Can you believe a drama about how a teen wants to win a ping pong world championship and liking a girl, became a plot for war and survival? Turned me off to continue the show... Edit: If anyone's wondering what the name is, it's called 《夺金》
Kpop and Anime are super influential here in the US. I work at a fast food chain right now and every 10th drive thru guest has an anime shirt on and hearing Kpop music on the radio isn't too uncommon anymore.
An added point, Chinese danmei and period costume dramas are holding the down the fort in the popular cultural exports arena. The associated Western fandom may not be as big as kpop or anime, but it's still sizeable and has a large space to grow. Except that China just recently banned their live action BL dramas, and heavily curtailed period dramas to focus more on propaganda shows. So like, on one hand they're whining about the lack of their cultural influence, on the other, they are literally shutting down the areas that foreigners like.
LITERALLY if china exploited the bl/danmei genre just IMAGINE the success. The Untamed already proves how lucrative the market is, but the government's just too homophobic to care.
@@danielzhou2972 Oh yeah, China has the distinct advantage of being able to produce period dramas at a much higher quality than its neighbours, intersect that with a long winding BL plot of magic and monsters and the West gobbles it up. But no, the CCP is to stubborn to capitalize on it.
Hong Kong's soft power(films and stuff) pretty much disappeared after the 90s. Most of the talents moved to mainland to develop the market. There wasn't much left after that for China to make use of.
That doesn't make sense, Taiwan’s soft power has not been as dominant as before in Asia since 2008. So I think the decline of Hong Kong's soft power is about the market scale and regional economics, but not the political situation.
The HK film scene basically died with the end of British rule. The lack of appeal of modern China was a net drop to what soft power HK had globally, as its media turned towards catering to the market of its new ownership.
i agree as a hongkonger i was proud when i saw bruce lee or martial art references and the portrayal of hk as a huge economic powerhouse in western films. even tho a lotta times it shows the rough, crime ridden but neon light filled streets it still puts the city out on the map and entices people on how HK is cool and worth visiting in its own way
Li Ziqi is an interesting case to me -she was kind of the bastion of Chinese soft power on TH-cam, and succeeded because her content was so divorced from modern Chinese life, a traditional fantasy...she managed to walk that line by simultaneously promoting traditional/traditional ways of life while still being creative and visually appealing. She was selling that fantasy equally to Western and Chinese audiences.
Sadly she is under dispute with her agency/company. I love liziqi too but she portrays a romanticised version of farm work and the rural areas. Nevertheless, her vids r still beautiful and great at advocating chinese culture, esp in terms of cuisine and craftwork ☺
@@hardcoreemomusicgurl idk why everytime theres chinese soft power begin very popular theres always problem , another example chinese drama wuxia boylover like the untamed its very very popular with very good rating in the world this should be new chinese soft power ,but then stupid CCP ban BL content and the result chinese drama getting worst ,CCP k1lling chinese creativity tbh they bunch of old man dont understand what the world want , if they smart openminded the world would respect it ,but they choose to be hated
I remember my Chinese friend telling me about this one c - drama that's supposed to be about gaming and e - sports. Problem is it's made around the time China started restricting gaming so they couldn't go through with making it around that theme. What they ended up doing is editing it in post to make it about... Internet safety. Which leads to apparently a scene where the character's parents argued to them that "there's no future in internet safety industry", which makes much less sense but also much more hilarious.
China has been ruining their image for centuries. It's too late now. The world hates China and will continue to do so. That will never change and China can only blame themselves. I have never seen a Chinese study hard in school and are usually the rudest/loudest kids in class and out in public. Koreans and Japanese are confident for a reason, China is arrogant for no reason. Just stating facts.
is it the king's game? Like I read that novel in all of it the heard there was gonna be anime about it however it I never heard about it anymore. Is it that?
I'm genuinely surprised this is your first video. The arguments are solid and the presentation on the topic is captivating to say the least, and I love the fact that you put the time to list out all the sources in the description. Definitely a great find, looking forward to more videos!
The editing is solid too and she has a good microphone. Having a singular banger video with a unique topic is defo rare on TH-cam. I'm subscribing to see more vids like these.
@@gordonliu3972 she has maybe 6 videos on tiktok. So even outside of TH-cam, almost no content. This is a great start. She will have to find a better background, better lighting and could improve the mic but this is much better for first video than most others who became YT hits.
It's interesting, this topic isn't very mainstream despite many east Asians noticing the clear soft power discrepancy between China, Japan, and South Korea. I'm Japanese, and it's definitely extremely noticeable how differently I was treated and perceived by westerners, compared to my Chinese American schoolmates and friends. Genshin was a good example of skewed perception; despite being Chinese made, developed and distributed, it is perceived from a Japanese viewpoint by many in the west, perhaps due to the art style, and with a lot of players using Japanese voice over. It's truly a shame, I think Chinese culture itself is so rich and historically deep, yet China is generally perceived as "anti western" due to the CCP.
I often hear Westerners say "omg Taiwan is the REAL CHINA"... Meanwhile, none of them listen to Taiwanese music, none of them take up learning traditional Chinese, Taiwan is only covered in Western media if there's some kind of danger. Taiwan has preserved some (not all) aspects of traditional culture you would assume they'd gravitate towards, but that's not the case. ofc modern TW and mainland culture are different, but they have common roots.
@@UniquelyUnseen Yeah Taiwan doesn’t do any better in soft power despite being a “democracy”. In fact, I’d argue China is slightly better than Taiwan - Chinese dramas at least have some niche fanbase (still nothing compared to Korean dramas). While censorship does play a role, there’s more to it as to why China is not successful with soft power.
I'm from China and I didn't even know Genshin was Chinese due to its name. If pronounced in Chinese, it would be called YuanShen or YuenSun. But in Japanese it is indeed pronounced 'Genshin'. Had they made the name YuanShen, then I think most people would know it's a Chinese made game.
@@UniquelyUnseen i mean, it is hard to separate geopolitics. i personally like chinese culture and try to be open minded, but of japan, korea and china, the geopolitics are, two allies and one country that routinely makes threats at us. of course i dont blame the people, but it does make a difference if i'm going to invest in a culture, if i could safely go there. japana and south korea, sure no worries, China...maybe if im on good behavior and they dont read any of my post history.. effectively China is Russia.
@@UniquelyUnseen The PRC has maybe 40x as many people. If they just have equal influence that would already be a huge L. There's also no hypocrisy in thinking one's better than the other while not giving much of a damn about either.
Thank you so so much for this video. It’s been so hard being chinese but born in Europe. You want to defend China and it’s people and it’s culture but also not defend political ideologies that you don’t agree with but it’s hard to try to validate that China is not it’s CCP to all my friends and anyone I talk to in the west, and anytime I mention something positive about China that I’m passionate about it just gets shut down because the subject can not seem to be detached from it’s peoples in power :( which is truly so devastating
Hey,,I get what u r saying. U are NOT alone. Now u will get more n more ppl get mad at china. Its jealousy thing. In human psychology Jealousy is in Everyone. Just like how rest of world always had LOve/h8te towards America, they have with china too. IF China is weak or poor or actually ST*pid. Then no one cares. Just like Girl A on patio see Girl B show up. Suddently Everything about B looks annoying to her. From her “overly nice fitted LUlulemon, to pretty long eye lashes, to pointy chin. Slim thick size XS looking smoking”. --oh she must be slut, why does she dress like that outside of gym when not working out. Ewrr, i must be trying too hard. NOT realizing she had seen like so many ppl like that on d street , NOT 1 caught her attention . She will see a few more at passing by on her way home , they wont catch her attention either 5 yrs later. --d 1 she makes her put SOOO much emphasize n Analyze on, is d one made her feel inferior. I even had coworker--OUT OF BLUE RIP my EYE LASHES at work”i was joking ha ha ha, i thought u had fake one glued on.” Like I let OUT d BIGGEST most panic scream--yeah someone in MID day in restaurant in front of custermser trying to RIP my eye lashes off , to expose me in front of customers . Except my eye lashes were REAL i just happen to have Mascara on. 5-7% Chinese ppl have natrual long eye lashes, there always 2-3 ppl each class have long eye lashes. PPL have jealousy Issues will try to Expose something. MY GRANDA’s younger brother was IN control of MOST of Taiwanese army , in TAiwan during Cold WAR, and he was 金门县长 , n got absorbed into USA military in LA for 20 years as Major General. Its like “oh OKAY….but u are not from there so i still hate u.” N my cousins n my uncle n aunts. Were so rich, they immigrated to Canada by investment class- Having $1Million USD Cash in business acc n having succesful business. My cousins finished their business school after 8 yrs, went back to China Making a LOT of Money as Invesnt/security/bond senior trader in Shanghai in the late 20s. Making $100000-400000/yr before 30. My Canadian friends were MORE ANGRY that they WERE Able to make more money in China(they were Valditorians in School get scholarships in Canada ). They wont frigin care if an American or UK guy came over n went home ditch Canadian citizenship. Lol YEAH my Canadian Born, (NOT hot,but always jealous of me) gf was So upset, she started to scream at me. It was d most NONE chinese type of Disgraceful rude act. I was asked:”where are ur cousins” n I just answered her questions . K d more angry ppl are , they more jealous they are. My rule of thumb --dont pick a battle that u cant win. Ppl who are hidden racist will UNLOAD their biased anger on u. So avoid political opinion at all time. Its like Democrats cant convert Donald Trumps army. If u remain humble, n actually be kinds, slowly ppl open up n given more thoughts towards CCP. :) cuz I am my own charactor. even if someone RIP my eye lashes in front customers, in mid summer day near Biggst University in Canada. I am not going to be sour at it. She was being Jealous .
You dont agree with marxism? So you dont like freedom, liberty, equality or worker's rights? You mean the ideology that seeks to free humanity from the chains of capitalism? You dont have to defend the chinese government, but there is nothing wrong with the ideology that it is based on.
@@DonHaka No country has absolute freedom, such as the internet. Why is China's internet not open? Because people's cognitive level is generally low, if you know about Phone fraud in northern Myanmar,You know many Chinese people are deceived by a simple lie, imprisoned, and forced to do fraudulent work there.Knowing how to use VPN to access the internet is at least not too foolish, as it is a screening mechanism that prevents people with low cognitive levels from using software such as ytb and being manipulated by the navy.
As someone who is Chinese born Canadian. The influence of other East Asian cultures is very apparent, as both anime and K-pop are widely popular here. As far as any sort of Chinese media, or influence goes, there's only bubble tea which was invented by Taiwan and Americanized Chinese food.
I can give you 3 examples of Chinese soft power in the west that out revenues K-pop and anime combined, Riot Games, Tencent and Hoyoverse, those three gaming companies alone generate more revenue than K-pop and anime industries combined
@@Hhhh22222-w Yeah but the games 'they make' aren't really designed and made by the Chinese. Like I know for a fact that the studio GGG which is owned by Tencent and the latter doesn't have anything to do with development. Mobile gaming is huge in China, but not many really outside of China care about that. In a way games are a cultural influence on people and if we measure soft power in this way China has none. I don't know a single Chinese game. I know intellectual property that is owned by Chinese companies, but really I don't know, if there's a single big game that is Chinese worth mentioning and like I said mobile games aren't really big outside of China.
@@whitegoose2017 Hoyoverse is though. Genshin Impact is made by the Chinese in China, not like other studio where the game is created outside China. And Genshin Impact do become one of the biggest game in and even outside China. PUBG mobile do is a big thing in Asia(outside China), but not so much in other continents. Genshin Impact however, it is a big thing not only in Asia, they also managed to break the European and American market. The game is only just 2 years old and is already one of the highest grossing game in the world
@@whitegoose2017 they will be a game called "black myth: Wukong" release in 2023. They do show some gameplay already and it is pretty cool. We still don't know much of it. Maybe the overall gameplay is sucks. But I have high hope for this mainly because when genshin impact first release it's trailer, people has a mix feeling for the game until the game release and they're actually surprised of how good the game is.
As a political science major who loves geopolitics (which is why I assume the almighty TH-cam algorithm sent me your video) I loved this analysis ... I remember studying theories on soft power back in college, and I think they put too much emphasis on government policies and actions. It seems you conclude (and I would agree) that the most powerful soft power tool a country can employ is to just create fertile ground for their own people to innovate, create, and profit from their own inventions.
I mean, the cultural revolution and the book "quotations from chairman Mao Tse-Tung" created Maoist movement and impacted every major power in the west in a major way, with actual impacts in the political life of a lot of country So pure government policies and actions can definitely be a impressive source of soft power
Western soft power is basically the extension of military might and economic dominance. When they have such advantage, they fully use their propaganda machine to smear anyone who may be becoming competitive. That is why USA allocated hundreds of millions of dollars each year, for the sole purpose to smear China.
I remember the Chinese mall I went to in Saudi Arabia. It had Chinese propaganda everywhere, a Confucian Institute, and a bunch of stores selling knock-off brands. The place was always empty, and the workers just stood at attention and grinned behind the counters waiting for customers that would never come. China's PR/soft power attempts always come off as so creepy and bizarre, like someone produced them with a gun to their head.
Exactly. It's hardcore manufactured in a way that's deeply unsettling. It doesn't come from people expressing ideas in crazy creative ways, it's made from fear based motivation to fan the government's ego. If it doesn't fit the government's likes, it's crushed immediately. So we get hyper-capitalism propaganda slop instead of something from the people themselves, which is something I've wanted for a long long time.
That store is probably stupid idea, but would you even care to step in if you were told that Chinese government is pure evil and the Chinese people are rude and horrible with no manner? is that really the case? have you been to China? but this is what in everybody's head because the west hate China simply because western oligarchs cannot put China into their pocket because of socialism and communism which they thought they can change initially but failed. They still manage to destroy China via their MSM so they can own the big population to suck everything out from them like they did to Americans and others whom they have compromised. What do you think of all these homelessness phenomenon?
its no different from the insidious capitalist propaganda you see in the west. you may not find it weird because you grew up with it but its wild to outsiders
lol.. they spend billions on promoting "cool Japan"... Japan is probably the only country in the world frequently buys advertisement on New York times to say how great the country is...All to hide the duplicity and racism in their society from naive people like you..
I know people love to talk about how much the Japanese government spends on overseas promotion, but specifically in the realm of media, no, it's still kind of trash. There is a huge reason fansub groups exist, because they have been pretty much the only way you could even watch anime outside of Japan. Even now official subs have been plagued by bad or malicious translations by companies that don't even care about quality. Official licensing for anime is confused and often counterproductive for wider promotion, which would be hilarious if it weren't so tragic. You know where the funding actually goes? More mainstream stuff like commercial promotion and travel shows in other countries. I'm watching HK TV and they have so many travel shows set in random parts of Japan I am pretty sure that stuff gets government funding. And how about an entire segment literally just called Japan Hour in Singapore's CNA? That's where the funding goes, not anime or video game distribution.
This was so interesting! As a Chinese-european person I feel really sad that the chinese can’t creatively express themselves… Like I’m not even pro america or china for that matter, it’s just sad that the average person has to compensate for that…
i'm so glad you enjoyed this vid and found it interesting!! it genuinely is such a shame, as i think creativity is so integral to our development as a society and it is able to transcend language and cultural barriers. we'll never know what could have been for all the projects that got altered or censored, but i'm hopeful for a future where there are lesser restrictions and a greater exchange of creative works from china and the rest of the world :)
@@bayenne5b basically if one wants art to become successful especially on an international level, you often need money to get funded. But if the government doesn’t support creative businesses that don’t directly make propaganda for them, that kind of stifles the chance of becoming successful as an artist. Just look at kpop companies, if they weren’t as supported by the government as they are they wouldn’t have gotten as much international success. Hope this answers your question bc I’m not sure if this is what you meant🤡
@@yinssleepydiaries380 hmm yeah kinda, but isn't it also difficult for a European artist for example? Because I have a company (I'll compare that to selling art) in Europe and I must say that it was/is very difficult to become "known" even when nobody tries to censor me (you could argue that Google censored me in the beginning because I don't pay ads and the website was young => had no credibility yet). The government also doesn't support me so every form of success only came/comes from me literally sending 1000+ mails to people I know will care at least slightly about my services. I'm sure that if you get completely censored online it will be even more difficult, but sending personal emails and visiting companies is where the real money/relations come from and idk if governments also stop that part, that would be pretty sick if it were the case
As a Chinese-American, I've definitely noticed how people are less interested or enthusiastic when I respond that I'm Chinese instead of Korean or Japanese. Happy to see it discussed about in such technical terms.
I loved how the creators of Genshin weaved Chinese customs and traditions into the world-building and story of Liyue (a Chinese inspired continent in the game). As a Japanese person I’d never really seen Chinese media so it really opened my eyes to what it can offer. What I loved the most was the character Yunjin, who is a Chinese opera singer. Her story quest includes a performance by an actual professional singer accompanied by the amazing animated visuals of Genshin, and when I first heard it it sent chills down my spines because of how good it was. I know that Genshin is inspired by Japanese anime and games that came before it, so it’s really cool to see a collaboration between Japanese and Chinese media.
i’ve definitely noticed this, whenever my japanese friends say their japanese they always hear “omgg! that’s so cool! i love anime” or something like that but whenever i say i’m chinese i never get much back, one time one kid was like “so u know mao zedong?” like no? not personally😭
Reminds me of that time I visited France and met a Chinese-UK person in the hotel. I chatted with him a little, his attitude and culture was more leaning towards east asian than english. I told him how I only ever see asian cultures on my phone and that it’s actually so comfortable for me to talk to him, that it’s really nice how the culture is different. He paused and… i dont know. He just looked awkward until he finally said, you know there are different cultures, I’m Chinese not Japanese or Korean, and I said yeah I know that. And I thought I messed up somehow but he seemed cheered up as we kept chatting. I guess now I understand the background behind that reaction of his. Ofc I know Chinese is different, I was commenting on how I felt talking to him personally, and that even while France and Germany are different, they have many things in common, because they’re both European.
Well what did you expect. You can't even experience their culture WITHOUT the regurgitated vomit of political-approved agenda 🤌🏻 They're the authors of their own downfall.
that's sad .... This is actually the reason why I don't want to commit suicide cuz who knows, I might reborn in China as a Chinese and live a miserable life forever envying Korean and Japanese.
@@sonic66646 That's because the European cultures, for the most part, ain't at each other's throats. the big three in East Asia however, has had that standing animosity towards each other going back to before WWII. while Europeans frown at getting their cultural background misidentified, East Asians, for the most part, outright HATE being even just identified WITH the cultures that're supposedly that of the 'enemy's' or 'inferior'. it also doesn't help things that China is currently getting increasingly aggressive at shitting over everyone who so much even disagrees with ANYTHING they do.
Specifically about Korea, China's censorship is why TV shows and movies like "The Squid Game" and "Parasite" will never be made there. Chinese storytellers are not allowed to depict social inequalities, corruption of the state and the flaws of the justice system. The state is totally afraid of the light that will be shone on them. And then you got the wolf warrior diplomats - let's just say that having nothing but insults for EVERYONE does not endear you to anyone.
Try "Tientsin Mystic" or "When a Snail Falls in Love" - two great gritty Chinese dramas. Although they might lack the social commentary you're looking for. But I'm hard pressed to find many US dramas that criticise US foreign policy. Quite the opposite: think of propaganda films like Black Hawk Down or the awful revisionist propaganda of Chris Hemsworth's adventure into Bangladesh. No, the US was driven back by India in the East Pakistan war of Independence .. but propaganda in the West would have you think otherwise. China has a long way to go...but so do we.
@@αστρον Yep. Starship Trooper, Generation Kill, Jarhead and so many more. This assessment has no merit. There's another explanation. Chinese audience. Chinese movies are made primarily for Chinese audience, and the movies content reflects the audience's taste. Perhaps, the reason why Chinese movies are not provocative is because the audience don't go watch such movies?
@@αστρον Good flick. Dr Strangelove too. Good director. The antiwar sentiment during and following Vietnam hasn't been repeated with Iraq. More the opposite, ie Hurt Locker.
Thailand or learning Thai is also becoming very popular - their dramas (including hugely popular BL series), T-pop, etc. I'm learning a few asian languages at the moment (Chinese is one of them) but I definitely agree that it's true that I was drawn more to learning Korean and Thai compared to Mandarin (also more motivated) precisely because of culture, music, TV, their soft power etc. To some extent though, we can't really blame people around the world for knowing almost nothing about China's music or movies or culture in general (compared to for example K-culture) - China isn't really working on exporting any of their culture - whether it's because they don't need to (because they already have millions of people huge market at home) or because they purposely don't intend to export anything due to their isolationist approach
As someone who's partially Thai (and other buncha Asian blood) lmao I'm glad Thai media is gaining popularity internationally as an American, but I knew from an early age before BL blew up that Thai isn't an easy language at all, people sticking their toes into the pool is gonna need a lot of commitment. 😅 My dad's making me learn Thai as I'm attempting to learn CJK and it took one look at the tones that knocked me out. Cantonese is my first language so I'm attempting to learn it (my mom is Hoa Chinese) and it's not easy at all either. I salute anyone trying to learn Thai, it's extremely difficult to read. 😅
@@phoebesekine4783 Exactly, I am SEA myself but I cannot relate to East Asians though. Especially, the ethnic chinese that live in SEA for generations.
I feel this deeply. Learning Chinese is way more practical. But I enjoy consuming Korean & Japanese media way more, so I want to learn those languages. If I didn't interact with people from work or other social settings, I would only hear Korean everyday. But I don't want to seek out Chinese media to consume. It's just not as entertaining for me... This also may be offensive, but I don't like the way Mandarin sounds but as I think about it... how much of this, is just lack of exposure to the language? It's common to feel uncomfortable when we're not familiar. I wonder if I felt that when I first heard Korean or Japanese... And if I did, I wonder what compelled me to still engage with their media...
As a Korean, I feel like China's soft power potential is really really high. I've seen some of the brands that's hot in main cities in China, and it's super cool. But I feel like the government's and some of the people's hegemonic stance towards other culture makes foreigner's reluctant to acknowledge and embrace the rich culture.
what do you mean hegemonic? LOL. US: 800 + international military bases China: 1 Koreans have no problem being friends with the biggest hegemony in the world. What you're missing is the billions the U.S. spends on anti-China propaganda.
This video is just more anti Chinese propaganda.. Softpower is something that China have far more than Japan . Today china is traveling to the moon and mars , its the ONLY nation in the world that truly challenge American high tech industry, Not even Korea or taiwan can do that , by developing 100% locally high tech electronics and its software too away from American control or influence. South korea can't do that, Neither taiwan or Japan. If you country is developing its high tech electronics it needs to ask permission the west and include american tech inside . or else they will sanction it. CHina also own Disney movies.. is that not softpower? How about Chines Video Games.. Black Myth wukong and phanton Zero are the most anticipated games in 2024/ CHinese do have far more softpower than any other nation in the world.. Is only weak in music ,but in Movies ,video games ,space exploration ,Electronics ,Tourism ,its super trains , its Business are amazing , its food.. wow.. is ridiculous what the japanese/korean blogger claims ,she is simply out of touch with reality. Most people in the world will rather live in CHina than in Japan or Korea.. based on Chinese super modern cities ,clean infrastructure and security. and its amazing nation development in absolutelly all areas of science. Even PUtin told , he envy china amazing development. So this is not a small thing. Even western major International banks are saying China will surpass US economy in every area possible in next decade. China is the only nation in Asia ,that can survive western sanctions by just trading with itself. No other nation can do that.. Not even Russia ,that depends on China trade to bypass Western sanctions. China is going to become the only Truly Independen nation in the planet. where its business are so strong that will cover absolutely everything , every area and compete and surpass the west in every area. China is a Truly the Only Industrial Super Power in the world.. And the support and unity of its society with the Government is worthy its weight in Gold.
I think an important reason why China struggles to create a soft power is because the Chinese government want others countries to be influenced by their culture but they're also unwilling to be influenced by other cultures and this plays a massive part in them not being able to create a soft power. The people of Japan and South Korea have access to the internet and are able to see western media and culture and be influenced by it and are able to communicate with us. Vice versa, we have access to learning about a lot of Japanese and South Korean media and culture and are able to be influenced by it and communicate with the people who live there. These interactions are what help to create soft power. One of the biggest ways that BTS became popular is by using youtube and using English subtitles in a lot of their content to appeal to western viewers. They also changed their music style to fit in with western music trends. And their fanbase used social media to spread their popularity. But china isn't able to have these interactions with the west because of the control and censorship over their internet. Kpop has heavy music and fashion inspiration from other cultures. Their music evolution has been influenced by hip hop and EDM and other musical styles that were popularized in western countries, which might also be an example of Korea's music trends being influenced by western music trends. Some of their fashion styles and aesthetics have been influenced by western trends as well and vice versa. There are also a lot of anime's and mangas that are set in other countries and that portray other cultures in them. For example "jojo's bizarre adventure" which takes place in england, america, egypt, italy etc and the creator used the western fashion industry to create the iconic outfits. There are also mangas/animes that have been inspired by stories and mythologies from other cultures as well as from their own culture. Because they have shown the ability to accept influence from other cultures, it may be why it is also easy for other cultures to accept them. And because we have easy access to buying and watching animes, mangas, kpop by using the internet, this also increases the popularity of those things because people have the ability to talk about it, learn about it and appreciate it Even Genshin Impact has regions that are based on different real countries and their cultures. If the Chinese government refuses to accept influences from other cultures but still want their own culture to influence others, this kind of hypocrisy and double standard is ruining their ability to create a soft power. And their refusal to let their people freely use the internet and have freedom of speech is also preventing them
Right, this too. I've not expressed it in my own comment but their reluctance to be affected by other cultures is playing against them as well. Both Japan and S.Korea has a history of adopting other cultures immensely, they both had no choice honestly, first from China then from the West. Japan more eager than Korea, hence opening up faster, but S.Korea went a lot of revolutions to understand they needed to adapt to survive. This created a mix of influx of ideas/genres combined with their original culture, resulting in diverse creations that were also uniquely their own thing. Generally speaking the more melting pot a coutnry is the more soft power they seem to have. The US has obviously led in this regard, exporting their culture absolutely everwhere. Korea and Japan are less racially diverse, but mentally they have opened up increadibly since their modernization. We cannot ignore the innumerous potentials of mixing cultures when it comes to soft power and artistic innovations. China already has the base and backbone, and the fertile population and potential idea factories. If they could just open up not just economically but culturally as well.
It’s so sad because between the 70s-early 2000s, Chinese culture was gaining popularity in America with the allure of martial arts, food, movies, pandas, etc. Firefly (a show released in 2005) even had Mandarin Chinese as a universal language in its universe because it was “a way to depict a futuristic integrated culture.” At that time, Chinese influence completely outshined other Asian countries. Nowadays, China is preventing organic growth of its own culture. Since the Chinese government is irrationally strict in preserving the “purity” of its culture, they are rejecting creativity and the overall conversation of new ideas. New ideas that could have it compete and dominate against other East Asian cultures again.
It's not just refusal to accept Western influence though, Chinese culture itself is just too conservative (China, Taiwan, Singapore, etc.). Especially when it comes to depicting sex or graphic violence, that's a kind of artistic self-censorship that even democratic countries are guilty of. Whereas with Japanese culture, for example, even Westerners think that certain Japanese movies are way too extreme or weird. The good thing about not being afraid to be extreme and weird is that at least you're original, that's how you generate a cult following. Point is: all this was inherent to Japanese culture, if it were a western influence then Japan wouldn't have been an innovator in the horror genre for instance.
You misunderstand what soft power even is. The governments DO NOT "create" soft power; governments don't create culture. Soft power is cultivated by the people of China, NOT it's government.
Yes! This was one of the main reasons that came to mind for me. It seems like Korean and Japanese cultures are open to dialoguing , interacting, sharing, with outsiders, and that in turn makes us open our hearts and minds to them as well. In simple terms, I feel like they are extending open arms and wanting to be friends.
I listen to C-pop, watch C-dramas and I'm a big fan of chinese webnovels, but one of my friends recently asked me why I kept consuming chinese contents since China "was so horrible" and honestly... It breaks my heart because people tend to think governement bad = culture bad, but it's not true at all! I don't think consuming and learning more about another culture is the same as condoning what a government is doing right now. Also with that logic, I shouldn't even consume american contents, then, since I don't like what the US government is doing lol
See, but the horrible actions of The US, and the Western colonial powers never matter, they're always good. It only matters with China. It's hypocrisy and sinophobic.
@@reflectlight1368 USA has bombed so many middle east countries (Iraq, Iran, Libya, Syria, etc) and even brought destruction to some Asian countries like Vietnam, Japan, etc. Yet a lot of people still visit Disneyland, watch Marvel and Star Wars movies, etc.
But in a by way supporting and watching their content you re economically supporting them and subsequently their regime? Idk it's far fetched but this year I avoid it
As someone who's learning Mandarin Chinese, for me the hardest part of the language is finding content that interests me. When it comes to reading material it's pretty solid, there are manga translations from Taiwan and great novels from the Mainland. For listening materials though it's very hard to find interesting content, and having to navigate Chinese websites to look for them is a different challenge altogether.
if you want to listen to mandarin chinese songs, there are plenty of great taiwanese songs that are readily available although the taiwanese/hk entertainment industry is experiencing a decline ever since the rise of china lol..as a matter of fact most people from china listened to taiwanese songs in the past...cpop just sucks imo...
Yeah. Getting entertainment and other things from Taiwan is far easier and in my opinion, youku is really bad. It is slow and the entertainment is bland or behind a paywall.
The case of Genshin Impact Aini talked about reminds me of this whole MINISO shenanigan. For those who don't know about MINISO, it is practically a retail brand that sells all day-to-day stuffs, and just like their name, every product has a Japanese name on top of the barcode. It gives this MUJI vibe and many people include my mum referring it as "cheaper version of MUJI". And guess what? It is a Chinese brand, and every product they have are made in China. You would think this is a Japanese store if you walk pass it or just browsing in the store. Somewhat they think hiding the fact this is a Chinese brand will help them with the sell and can be a cool concept.
This is so true, there’s similar aspects to this with Arabic for example. It’s not as “popular” as any east asian languages so no one sees the benefit in learning it. I literally remember my friend was telling me how he was in a club and they had to pick between learning Russian, Arabic, and Swahili. Literally most people, my friend included, picked Russian over any other languages- Arabic was the least popular.
I’m sorry to hear that :( . I took Arabic in high school, and I loved it! It’s such a beautiful language. I’m hoping I can take at least one class in college!
For ELA, my teacher assigned us to make a short TedTalk. Originally, I was gonna talk about how East Asia changed social media with things like anime, kpop, Kdrama Etc.. But while researching it really became prominent how China is treated compared to its East Asian neighbours. this video, and alot of other videos on your TT page really has gotten me interested in this topic! I was just going to try to get a good grade at first, but now I really want to put as much passion as I can in this Presentation.
As a Korean-Canadian I felt like I've experienced both sides of this varying Western perception firsthand. When I was still a kid in elementary school, nobody here really knew anything about Korea other than Kim Jong Un and I still remember one of the first questions other curious kids would ask me was 'Are you Chinese or Japanese?' as if those were the only two possible options. So as I've gotten older, it's been very interesting to see more and more people in the West becoming interested in Korean culture or at least becoming more aware of the country in general, as opposed to maybe 10-12 years ago when they would still be asking me if I was from the north or the south. It is nice to feel like your culture is finally being somewhat appreciated so I understand why people would feel disappointment when the prevailing view of the culture they identify with is a negative one. As has already been mentioned though, it seems like the less than favourable perception of China will remain so long as they are at odds with the west. USA has an incentive to keep China as being perceived as that other country while China continuously feels the need to block any significant cultural exchange with the west which ultimately stifles its own cultural exports.
Disadvantages of China Xi Jinping nationalism communism language sound fake Advantages of China history ruins Hanzi (character) food population Chinese is very difficult to hear, but I think it's good to approach it in a business way without worrying about it. However, it is very difficult for me to adapt to Chinese sounds like Chinese animations and dramas. I think this is the case for all countries. And China has a lot of prejudice against people around the world. For example, because of nationalism and collectivism The most important fact is the sound of the language. To make people like and like a country, first of all, the sound of the language must be good. But to me the Chinese sound is very terrible. As I explained above, I think there is no problem with the Chinese language if we approach it in a business way.
@@kublaikhan6248 im good with chinese food and i always liked their stories like journey to the west and their novels. aside from that im filipino so i still have a bad perception of china LOL its not just the west theyre takin our stuff and setting up their gambling centres and all the politicians are sat down like "stonks" still cannot get used to hearing chinese it depends like on the person i'm good with voice actors and the like but normal people speaking it sounds so eargrating and they're almost always the loudest and the problem passenger on the aeroplane. and with our teacher's telling us about sinocentrism im just like what china isnt the centre of da world and your dash line makes no sense its west philippine sea bruh not south china sea (pulls out military boats) i curse your mothers why same thin with america i guess. theyre also a superpower and huge, so, very egoistic i guess...i dont like any rich or big country but especially china cus theyre like RIGHT HERE WHY
The China soft power I can think of is Romance of The Three Kingdoms and Journey To The West, and who made it popular is mostly Japanese video games and anime adaptation (Dynasty Warriors series, a lot of anime about Sun Wukong, anime about three kingdoms heroes, etc.) example was popular perception of what Lu Bu is like and the first image that comes to mind was the Dynasty Warriors series version 😀
The Japanese-produced TV drama "Journey to the West" was also broadcast in China, but was cancelled due to public and private outcry over its content, which was far removed from the original story. In Western countries, however, it won high acclaim. Although Japan may not have had any bad intentions, it must have set Chinese people's teeth on edge…😅
It’s heartbreaking that I just know I can’t really experience real Chinese culture without visiting the country. Some things will get passed the censors, but for the most part - what we see about China in the west is stuff that has been approved by the censors.
You can from documentaries. Expect less translations, and a sort of limit on the direction (for example, most of it will be about food and architecture), but they are widely available on TH-cam in very high quality. They are very good at making documentaries.
@@covenant_mog05 the chinese culture is much more than just taiwan's which is mainly from the fujian province because china is just so damm huge..but yeah, the concept of religion is mostly wiped out in china due to the cultural revolution...
You just need to visit Taiwan. It really is a different country from the mainland. You can find traditional Chinese culture there without all the communist bull#*&!
As someone who is an avid reader, and has read the THREE BODY PROBLEM and numerous xianxia/wuxia novels, I must say they are some of the best in their respective genres (sci-fi and historical fantasy). It’s really sad that they’re not more popular because it’s just soooo imaginative and unique
@@InternetsToughestGuyasian porn is weird to westerners in general. Whether it's from Japan, China or Korea. The Three Body Problem is being adapted for TV and I hope it does well.
One of the key differences between China versus South Korea and Japan is that the latter two aren't afraid to show the negative sides of their cultures to the world (think Parasite and Satoshi Kon's films), which allows them to seem more genuine and even relatable to outsiders whereas China wants to show their culture in a squeaky clean way, which for many it feels fake and less appealing. For China to achieve its soft power potential, there needs to be a huge political change.
Not exactly true, since Japan skims over much of the details that led up to the Atom bomb, so they aren’t exactly completely honest about the history of ww2 and how they were involved unlike Germany. The only real distinction between the three is that today two are friendly with the US and one isn’t. The stuff you see on western medias in regard to China is also usually quite negative these days. All that combined with the difference in political ideology has created this sort of bias/dislike towards anything Chinese here in the west.
You are 100% Chinese, every time you talk about Japan in your youtube comments, you bring up the 80-year-old war that has nothing to do with the topic, claiming that Japan does not recognize history and that they should apologize. I have seen many Chinese people who start to do it. Perhaps, by doing so, we can maintain our moral superiority at all times, so we can eliminate the cognitive dissonance of losing to evil Japan. I think anti-Japan is like a huge identity that you Chinese are born with. If Japan disappears from this world, you Chinese will surely lose the pillar of your identity and fall into a big panic 🤣
@@犬まにまにThis is just the truth, you might not like that people bring up your nations ugly past, but it’s history and people deserve to know it. The way you call me “you Chinese” is interesting though. I can tell you hold a lot of resentment towards the Chinese for whatever reasons by the way you talk about them.
Been in China for 5 years, It was amazing people and culture, however the government CENSORSHIP is crazy! It’s like they want you to forget what is outside of china😅 Luckily there’s VPN, although it’s illegal but it is a must for us as a foreigners.
I grew up with Japanese anime and games, It actually shaped my worldview. As adult I learned that Japan is not some utopia i thought it would be as a kid, there were some bad shits in Japan as well but I can't bring myself to hate Japan. So soft power is really effective!
There are always crazies in every country. It’s important to recognize that no country is perfect but there are some really good people despite all that
Same story here. I know Japan is not a perfect country to live in, but I can't say I have a negative image about it. Thanks to their soft power by-products I have been taught to admire some aspects of the Japanese culture.
What? A whole country isn‘t perfect and games and movies aren‘t a perfect representation of reality? How suprising, I‘m really proud of you to make this discovery
I remember one of the biggest Yuri/girls love manga was “begin with your name” and it was from a Chinese author/artist, it was so popular and it was a lot of peoples first manga/Manhua they read (me included), but sadly the Chinese government forced it to be censored. so literally after they finally shared mutual feelings and kissed, the author was forced to make it a friendship school comedy, which very disappointing. its sad to see the updates continue but the true story completely lost, seemingly never to finish…
I remember that as well! That was really depressing and honestly turned me off exploring Chinese literature; hard to want to get invested when stuff like that can happen, yanno?
I mean, its kinda symptomatic of why china will never gain any soft power, because their censorship practices will ultimately prevent chinese media from producing much distinct content. After all, what made japanese media so appealing when it started to enter the west was that it crossed boundaries and was by far more experimental and 'edgy' than what we were used here.
Its not even about the gay novels and things. I having spent a significant portion of my life in china and the US as well as Canada, I feel most westerners see China through the way it is portrayed in western media, as a evil tyrannical government, and usually don't realize a lot of it isn't as accurate as the media portrays. Sure the Chinese government arent exactly good samaritans, but everytime I tell someone I am from China, they think its some dystopian 1984 oppression state, like sure, we don't have freedom like the USA does, but its not exactly the hell they think it is. This as a result, I feel just leaves a bad taste in the mouths of people learning the things they enjoy are Chinese. If you scroll down on the comment sections of Chinese channels like SCMP, people will leave comments just trashing china. Even when its not a government owned news channel, doesn't report on anything political, and the content is generally lighthearted, people will still leave comments down below saying "free XYZ" or "down with the dystopian regime" even when it has nothing to do with the content of the video. For example if people hear china in a tech or engineering video, they will default to "the construction quality is probably bad" or "its just more spyware". I'm not saying the people are unjust in saying this, in china, especially among the older generations, there is heavy anti japanese sentiment because of the aftermath of WW2, and its not really fair to call the older generation bigoted and to say that their beliefs are wrong. Its why I don't really say much when other people say things like that about china. I just hope western news and yt channels like china uncensored can actually report more objectively and make the act to separate the ideas of the people from those of the government, and I hope that the Chinese government can learn to have mercy and strive for better reputation in the world stage. Not much point to this comment, just frustrated I guess, frustrated how its cool to be jap or Korean, but china is just known for tyranny and obnoxious and rude exchange students.
China Uncensored DOES make a point to separate the people from the government. I don’t see anything about their reporting that’s not objective, either. As the title suggests, they just talk about things that are censored in China.
Another thing I’m thinking about is pop music and how insular that is. I’ve loved the Japanese girl group AKB48 and all their sister groups. They’ve got co-groups in Indonesia, Taiwan, Philippines, India, and China. But the groups in China split off from the 48 label and made their own music and follow a completely different vibe AND THEYRE REALLY GOOD. but they truly wanted to be by themselves and not co-exist with the groups from the other countries. I think it’s a micro-example of how the party interacts with their soft power problems
in India ?😂😂😂 there is no asian country which has influenced India/Indians other than Japan ( only cultural and civic sence ) No K-pop ,No J-pop ,yes there is some kpop lover which is tiny than our folk songs viewers 🙏 Indian kpop fan ,please accept the truth . After bts thing over you than you will.......
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omg snh48! i love them sm especially team sii, but i lost interest after gen 1 and 2 members graduated :'( i found out about them through 7senses (which is probs the most successful subunit group to come out of snh48) when they appeared on show champion.
Fascinating video. Thank you for making it! 'Grand Master' actually got Archive of Our Own, the world's largest fanfiction site banned from China. Which brings up c-drama. I have quite a few friends who enjoy c-drama and it could easily have become a soft power, just like k-dramas have. Except the censorship seems to constantly be shifting the goalposts with c-dramas and even after something is filmed there's no guarantee it will ever be broadcast. Even when it is broadcast, censorship often leaves huge chunks of it on the cutting room floor so that the story isn't compelling and sometimes doesn't even make sense. Its hard to be a fan and look forward to new movies, have favorite actors or be anticipating another season when you have no guarantee that even the things you're told will come out will be released. C-dramas are a great way to show off culture, current and historical, but as long as the censorship is so extreme, it shoots itself in the foot before it even starts the race.
I have to correct you: it was not the novel Grand Master or the live action The Untamed that got AO3 banned in China. That "honour" goes to Xiao Zhan's fans. Also known in China as the 227 incident.
ohhh myyy godddd everything you said it's true. I've been waiting years for several bl novel c-drama adaptations to be released and there's absolutely been no updates on them. the original works have massive fanbases, and the c-dramas would bring in a even bigger audience. this harsh censorship is just ruining the art and fun for everyone
Of course danmei and c-dramas get hit hard like this, but honestly Donghua (Chinese animation) as a whole gets screwed over. My mom and sister were watching a (hetero) romance donghua, Fox Spirit Matchmaker (reincarnation of humans who loved spirits based plot). They also watched the Outcast, which was a modern martial arts action type show, my mom watches Daily Life of the Immortal King (action, high school characters, OP protag), and we both watched Link Click together (thriller, murder mystery-esque, action). All of these shows are great, but the huge problem is 1. Translations, 2. WHEN IS THE NEXT SEASON???? They don’t really give foreign fans an expected release date or calendar/schedule of any kind like anime studios do, and so you’re kinda like what’s the point of getting into a show that’s gonna be left unfinished or poorly translated? More and more people are starting to like donghuas, but if China doesn’t let creatives do their thing and flourish then they’ll kill one of their few cultural influences they have.
As someone who have lived in China and other countries, the censorship is so real. There are so many manhuas, novels and animation related to mo dao zu shi that just gets parts that are censored when its related to same sex relationship. Especially in these novels, cause a lot of bl shows and manhwas originate from novels and there is a very clear plot and scenes that the characters are gay or in a relationship, as it was written by the author themselves but when its aired or published in physical copies, those parts just get deleted or changed or they are not allowed to published it. Many Chinese citizens are also really tired of these situation and realize it too, honestly I think the younger generations gen z are more open-minded about this situation compared to the older generation.
You are super correct. MDZS are a huge magnet to study Chinese culture, many non Chinese are fascinated by China through MDZS. But now since CCP banned Danmei and survival show, their interest changed to Thailand and Korea
I remember a girl who had stickers of characters from a gay manhua on her stuff. That was the first time I saw any Chinese media in my daily life. To think how much great Chinese media there is that never gets out to the rest of the world.
Not only sex related content has been censored, something like 東躲西藏 will replace to 東躲XZ，西藏 means Tibet. It's so annoying. I'm pretty enjoy of cultivation stories of Chinese novels, but Chinese writers are very difficult to choose word or avoid some type of story, like political, PRC army, gangster and any negative of China, no even China this word has been banned, usually take hua xia(華夏) to replace. ----------------------------------------------- I'm apologized for my poor English. English is not my native language. but I really like Chinese culture, especially philosophy(老子、莊子). It's very sad to see CCP ruined everything.
this is a really interesting video! i’ve grown to like a lot of chinese trends like fashion, food, et cetera - but it always feels like the government tries to intervene despite how helpful these user-generated trends are. the government are shooting themselves in their own feet.
honestly as someone who started learning chinese partly because of how much I fell in love with mo dao zu shi, it really saddens me how the backlash to the popularity of the novel and danmei in general affected stuff, both the censorship tightening and the author being bullied off soical media (and rumored to face much worse). I think in addition to the direct affect it has on art, censorship also plays a much more covert and insidious role in essentially exacerbating "tall poppy syndrome", which kind of makes sure anything truly unique/talented that gets popular is essentially pushed down and isn't really given it's time to develop/flourish.
@@aureliaaurita8138 I don't know a whole lot but I heard she has a lot of really dedicated anti fans there. They spread nasty rumors, doxxed her a few times and in general kind of ruined her reputation among general audiences and so she hasn't been seen much on social media for the past few years. I really hope she is ok because some of the rumors about her well being are really concerning
Wasn’t she planning to right another series? Tgcf was over 3 years ago and I haven’t heard from her since besides rumors that she went to jail or the nasty bullying, I really really hope she’s doing okay
@@ToscaTee yeah she said back in like 2019 that she had at least two more novels in planning stages and gave an outline to one of them (modern with magic setting about death gods) but she went offline soon after so no one really knows what are her current plans for them.
Those old leaders in China are mostly engineers but they somehow need to learn the importance of promoting an attractive culture outside of China. I'm not too enthusiastic about that. Those old Marxist engineers are ill suited for the job. They're too used to controlling the populace with their communist ideologies and censorship network and using wolf warrior diplomacy in the political ring domestically that they think it would work abroad. They're going to learn a hard lesson and Chinese people abroad will have to suffer for it through increased discrimination.
I myself actually consume quite a lot of "Chinese soft power" because I love reading Chinese web novels. I think that if they focused on that like japan focuses on light novels and anime they could have their own kind of "weeb" culture.
I'm also in the novel space. My thought regarding the novel industry is the translation being the biggest roadblock not the quantity of novels. Sponsoring these authors would also be nice but the issue is really a decent chunk of the space overseas is piracy. We aren't really strongly supporting the author or the translators. This is why on webnovel you see a sudden flush of local novels on the platform, to save translation costs. Then you have MTL used to save costs but weakens the quality harshly. Its a money sink for something thats not being consumed massively and not having a large paying market. sadly. I recommend the recent work of 'Cuttlefish who likes diving' and 'First Order' btw.
sameee I'm also a webnovel reader and there's a lot of good books (but also see a lot of mid-tier power fantasy) but yea translation is a problem and its a niche franchise
bh i like chinese webnovels too but the only way they're gonna focus on them is add more censorships, also i feel like majority of them r streamlined. just take the same setting and write infinite variations of it, so i just treat it as an indulgent fanfiction. but then again there are true gems once in every while and i respect that. wish they could live up to their full potential but with their government, it prbly wont happen ever.
Another interesting thing about Genshin specifically is that it's always associated with Japanese media by the fans themselves. Ask any English-speaking Genshin fan what language they choose to set the game's voices to, and they'll probably say the English dub or the Japanese dub. I’ve barely seen anyone who speaks English as their primary language claim the original Chinese one, even though that one is probably a lot more directly connected to what the writers themselves intend. They cast huge Japanese names with lengthy resumes of popular anime and games, and it's probably the most popular thing (i.e. most cosplayed and most art being sold in artists' allies) at most 2022 anime conventions. They still try to inject Chinese culture in, obviously (I personally loved the Chinese opera song they included within a quest through the character of Yun Jin), but it feels like fans don’t really opt to delve deeper into other Chinese art or entertainment through it. Rather, the fans see the Chinese influence as limiting due to the potential censorship policies that the game wouldn’t be subject to if Mihoyo worked outside of China, and Genshin seems widely seen as the exception to a (rather narrow and prejudiced) viewpoint that many Westerners have of Chinese media being inaccessible or unappealing. (legit, though, I have talked to one person who went “I’m not bigoted against China; I play Genshin” as an excuse to justify Sinophobia, in similar fashion to how I’ve heard at least one K-pop fan say something similar about South Korea. To me, the game is potentially an interesting case study in how entertainment can be used as either a shield or an open forum to both deflect or exuberate criticism towards a culture, especially for outsiders whose main source of positive interaction with a culture is through a fandom and the products tailor-made to profit through that fandom.)
I’ve heard that Mihoyo used the romanized Japanese name of the game which is Genshin instead of the romanized Chinese name Yuanshen because they don’t want to be associated with being Chinese and have people assume negative things by them being Chinese right off the bat, heck despite being a Chinese company they have a “Japanese sounding” name which is why they are associated with Japanese media instead of Chinese
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On the last paragraph, if liking a piece of culture from group would make that group look more favorable then America would of solve racism 100 years ago
I find it interesting that a lot of China's most successful soft power comes from women, such as Douyin makeup, danmei, and fashion. Even though The Untamed was heavily censored from its original danmei source, it's still to date the most successful Chinese drama overseas. Even people who aren't really into Cdrama's or danmei know about it. And then the government of course had to further ruin the soft power potential of that series by banning ao3 (again, writing and fandom mostly by women and girls). The late CEO of the video game company which owns the adaptation rights to 3 Body Problem, Lin Qi, was adamant that fans be encouraged and allowed to create and interact with the source material however they wanted. He understood that fandom is how properties become successful and wanted to encourage fans to make their own indie games, write fanfiction, create fan films and fan art without fear of his company taking legal action (too bad he got murdered by his own employee before that could all come to fruition...). He had a goal of creating a media company that could export Chinese media and rival Western media like Netflix amd HBO. Clearly he understood and believed in the potential for China's soft power through films and video games and cultivating fandom around these properties. His company had too many internal problems though, so even if he hadn't died, idk if his vision would have been successful.
This video is so interesting! I haven't even thought about this topic. I am Mexican and in my country Japanese /Korean cultures are really popular and on the recent years people tend to idolize people from these countries as they're something more than human beings...but if you talk about China people tend to have a negative reaction. On a less serious note, I loved your voice and accent ❣
The crazy thing is that it feels like this issue is only a recent phenomenon - I remember as a kid I loved learning about other Asian cultures and it felt so much easier to see and learn about Chinese culture, and this was before social media! It really feels like the richer China got the worse off they got at exporting soft power
Because in the late 2000's China had a lot of promise. They had the Olympics in 2008, Confucius Institutes were popping up everywhere, Ni Hao Kailan was airing on kids TV. Even the song for the Olympics show this. China had quite a bit of soft power in the 2000's and early 2010's. Xi Jinping and his nationalism pissed that all away
A lot of that credit is due to Hong Kong, especially their film industry. Now they are quickly losing whatever freedom of expression they still had left.
@@sosoable If you're going to assume someone is Chinese just because they can read & write Chinese, why are you asking non-Chinese people questions in Chinese?
First, I would like to say thank you for this well-made video. I am part Chinese and part Japanese living in the U.K. I was actually having this conversation with my friends the other day. We talked about how Chinese culture was popular in the 70s. Mostly with the popularity of Kung fu movies, especially among the black diaspora. A lot of younger Chinese tend to dismiss the Kung Fu label since Kung Fu is stigmatised due to its link to harmful stereotypes. I guess it also has to do with the fact that Kung Fu is only a tiny part of Han Chinese Culture, and doesn’t play a big role in Chinese popular culture today. Compared to K-pop, k-drama or Anime which are both integral to the respective countries’ pop culture. Also, I believe Chinese soft culture export is only weak when compared to its east Asian neighbours. It still has way more presence globally then Vietnam or the Philippines. I feel like the CCP and some Chinese people in general only want the world to see China portrayed in a delicate sophisticated manner (this is when mianzi comes into play). Things like Xue Hua Piao Piao or the recent dodging the stick trends on TikTok, gained mass popularity, yet it is frowned upon by some. Also, I heard that Chinese dramas are very popular in SE Asia and Latin America, but not as many people seem to acknowledge the success of this kind of soft culture export. (Is it only considered successful cultural export if more white people like it? I don’t know) Another thing I want to add is how some Chinese companies tend to mimic the Japanese-Korean branding. (e.g. Miniso, a Chinese brand that branded itself as Japanese to a point they used Japanese flag during their press conferences) On one hand, this reinforce the idea of 'Chinese designs lacks creativity'. But on the other hand, would brands like Miniso be as popular as it is, if it brands itself as Chinese. Just some random thoughts.
You bring up a very interesting point that I often find myself mulling about. And that is the division of internet spheres are how we judge the popularity of chinese culture only adjacent to the "Western" internet/cultural sphere. Naturally in this area, chinese's influence and its culture is greatly diluted given the huge cultural and political barriers in place. However, chinese culture is actually gaining speed in other parts of the world, which of course, western audiences don't necessarily see. And this is the problem I have precisely with those who blame china's soft power or nonexistence thereof solely on political machinations. China as a political entity is viewed as evil incarnate almost everywhere, and yet, why are some regions more accepting of chinese cultural products than others?
@@sarllie8271 well! As a south east Asian, I gotta say we do gobbled cdrama etc. We love Chinese cultures and esthetic. But there is a love and hate relationship (if you actually called it hate). Chinese products still and continue to be seen as fake products that would not last long. This has nothing to do with politic. People just generally think Japanese one is better. Also rises of kpop and kdrama have overshadowed cdrama. We still loved both tho. It is just korean wave is very strong right now.
On that last point, note how Genshin Impact, arguably the single most popular and impactful (kek) media product to come out of China in recent years, is marketed and known by its Japanese name - though granted it also borrows very heavily from Japanese trends and aesthetics so of course it makes sense.
Visibility is important to power and influence. The more exposure or attention a country gets compared to others it gives the false impression that it “matters more.”
I think due to the fact that many people don't know anything about Chinese pop culture because it isn't promoted in a global scale, that those people treat any Chinese trend as a meme,, xue hua piao piao, the song (wild flower scent?) that accompanies the "jiafei" meme trend which mocks those weird Chinese products, super idol & "social credit" memes all of those aren't taken seriously they use certain normal aspects of Chinese culture and laugh at it. The things that we do globally know China for are all negative, like bad government, cheap quality products, and those are the opposite of what we know Japan for for example, we know Japan as this high tech country with high quality everything. So this makes Chinese pop culture even more prone to mockery.
Another thing people don’t mention is that Japanese culture has been present in the west for a long time. Starting from the 1980s with things like Sega and Nintendo they had a really big influence on western media. Things like godzilla, Sony,anime and manga and even Japanese race cars in the 1990s. Also keep in mind most the cars we drive are actually from Japan 😂 like Toyota and Honda etc. So it’s been here for awhile but don’t underestimate the power video games has had on the west.
As a mainland Chinese, I totally agree with you. I want my country to be part of the world, not an isolated country. It is heartbreaking that most mainland Chinese do not have access to the world. It is ridiculous that a big country with a population of more than one billion lives in a big and small bubble!
I used to be really intrested in old chinese history and culture, but whenever it got to more modern day stuff it just felt empty and cold, and it’s because of how limited and censored it is. i feel like this best summarises my feelings towards the three in current day: Korea is the cool cousin who makes trendy stuff and is fun, Japan is the fun uncle who will enjoy stuff with you but still has that sort of elderly feel of knowing modern and old arts and conveying them both pretty well, and then china is the grandpa who’s there, but feels too cold and stuck in the past to form a meaningful connection with. not sure if that makes much sense as a metaphor?
@lauren su The US and Japan also pump money into their cultural stuff. The main difference is that writers/authors are allowed to put anti-authoritarian themes into their work. There is still censorship, like in most of the 20th century you weren't allowed to show inter-racial relationships in TV movies in the US. It wasn't "officially" done by the government but rather by corporations but pushed by politicians. Now you see the same thing where the government is "unofficially" pushing censorship on social media.
Just discovered your video after the release of "Black Myth: Wukong" which plays a significant role in introducing the rich diversity of Chinese mythology and the novel "Journey to the West" to the gamer community throughout the world. Most gamers will previously associate "筋斗云" or "悟空" with Dragonball, of which the Japanese anime itself is inspired by the original novel. A huge step in China's display of soft power in my opinion.
I think one part of soft power that's often overlooked is a country's prowess in professional sport. Sport was how Korea got recognised prior to their technology and entertainment boom, and its how you get recognition from the traditionally masculine sphere who otherwise ignore media such as anime, dramas and pop music that are unfortunately sometimes seen as either "nerdy" or "non-macho". In terms of sport, I think there are two aspects: 1. Fame, where the top pro-athletes are bigger celebrities than actors or popstars, and 2. its one of the only forms of direct competition between countries that isn't war. Yes, China is dominant in the Olympics but that happens only every four years and their medals are from niche sports such as weightlifting or table tennnis. Meanwhile Japan and Korea's international squads are known for being skilled at football and baseball, which are the sports that are the most popular in Europe and the Americas. China, despite its massive population, aren't that great at any of the popular sports, internationally or professionally. There are many Korean and Japanese athletes performing in top overseas leagues while there are practically no Chinese, and you have Shohei Ohtani in the MLB and Son Heung Min in the Prem who are some of the top players in their sport. This furthers the impression that Japan and Korea are "important" nations or cultures that deserves similar recognition as its western counterparts.
That is a really interesting point! There’s definitely a lot of prestige that comes with winning at an international level for sports, both on a personal level and in reflecting the capabilities of a country, as you had mentioned. I also agree that China’s dominance in sports definitely skews to more individual competitions rather than team sports. However, in terms of having a top athlete, I think Yao Ming being drafted to the NBA is a great example of both earning recognition in a popular sport and in having a culture exchange for China. Yao’s draft into the Rockets in 2002 allowed the NBA to really crack open the Chinese market and his career, even now, is cited as a source of pride for the country. China hasn’t seen as dominant of an athlete for a popular sport since, but it would be unfair to say China has never competed at the top level for a popular sport and received such recognition. China’s weakness in team sports is evident though and I’m not sure if anything will change because China at a structural and systemic level promotes individualism. Without the culture, interest and time for kids to develop a passion for sport I don’t see China reaching Japan/Korea’s level anytime soon because unlike individual sports, 11 good players don’t make a good team. That was a lengthy reply but thank you for taking the time to share your perspective on sports! Definitely something to consider and keen to see how Asian countries continue to get better and expand their presence in these spheres.
@@aini_ Thanks for your response! you're completely right about the goat Yao ming. I didn't forget about him but I guess I failed mention him and only mentioned current players since his playing career ended in 2011 while Korean and Japanese culture has only seen a rise to it's mainstream status in the west from ~2016 onwards. Also international prestige is important, but I guess I was also focused on the popularity or commonality of Asians in western pro leagues contributing to soft power the same way westerners are now used to Korean actors and pop groups as a whole. Which is why "winning over" the traditional masculinity had a big impact as they're the group most likely to gatekeep (or discriminate) against others (but this might start delving into white validation and colonialism hahaha).
@@αστρον *In the top five* European leagues (English Premier League, Spanish La Liga, Italian Serie A, German Bundesliga, and French Ligue 1) Japan and Korea both have over twice as many players per capita as the United States. Korea has seven players in those five leagues, representing 0.135 per million of its population. Japan has sixteen, representing 0.127 per million. The United States has nineteen, representing 0.057 per million. Russia has two, representing 0.014 per million. China has zero, representing 0.000 per billion.
it's so wild to me that donghua isn't as widely appreciated as anime, i feel like the few i've watched have really smooth beautiful animation and really good plot lines
Because instead of focusing on their own direction, the industry just imitates existing products, mostly from Japan and Korea. It's not the industry fault, per se. You want to imitate what's already successful, because consumers prefer something "familiar". That guarantees sales. Anything that's too "radical" will suffer. The industry is also not vibrant enough with small players. Movies industry, for instance, in the West can have huge budget studio movies, being on the same cinema as independent movies made by small film makers. Hong Kong movie industry produced great movies, completely dwarfs the Japanese, so there's no excuse for Chinese comic book, graphic novel, animation and contemporary Chinese movies.
Living and working in China since 2019. I've always thought it a massive shame that TH-cam is banned (and of course other platforms) because it would help people learn more about not only about the average Chinese person but also for Chinese people to learn about other cultures from primary sources. Fro example, I follow a few Russian TH-camrs who are explaining what the situation is like in Russia is right now, and I trust them a hell of a lot more than just the news. Also, a lot of trending social topics (quiet quitting/not having kids/no affordable housing/feeling abandoned by the government compared to previous generations) are mirrored in China too, and we'd all very quickly realise everyone is pretty much the freakin' same and just vibe together.
@@yume6532 so tell me which other countries using it other than China? How they can get different views if only Chinese people using it. Is there any video talks about political issues? Ccp doesn’t censor contents on those?
She isn't. She is in China. So for her to use Weibo would mean she would have to watch what she says. And even if that wasn't the case she would not be able to get the truth about what was going on due to the moderators.
I think you speak the truth, but what i hate most is not that they lacking soft power, but the fact that they don't really try to be better at it and they usually dislike constructive criticism
i think another aspect of china's lack of soft power is that it had a period of complete rejection of globalisation (re 1949-1970s) whereas japan and korea were opening western influence, for korea during the korean war and for japan to recover their image after ww2. kpop is largely based on african-american music and anime was developed after european/american cartoons were introduced in the early 20th century. it kinda reminds me of how most mandopop or cantopop singers are from taiwan or hong kong and a lot of their pop culture was eventually exported to the mainland in the 1980s and 90s.
it's because of american influence in japan and south korea that essentially forced them to become open to the rest of the world. japan had no choice because of their total surrender in ww2, and south korea was founded under an american puppet dictatorship. china never fell victim to this american interference and so didn't have to rely on globalization to maintain autonomy.
@@MasterIceyy What Mao did was industrialization, which every country went through and it was Chaos in every other country too. Except in China they took money from rich people. That voice spreads out wider.
Exactly what I was going to say. The only reason Japan, Korea and any other South East Asian country is more appealing to the Western Market is mostly because those countries adapted to Western culture. Kpop nowadays is becoming more American mainstream. Only original thing is that they have like 5 different genres in one song.
I really enjoyed hearing your thoughts on this matter. As someone who is half-Chinese and lived my whole life in the US, I have recently been quite curious about the reasons why China has been struggling with soft power while Korean and Japanese culture have become very popular and even mainstreamed among the younger generations here recently. I appreciate the non-overtly political lens you used for your analysis and look forward to see your future videos on Chinese culture, I feel like it is a topic that is not covered much on western platforms outside of heavily politicized contexts that tend to strip the humanity from the matter.
China has always had soft power, they literally have billboards in Chinese across California. Anime and Kpop is only recent and has only came up with Nerd Culture. The problem is Kung-Fu movies, Chinese food, Chinese markets and even Chinese fireworks have already assimilated into US society and aren't look to as foreign. I would also like to point out the elephant the room.....China created TikTok
That's cuz EVERYTHING is political in China. unlike Korea & Japan, China LITERALLY DOESN'T give free rein to their media in whatever forms to expand outwards. EVERYTHING, especially in the past several years, had to be scrutinized by the government for correctness before they could even be disseminated DOMESTICALLY, let alone for foreign markets.
this is a really interesting video!! always been curious about chinas lack of soft power and why people have no problem separating the people and the government for other countries, but not for china. i learnt a lot from this and will be looking forward to your future videos :)
thank you for the support!! ♡ i've literally had the exact same thought as you haha, so I'm glad to hear I was able to provide some insight into that question!
even chinese citizens have a hard time separating government from people. if you criticize anything about their government they take it as an insult to all chinese citizens
It really puts it into perspective!! My mom is Hoa Chinese (Chinese from Vietnam, my great grandpa was from Guangdong) and she says she doesn't associate herself as Chinese but as Vietnamese. Meanwhile I never associated Chinese people with their government whenever I heavily consume Chinese media, Cantonese is my first language and I'd love to learn it, and learn more of the culture. I was so shocked that she told me not to label our family's ethnicity as Chinese, because I've always been proud of being Chinese amongst my small Asian-American community, and we have a solid friendship with a SEA-Chinese family whose kids were my classmates and also came from a Cantonese-speaking family.
People have problem seperating Chinese people from Chinese government because that what the CCP wanted, CCP spent the last 70 years conflating the concept of Chinese Culture and the ruling party to give the political regime legitmacy, both domestically and internationally. But it's a double edged sword, you cant expect people to distinguish the government and the people when you've spent 70 years conflating the two yourselves.
I really enjoyed the commentary about this topic, particularly because it's hard to find any discussion about China that doesn't end up in political-cultural mockery. Looking forward to more content :)
@@yuehan6711 they didn't say racism so I didn't think "political cultural mockery" was a stand in for it. no racism is of course not the answer or ever an answer or helpful. "soft power" though is still government power and so by using that term I assume you're talking about the government and its propaganda. also you didn't address or acknowledge that China is doing a genocide, you tried to change the subject instead. are its people not complicit?
@@wesleywyndam-pryce5305 I think YOU tried to change the subject of the conversation. The comment said "discussions about china" and I interpreted this as discussions about the many facets of culture and history china has. And even mockery, lies, and/or insincere discussion about a bad government doesn't help anyone. It just spreads misinformation and makes it all seem like a joke. There was a serious, educational video about the Tiananmen Square massacre on youtube and all the top comments were *jokes.* Under a video where people DIED. But I don't see shit like that under videos about Russia invading Ukraine. The evidence of the "genocide" is also incredibly flimsy. China offered Nato a chance to check out Xinjiang, but they refused. Only 5 out of the 190-something countries in the UN actually believe there's a genocide (and those 5 do NOT include muslim-majority countries or countries who had been affected by colonialism, such as african countries) and the numbers of Ughyurs in camps doesn't add up. When a seasoned and well-respected reporter went to Xinjiang alone to check it out and said that he did not think anything bad was happening, his peers criticized him for simply going, aka for basically doing his job. one time, western media got a photo of a crate of tomatoes that fell and smashed to the ground, blurred it, and claimed it had been a ughyur person brutally attacked. There's been instances of the ughyurs who were in the camps not telling consistent stories. Not to mention, many if not most chinese people who have emigrated from china and regularly criticize its censorship issues but still track its political news and modern culture do not think the genocide is happening. You can think you're standing up against a genocide, but if something like this was happening in a white european country, I don't think you all would act like this. In fact, you all already give Russia a lot more leeway. America also had/does bombs muslim countries and you all consume american media like candy....
ahh thank you so much! sinophobia is so frequently expressed in discussions of China and it often goes unacknowledged. I'm glad to be able to spark some convos on this and hopefully get more people to think about why our perception of china is the way it is! thanks for dropping by and leaving a comment! :)
You can't paint this as sinophobia. While sometimes mainland China can be unfairly maligned, the lion's share of it does come from the government. The government constantly claims that it is inseperable from China, represents all Chinese and that they are the sole entity doing so. If they want to stop Chinese culture being ridiculed worldwide then then onus is on the govt to change.
@@makoy2689 it is sinophobia if youre unable to separate the people and the state. yeah the government sucks but your claim that people making comments abt the chinese governement under posts related to china but not the government is sinophobic.
@@theresahe4181 But this is about Chinese culture, and how it loses out to japanese and Korean culture on the world stage. My point is that it is not reasonable or accurate to chalk it up to sinophobia when you have a government taking such an active role in antagonising everythjng, including Chinese culture itself.
So sad you didn’t mention Kung Fu Films. As a 90’s kid, I grew up watching films from the 70’s (Bruce Lee), the 80’s (Jackie Chan, Jet Li), and Wire Fu (Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon). It made me want to learn more about Chinese culture and had a huge influence on me. Now it’s all so subpar in comparison that an American animation studio was able to showcase Chinese culture better than China could (Kung Fu Panda).
I’ve talked to my friends about this. China is bad at marketing their stuff. Take food for instance. Japanese food like mochi and ramen have become globally popular, but few ppl know the food originated in China or know the Chinese equivalents. In the West, Chinese goods are unfairly seen as cheap or unoriginal copies. The stigma is hard to break, but it’s been done by Japan and now Korea with strong marketing and soft power through media.
Japan in the past was stigmatized in very similar ways. Back in the 70s / 80s it was so bad a Chinese American named Vincent Chin was murdered by white Americans that hated Japan. It’ll take a long time and lots of change before China can export pop culture.
Chinese locals dont really trust their local food due and prefer imported stuff due to food safety issues, etc. Kind of difficult to market that when locals know how bad it can get. That milk protein scandal and sewer cooking oil are just a few of the many footnotes.
@@scholarssolutions6735 Yup. They have a fairly uphill battle. A lot of people underestimate how long its taken for both Japan and SK to cultivate the type of soft power they have today though if China could get past certain BS (ie: massive CCP meddling) they could probably cultivate their soft power faster then both countries did. Japan took literal decades but SK's growth has been considerably shorter thanks to the internet. The current and ever evolving internet culture along with the general wider acceptances and interest in Asian entertainment and culture offer pretty fertile ground for Chinese entertainment to capture the world imagination.
@@scholarssolutions6735 yes, building a strong soft power required decade of effort, japan start build their soft power in 1970s and korea in early 21 century. Heck even south korea have the same kind of censorship like china in 1980s So i pretty sure that china could potentially become a huge soft power in 20-30 year. Because chinese cinema and animation are having a huge potential in the future
What is even more sad about this is consider the population of these respective countries: Japan 125 million Korea 51 million china 1.4 BILLION. China has 8 times the population of these two countries combined. Really puts into perspective the lack of cultural exports to the west/broader world. And unfortunately a lot of it has to do with the oppressive levels of censorship by the government.
@B1ackkv£ns If someone says they are Korean, do you ask them if they are from North Korea or South Korea? No, you already know the answer. So in conversation where it is obvious there's nothing wrong with just saying Korea lol
I'm from India, and Chinese food is extremely popular here, Chinese food is 2nd in popularity after indian food. I'm not sure if food is a soft power though, i have also always been very fascinated by ancient Chinese culture, since it is the civilisation that influenced the rest of East Asia
The thing we call "Chinese food" is something Chinese guys themselves don't eat. What we call "Chinese" is actually Indo-Chinese made by Chinese settlers in West Bengal, India fusing Chinese and Indian food elements.
No food does not qualify as soft power lol by that logic the Arabs and Turks have a significant soft power because of Hummus and kebab respectively. Also Chinese can include Taiwan and Hong Kong not just Beijing.
I am not saying that it’s fair , but where I live, contemporary China is synonym for cheap. Many Chinese families opened markets that sell cheap (and sometimes counterfeit) wares, all you can eat cheap restaurants, cheap hair and nails salons etc. then there’s apps like T*mu that sell very cheaply. And so where I live, Japan is seen as a classy country, Korea is seen as a fashion country, but China is the cheap Country.. and there’s no soft power in cheap, because it’s not aspirational. Again, I understand this is a generalization, but I wonder if it’s a generalization that other countries have too, and that might contribute to less soft power.
Korea is a fashion country? That would be Japan. LOL, name me some famous world renowned Korean fashion designers or luxury labels. Korea is known for used and knockoff Italian goods in Myeongdong ^^
Not anymore. India is surpassing China in production. Foreign companies like Foxconn prefer to invest there because of Chinese government restrictions. China might be ambitious, but it's heavy handed and stifling creativity. @@mikepeng6749
This is honestly, super interesting. I've never thought about soft power, but have noticed the proliferation of Eastern Asiatic cultures in the global mainstream over the last decade. I would be interested to see more of this type of content in the future.
As a Chinese person born and raised in China and growing up exposed to both western pop and kpop, I can attest to some of the things you mentioned, like censorship and artists not having full autonomy of their works. But the pop cultures in China, particularly those who have nothing to do with CCP, have always been active (underground rap culture, not the kind of rap videos posted here obviously, c-drama, variety shows, celebrities who compete for attention, memes, viral videos etc.) except it didn't get proper exposure to the west as Japan and Korea did, because the government hasn't planned to export it and benefit from the cultural expansion economically, unlike Japan and particularly Korea who has been promoting their content for decades on a national scale. Our domestic market is big enough for actors and celebrities to earn millions of dollars just by showing up on a few episodes of variety shows or starring in any tv series and make much more money than Korean idols/actors. Korea had always tried to break into China’s market by co-producing shows etc., partly because money is so easy to make in china with just a bit influence with the demographic edge. This trend continued until Korea-china relationship deteriorated in recent years. Then they switched their focus to the west as a result. Plus we have our own separate platforms/apps running and promoting shows/content/music that the west either simply doesn’t have access to or hasn't been aware of their existence even if some of the platforms have international versions, like iq.com. Netflix bought a few shows that probably account for less than 5% of the content we consume daily. We had a certain degree of creativity freedom until recent years, evidenced by award winning movies focusing on gay couples, reflections on past historical mistakes like the cultural revolution (farewell my concubine). The lack of freedom only aggravated in recent years, for obvious reasons, which is sad to see. We have so much potential but because of ideological clashes we may never see the culture as widely spread as japan/korea. To sum up, 1. Censorship, although some of the content that passed the censorship are just as good. 2. Hard to access if you don’t know the language. 3. We don’t export. Our own market has not been saturated yet. 4. The west politicizes everything about China.
thank you for this input! I've always felt the western position on china felt too extreme because I have several chinese friends living quite normal lives and wondered if they were privileged themselves or if everything about china was politicised too much. I'm definitely aware of the booming chinese industry and how they're doing fine being insulated because it's similar to my home country where people enjoy media and cultural exports from the west but also are very connected to and preserve our country's culture simultaneously and our entertainment industry is flourishing enough to make artists extremely rich and famous within our country itself, thus the lack of strategised, strong outward export.
China is not exactly friendly with America, I would not be surprised if there was some gate keeping on America’s part on Chinese content. It for sure would not get the same treatment as Japan or Korea which are basically American colonies at this point.
@@JolieGirl2002 I honestly think both sides politicize a lot, like you had it with the olympic games for example where ypu had to get CCP approved to get in, its always those big things that get shown in the west where they apply a lot of politics. Or these rap songs released about Taiwan or the cotton fields and all. Everything they want to show the west has politics in it because they feel that way they can manipulate the west into supporting them. Remember the first olympic games in china? Thats how promotion works! People loved it and didnt say much about politics because they only displayed culture mostly, but thats really changed now. They dont purely show culture or people anymore, only what been heavily controlled and approved and thus western media will become even more negative about it. All in all I just really think the CCP doesnt know how to really advertise itself or its country to the outside anmyore and thats casuing issues. I also know china has a booming media culture, but if they want to use that soft power, why dont they grant some access to that once in a while? i want to add tho, I feel like the US is messing up a lot now too, in recent times ive seen less and less good things, only stuff that has been politicized or things that are going wrong. I feel like its starting to become similar with my media intake about that country and many others are seeing this too. I also feel like many big soft power markets are decreasing in popularity a bit. If you present yourself wrong, like both of them are doing now, you lose a lot of favor even if you live there and its not like presented.
Korea is boiling with internal collisions. Clash of ideas and ideologies. Almost a civil war without bullets. Still it is a peaceful country with quite a resilient economy. This stark contrast is the source of K culture.
as someone who loves c-drama, c-novels, and Chinese music etc. im very sad when i cant watch or read or legally stream because of lack of translation and availability. it has such a great potential. but i can see its definitely better than 5 years ago. I started to learn Chinese and went to Taiwan for a year. But its a very hard (BEAUTIUFUL) language, and it will take take me many years to master it.
I understand chinese entertainment industry is not that much great unlike koreans and japanese but what about taiwanese? They are democracy right why can't they produce the quality output then?
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It’s too hard for me to get over the weird voiceovers they do. I don’t want to hear the same voice actors throughout the entire drama and it always just looks and sounds weird because of it.
another thing that blocks their soft power is almost everything is on their state-run platforms so to get a lot of info without hunting for it. i even remember a while back I was watching produce 101 and Idol producer on youtube and then they were gone one day, only to find out it was because of the government, I don't remember why tho. I was very interested in Chinese culture and language (still am) and I wanted to dig my heels into it more but the content that got me into it was basically stripped from me i didn't know where to look or how to find anything (this was 3 or 4 years ago) when i couldn't find i basically switched to other countries and stayed there. i was having a lot of fun with the context but you couldn't just get the content and that makes it hard to stick with it.
The deficiency is quite astounding. I am Chinese American, yet I know far more stories, music, movies from Korea and Japan than from China due to things you mentioned like anime and Kpop. It's sad because there are great Chinese stories to tell. Just look at how prevalent Sun Wukong, a Chinese character, is in Korean and Japanese manga and manhwa
As a sinologist I know how amazing Chinese culture is, but I also know how it is being kept inside of China by the authorities. If they allow for free expression then they no longer have the thought control that they seek, and social stability might be affected.
A major reason is that China is really self-eccentric. We're already really lucky that some Chinese Tv shows and Dramas put English subtitles. I also remember reading many Chinese novels, but the updates on our platforms come very late because the aim for the novels is mainly the Chinese audience, it's very frustrating. When I don't find subtitles for some TV shows, I feel like pulling my hair out. In conclusion, China is self-sustaining and doesn't need outside help in any way, whether it be economic or political, I mean they do have like 1.4 billion people.
I totally agree with your comment. Those cdrama platforms even don't work for better and reasonable subtitles. Not only foreigners have language barriers towards Chinese contents, but also Chinese creators won't do more work to cover foreign audience. Though they post dramas on TH-cam, they seem like not to really care about non-Chinese speakers.
LMAO xD bro china is NOT self sustaining. They need foreign investment and a market to sell all their stuff to. The chinese internal market is not big enough. Aslo china is not food or energy independent. Having lots of people doesnt mean youre self sustaining...
@@captainalex157 They were doing very well before Britain colonised them so why can't they be self-sustaining? They are just moving with the times, who wouldn't want more money? If they weren't self-sustaining then how did they get food for their people before Britain came into the picture, they didn't have any trade routes back then and they were surrounded by sea and mountains. They only started doing these things when Britain hit rock bottom and went to China in SEARCH of trade and then all this stuff happened. Don't make me laugh and go do your history.
@@captainalex157 As I said, they're moving with the times. Back then if Britain hadn't colonised them, who knows how they would've survived? Since that obviously didn't happen and trade routes started appearing that's not something to discuss. You are off-topic and have nothing to say. This conversation is over, good day.
This is a totally different scenario in Southeast Asia. In Vietnam, we have access to a lot of Chinese fashion trends such as ( as you previous mentioned in the video) douyin makeup, taobao fashion (online shopping application in Chinese), life hack from douyin and a lot of trending styles actually deprived from Chinese like the dopamin makeup, dressing styles. Moreover, Chinese people appear to be very funny and entertaining to us due to a large number of funny daily Chinese life being uploaded on facebook (which is the most used social media app in VIetnam). However, us Vietnamese don't want to touch the CHinese government as it's related to the previous colonisation. Watching this video makes me realised how China may appear hostile, inhospitality to the Western side and it reminded me of how badly China was advertised.
As a Brazilian, I want to add: The US overthrows democracies, sustains over 70% of the dictatorships in the planet, funds terrorist groups and commits war crimes against everyone else. China gave us their traditional medicine, Daoism, rich history, and much better trade conditions. I’d stand for China over the US any time, any day. I don’t perceive China as unhospitable. I perceive them as an amazing country with incredibly hard working people. I’m a “woke” guy who actually puts history in perspective, but I don’t think I’m an exception. I guess most brazilians have a positive view of China. Except for the far-right idiots… But they are YET another reason for us to dislike the US, since all they do is mimic the american right wing…
From Chinese side the "colonisation" was actually a good try of reunification (with bloodshed of course, but all reunification comes with war and bloodshed like what you did during your process of reunification in mordern time), We failed at it than We let North Vietnam go and never invade again.
Your comment is a perfect demonstration of how soft power (brainwashing) influence people's view. Inhospitable to western world? Quite the other way around.
i just want to express how thankful i am for this video. as a chinese person living in europe, the bad treatment stands out every day. im kind of scared to share my experiences but i hope to find the strength soon and comment again
As a European, I’m sorry to hear that and I hope your experience improves. But let’s not pretend bad treatment is something that only happens to Chinese people. Do you recall how badly Africans were treated in China during the pandemic?
@@numb15 no one said that other countries/cultures dont face discrimination, this video is on the topic of chinese so we’re talking about the chinese people? To me, youre kind of putting off the hate chinese/asians get by saying that “african people get hate too! By your own country even!!”
I remember watching the Karate Kid (2010) and the Beijing Olympics, which gave me a really positive perspective of Chinese culture as a kid. Seeing all the censorship though makes me sad of what else they could have made but didn’t
@@inhokim3598 No fucking shit. What I’m saying is that the movie was based in China, and that portrayal of China was appealing to me as a kid. Why do I have to explain this far into something this simple.
@@tocreatee3585 (I would have mentioned “rude” and “bad-mannered” - but I assumed that everyone has had their own experiences with Chinese tourists-or seen dozens of vids of them on YT already)….
This so interesting and I always used to ask myself this as an African when I was in China. Chinese things just aren't perceived as cool like things from Japan or Korea although some good things that can be good soft power for China are genuinely nice. I think you're video was spot on as I think its a big dilemma for the CCP to maintain their power and control over Chinese people or expanding soft power, I think the CCP will always prefer to maintain power and control in China rather than exporting their culture
@Trinity M If you want to fix Sinophobia then change the gov simple as that. Imagine saying "we cant ignore the north korean phobia that contributes to the perception" when their leadership is literally launching missiles to neighboring territories and threatening nuclear war. Of course people dont want to associate or engage with crazy that's completely normal. People started to let go of germanophobia because the war-prone Nazi german government ceased to exist. People don't want to play chinese games or watch chinese movies or whatever mainly because they associate them to the government since the majority of business there is government owned and of course they dont want to support a government who represses its own people and threatens war with Taiwan every singe week.
Chinese culture will grow. It's an inevitability, just as how soft power from Africa will grow. Why? Because soft power always rests on a bedrock of HARD power and ECONOMY. It's just that China has to fight through the West's monopoly on media and public opinion.
The West is very good at marketing and they set the agenda, Korea & Japan are both very dependent and very connected to the West. China can still do good, but they might have to target the global south first.
@Trinity M the sinophobia only grows each year the CCP is in power. I’m African American, and I don’t think you understand how big martial arts and Chinese culture was for years before the CCP started getting so aggressive.
China really shouldn't underestimate the boom that recent danmei webnovels and liveactions are bringing, with the Untamed having hit 10 billion views I think according to an article I read somewhere. It just really furthered my interest in their beautiful culture too such as the amazing OSTs they feature in their period dramas which in general lead me to falling in love with the genre of Gufeng music.
Whatever culture you think China has is being actively destroyed by the CCP government as they legitmentally commit crimes against certain demographics within their own population. Compounded with the rising tensions with nations surrounding China and the end result in a negative look from most against China. Also unless your Chineese the broader chineese internet is cut off from the world.
@@PrettyBabyAngel you literally said in other comments that you don’t know why westerners bring up the concentration camps on the topic of Chinas authoritarianism. That sounds exactly like someone defending those camps or else guy wouldn’t complain
CCP doesn't underestimate it. Rather, CCP is afraid of it. CCP is not interested in "soft power" if it does not directly benefit the state on a geopolitical level; similarly, it would rather kill off this source of "soft power" if it can potentially harm CCP by posing a salient, China-based challenge to the narrative the Communists want to foist on all of us. A Malaysian Chinese's observation.
I personally dislike danmei, but it’s undeniable that its got lots of fans. But the issue is that danmei is a homegrown cultural phenomenon that goes against the official Chinese stances for Chinese culture and society. To them, it’s Chinese culture, but not the ‘correct’ Chinese culture. It’s seen as the product of exposure to Western decadence, which tbh isn’t without merit. Danmei, like yaoi, is the woman’s version of lesbian media (and p*rn) made for men.
Another example of politics undermining Chinese culture are the artisanal craftsmen videos that are popular on TikTok. They could be making ink blocks or silk or paper and will show someone with incredible skill and dedication crafting something beautiful. The videos often have traditional music and are set in some rural mountain area. But it doesn't take too long before you realise that these videos are all manufactured. The person probably doesn't work in this beautiful rural village but a dirty factory in town. The videos are clearly trying to show the rich history and culture that China has but the whole message is undermined when the viewer realises they are just watching another form of propaganda.
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china has tiktok and genshin impact but most people don't associate them with china
@@chinchillatwitch7234 the legend of zelda is entirely JAPANESE, nothing murican abouth them. what are you talking about?
Tiktok is merely a medium - the thing that creates soft power is the content.
Because that doesn’t fall under soft power. We all wear clothes that are made in china but we don’t give a fuck about china still
Tik tok has been trying to distance itself from China due to US government breathing down it's neck and genshin is just an extension of anime but owned by Chinese. They do spread some Chinese culture sometimes though.
Genshin maybe, but it's hard to think of something more relevant in internet culture for its association with China than TikTok, especially given how discussed it's been since the US government started targeting it.
China has a huge cultural potential, if only their government let it shine, I just read the Three Body Problem trilogy and I'm still baffled that this book series made it out of China intact and had success in its home turf too. It's one of the best book sci-fi book series of this generation.
As someone who has lived in China for 10 years. It’s just a sci-fi book calm down…..it’s not an atomic bomb
YESSSSS Im also reading through the three body problem. I discovered it through Quinns ideas on youtube and its easily one of my favorite books ever.
Yeah, especially when they are conducting a genocide, an ethnic cleansing.
Just took a gander at this series, so glad you mentioned it. Sounds awesome!
Xi won't let that happen.
What I find fascinating is how the Chinese government decided to "strongly discourage" the airing of danmei-adapted dramas and donghuas just as The Untamed had become an international phenomenon. Instead of embracing that momentum and fostering it, they intentionally slammed the breaks. This would be like the government of Korea banning K-pop in 2012, just as it was really starting to be noticed in the West.
Basically, they want soft power, but they also want to dictate the terms of that soft power (largely for reasons of domestic policy). But it just doesn't work like that. They smothered the spark in its infancy, and there's no telling when or if it will ever catch again.
Yeah, I really got into The Untamed and into Danmei and Wuxia novels through that. And shortly after the Chinese government tightened its grip on media like that and many of the novels I liked got banned from their platforms.
That's sadly very true...
I'm still mourning over the fact that the actors of untamed cannot interact with each other anymore due to the government policies... 😭😭😭😭
The truth is that China culture industry is always in a messy. On the one hand, Chinese censorship is often considered too strict. And in the past 20 years, it got more stricter because government finally have time and space to focus on these things. In the early 10s, you can easily find many illegal things on Chinese internet, so does some books strongly-against government, literary and artistic works were more willing to talk about politics. But after these things got more industrialized, they behave worse and started to produce massive similar junks which doesn't have too much meanings but just for fun. They avoid to mention politics, aggressive opinions, blood, dark stories, because censorship is too sensitive. They need to consider if it can deliver a "optimistic opinion", "could it make children grows more violent", "would it have negative social influence". Censorship is kind of overprotective， which is also disliked by Chinese. The censorship allows the work to talk about serious things but it considered more. Its purpose is not letting people stop talking about anything serious but since it is easier for industries to pass it and make money, it indirectly made donghua more under-age and more like a big advertisement for toys. On the other hand, the communists do changed a lot of old negative stuff in ideology and cultural field in the last century, but many Chinese, especially the last generation, may still hold some obsolete opinions and values. The wouldn't like danmei, they would worry if their kids would become gays, who could not live a normal life, got married and have some grandson or granddaughter in the future. These parents thinks donghua are just for kids, they are just for fun, so it have negative influence on kids' study, it is harmful. So once something passed the censorship, it has to pass parents' check, or they may got public tip-offs from these parents (or competitors who pretend to be parents). And once it is noticed by the government, be classified as something has negative social influence, it is gone.
Actually since 2006, the government always have a support policy to donghua industry. But it only creates massive studios living on swindling subsidies that creates nothing but shit videos which looks like it is made by graduates. And the industrialization of culture industry is another disaster process which is still continuing. Most companies just want to make money quickly, don't care what shit they made. And they don't even dare to try something new, which made the whole culture industry are full of useless junk with similar topic, plots and even characters.
You need to understand that a BIG part of the historical heritage was straight up destroyed when CCP assumed; the very lil that survived is simultaneously what foreigners want to see and what they do not want to broadcast. The “preserve traditional practices” is a fairly recent movement and will take time to we see the results.
I know I'm not adding anything here, but it really is such a baffling move. They did something similar in 2018 with Yanxi Palace. Yanxi and Untamed were actually getting positive press in the western media, which is UNHEARD of for a Chinese series. It's baffling to me that Communist Party can be so BAD at the soft power game.
It's also hard to connect socially via the internet with people in China. They can't legally access a lot of the sites we use, including TH-cam, so maybe they're also just not sharing a lot of their stuff with us either. It's really hard to do cultural exchange this way.
Yeah, this is why I'm glad I was born in Canada. (I'm Chinese by blood)
I totally agree with the exchange of culture point; it's hard to see a country's culture when censorship is literally in every piece of media from that country.
Wrong. You can legally access those sites but you need to pay for a VPN. Which is why so many TH-camrs are recording from China.
@thetreekeeper143 Okay, I looked it up, and you're right. It's not illegal to watch it, but it is censored and blocked, making it less accessible to most people in China. I suppose it's not the same, but functionally, I do think having big online cultural hubs like that separated from the rest of the world does hurt cultural exchange. I have students in China, and I can't send them videos or articles a lot of times that I think they'd like because they can't access the site. I can access BiliBili if they want to show me something, though.
Have a guess why I am here as a Mainland Chinese
As a Chinese, I can tell you that most Chinese people are not interested in foreign Internet. First of all, most Chinese people don't speak English well. Secondly, foreign culture is no longer attractive to the Chinese, and the Chinese have even lost patience and confidence in American culture. Secondly, many Chinese people can access foreign social platforms, but they are too lazy to discuss political topics, because most Chinese people love their country, are confident in their history and culture, and are proud of it. Third, the Chinese know that what is happening in the world is that there are a lot of Chinese people moving content from the "foreign Internet" to Chinese social platforms, but in general, cultures outside of China are not attractive to the Chinese
As a massive Wuxia and Xianxia novels fan, i'm glad you mentioned the novels space. Chinese novels are probably the biggest powerhouse when it comes to internet novels. And as someone who has red a unhealthy amount of them i can tell you that it serves as soft power rather well. And surprisingly can get away with certain amounts of speech freedom, although not too much. (It could be translators just leaving it out). And in general i think that the mythical stories and tales of China have so much potential which unfortunately is not shown to the west in the capacity it should be shown in my opinion.
Yes! Recently got into Wuxia and also am a big fan of Chinese sci-fi (the Three-Body Problem specifically). It's sad that they're not known at all where I live. I think seperating the chinese Internet from the rest of the world has really delayed some really great stories and worlds from being appreciated sooner and influencing other countries. The same way for some western modern genres, like Wild West cowboy movies, were spread even more by being reflected in some japanese animes for example
They censor lots of bl novels (danmei) though. Also if I'm not wrong, My Iyashikei Game was supposed to be a full-on horror type of novel rather than the VR-horror kinds if there's no censorship
They censor many things (like below the neck etc.). They also have this sort of 'China is the best why other country copy us etc. sentiments' hahaha (I feel like it may be to increase social credit??) but say other than those I am really a big reader of Chinese light novels ranging from romance to danmei to mystery anything. Unlike japanese and korean their availability and accessibility on the internet is massive (and much easier to google translate). I think because they have a large population many people also have big brains and imagination. I really hope their literature industry will prosper more and more.
censorship is ruining the art though. also there's too many dramas and arts telling the same story it's getting really stale. It's not like China lacks creative powerhouses, e.g. Liu Cixin, they are just suppressed into mundanity and mediocrity.
Personally I haven't read many web novels (only two that had adaptations as web "comics"). And in comparison to that, I've read quite a few manhua (CH), manhwa (KO), and manga (JP).
It really feels like the chinese stories are way too often some kind of variation of the cultivation genre where women don't play an active role and are relegated to eye-candy (which are then censored making it even worse lol). Not really my cup of tea... The translations also seem to be of worse quality.
In comparison, manga have way more detailed story lines and variations, while most of them are not using color (which is sad). They're also incredibly "wordy" and have more text than picture sometimes.
Manhwa on the other hand are colored and more succinct (though probably because colored drawing takes more effort, there's a few reused assets which I haven't noticed yet in manga).
I just can't read chinese manhua... they got stale and off-putting way too fast.
It's funny how you can immediately tell from which country the web comic is produced.
I've been complaining about this for a while now, and you make very good points.
Growing up as a Chinese-American, being able to speak Mandarin was never "cool". People flocked to learning Korean and Japanese, because it enables them to watch their favorite Kpop videos or Kdramas without subtitles, or watch anime and import Japanese video games without needing to wait for them to be translated. The Chinese language never commanded such cultural respect among younger generations. When people wanted to learn Chinese, it was mostly for business-related reasons. Everyone knows Chinese food and kung-fu, but these things never really drove people to learn the language or visit the country with the same passion as they do for Korean or Japanese. I remember that whenever I visit Taiwan, all the music that you hear playing in restaurants, coffee shops, and stores would either be Japanese or Korean music. Never heard Chinese music. Japan has weeaboos and Korea has koreaboos, these are well-known. But why doesn't China have any equivalents? To be honest, I was a bit salty about this growing up. Why are Japanese and Korean the cool languages to know, and nobody pursues learning Chinese? I was jealous because being able to speak Korean or Japanese was seen as "cool", while Chinese to them was "just another language".
Genshin Impact was a HUGE cultural export out of China from recent years, but even it can't be completely attributed to Chinese soft power. They lean heavily into the Japanese anime aesthetics, and they even feature Japanese voice acting. A lot of gamers still don't even realize that Genshin Impact is Chinese, since they promoted the Japanese voice tracks heavily and got some A-list Japanese voice actors. A lot of players still use the Japanese voice tracks, despite the Mandarin voice track being the original artists' intention. So while yes, it is a Chinese game, it still had to ultimately rely a LOT on the soft power of Japan to achieve its success. In a way, you could say that it's not even spreading Chinese cultural power, it's spreading Japanese cultural power.
When china becomes a top power ,people will definitely flock to learn Chinese languages and it's culture. Don't worry about it
chinese or taiwanese?
@@prasanth2601 Do you have any idea when will it happen? 10 years from now? 30 years? 100 years or even longer?
It was a shock to me when I learned Genshin was from Shanghai. Hate to admit it, but all the Chinese content I consumed prior really didn’t wow me. I’ve been fascinated with China for most of my life, but most of what I learned about China was from my studies and seeing firsthand.
@@Acrnavy That's exactly that I mean. A lot of people don't know that Genshin is a Chinese game, because it relies so heavily on Japanese aesthetics and traits. Japan has anime, manga, and video games that captivated the entire world. Korea has Kpop and Kdramas. I know that we generally like to make fun of weeaboos and Koreaboos, but sometimes I wish that Chinese had an equivalent, if only to demonstrate how much cultural power they have.
Growing up, I always loved Kpop, and I remember getting really into c-pop and c-dramas. Looking back now, I realize how many were actually just Taiwan and Hong Kong, rather than mainland China
When Google banned China from accessing its service, China lost the most popular way to export information, culture, media etc.
Things can come in, but nothing goes out. From then on what is happening to China is mostly covered by the media, which can be censored and altered themselves.
Too bad hong Kong and Taiwan today are pathetic. The future of Chinese soft power will be with China even with Chinese government censorship.
Because mainland Chinese entertainment industry start quite late, around 2006-2010,from there, it truly start. Prior to that, there is only some singer or celebrity/drama, and mostly depandant on cooperation between mainland, HK and Taiwan, not as well build industry as it is now.
Before that, the singer and more mostly just singing in bar or stage, no really TV show or variety show to attend, such as Zhang Chu, Liang Long, Dou Wei and more...
Before this, everyone from mainland that really want to be a celebrity, they go to HK. For example, Faye Wang. And a lot more are born in China and go HK since young such as Raymond Lam, Michael Miu and more.
@@TheExtraterrestrial99 China has had its own massive entertainment industry for a long time. The problem is that a lot of it was either such obvious propaganda, so that it's just too cringe. Or it was really low quality imitation of what's popular in HongKong, so... who would want that if they can choose the original Hong Kong version? China always had a rich pool of talented singer, actors, writers, etc. The production being government-directed was what kept it down.
@@TheExtraterrestrial99 You can look at Russia's current entertainment industry and media, and compare it to how it was 2 years ago. It's night-and-day difference. Sometimes it's the same exact artists, but now they're semi-forced to make these extreme cringe and obvious-sell-out and it just feels souless. It's the same thing with China back in the days.
I spent a month in Hong Kong and posted a lot about my positive experiences there. What I remember was friends in the United States (where I'm from) being quite surprised and saying they had not really ever wanted to go there and my posts were changing their mind. I have definitely noticed what you are saying from talking to people about China.
China is an amazing country. Tgey are the onlj country to pull 800 million ppl out of poverty. The infrastructure public transportation system is the best in tge world on top of it being extremely safe clean convenient amazing cuisine with so much sights and activities. The western media always pumps out lies and disinformation about china bc they are threat to the emprerial west. On the other hand china doesn't involve in smear campaign propaganda like the west and are busy building a better quality of life for it's citizens.
i like how with no introduction this is your first video, gets straight to the point and you got this massive influx of viewers immediately lol
exactly lol
Her tiktok is like couple of months old and have good amount of followers for starting out with only 4 videos.
Well, you know. It's all of the "ChInA iS oN tHe BrInK Of ToTaL cOlLaPsE" boosting China as a keyword.
@@santoryu2753 whats her tiktok
thats crazu didt know it was even possible with a single video!
I dropped my jaw when you mentioned this is only your second video, it popped up on my homepage and I thought this had to be a long-established essay channel because of how natural and captivating you are and how your arguments flow well. Keep on with such work, and thank you!
Bro this is her second video? Well done for her!
The moment she said the word “CCP“ I know she is about to say a bunch of Anti China Propaganda the actual word is “Communist Party of China “ and it should be “CPC” but Western Media like to call it “CCP”
that way just for easily impressive people that are ready to listen to whatever anyone says on the Internet .
China’s Orwellian Social Score Credit System doesn’t produce an actual score or assessment, it’s just a Rating system which is common everywhere in the World including in the US . To see wether what you are selling is clean or not, to spot fraud or public offence, it also includes pollution, and so on.
Stop lying and stop the lies.
@@MelisaenHongKong you wrote a lot of words to say something completely useless. It takes one episode of one Chinese drama or webtoon to realise how heavily propaganda influences them. That’s absolutely natural and it’s easy to spot because we in the West have propaganda as well. I’m a communist, I think it’s important to be realistic though. I suggest you adopt a more pleasant approach because you are going to persuade people of the exact opposite just because of how arrogant and obnoxious you are. Bye.
@@MelisaenHongKong does china filter all its media so that its citizens aren’t able to hear any criticism towards the government?
i thought it was her first
As a Chinese, I genually wish this video to go viral on Chinese platforms, so that they can see it, understand and realize the problem
As a Chinese,I am sure that if this video goes viral in Chinese forum,she will be insulted and harassed
@@bobl4146 isn’t this phenomena everywhere on social media lol
They don't realize? That means Chinese must be extremely arrogant or oblivious. How about put it on Chinese platform and tell us what the reaction is
I don't think he sees that as a problem. China will undoubtedly be the first world power. In addition, the Chinese influence already exists in certain areas of pop culture. In particular the company Tencent which bought several big video game companies like riot game. If it's really an image problem and the other Asian nations are beginning to overshadow the Chinese giant, he would just have to print money and buy back part of this market.
@@brazzif6285 china will never have soft power of their own as long as notorious ccp still at top.china have very bad images internationally so with bad images there will sure no soft power bcs a country will have soft power when international people love that country
😊:)As a Chinese high school student,I watched this video completely then I started to reflect on our soft-power that I have to say I’m totally agree ur perspective ,I mean probably the older generation didn’t aware of the significance of culture spreading but the youth in China literally impressed by Korean and Japanese impact on the soft power.However,the main problem is the internet banned in China that despite the innovation in soft power in youth couldn’t get rid of the policy that’s literally bad
Yeah, as a westerner it just feels China is so closed off. If we had access, we’d be more interested
别被她带偏，韩国人本来就是最反华的，日本韩国本来就是西方扶持对抗中国的。
不用反思，就是政府限制和扼杀了，如果政府不管控，中国随随便便是世界文化输出最强国家之一。
@@Daniboi971yea fr also yk
I’m a long-time cdrama watcher but I think in recent years the quality of dramas coming from Mainland China has steadily declined due to excessive censorship and forced patriotic and “positive” motifs shoehorned in the plot. The whole industry is also so corrupted and manipulated by capitals that it feels like there’s no room anymore for real talent and interesting stories.
Dramas and all that comes with them (fandom, music, sponsorships) could be one of China’s main soft power weapons but their volatility and precariousness prevents that. When actors get “canceled” and dramas get pulled off the platforms every day, often for no reason, foreign viewers will turn to more stable sources of entertainment (like I’ve turned to kdramas instead).
I’m learning mandarin, could you recommend me some Chinese dramas? Especially BL
@@joelgarcia3354 For BL adaptations, I recommend The Untamed, Winter Begonia and my favorite one Word of Honor (which was subject to said cancellation but is still available on international sites).
Police/thriller: Reset, The Bad Kids, Someday or One Day (from Taiwan)
Historical/palace: Nirvana in Fire (both 1 and 2), Ode to Joy (this is also a bit sci-fi), Scarlet Heart, Story of Yanxi Palace
Other genres: Hikaru no Go (a manga adaptation), Cross Fire (about gaming)
There are also a lot of BL adaptations that have been filmed in the last couple of years but will probably never see the light at this point... which is sad because I was really looking forward to some of them like Mo Du or Chasing the Light
Couldn’t agree more. Since Xi got into power the censorship has gotten 100 times worse. As have the state-sponsored internet brutality by Pinkies (小粉红or ccp supporters).
The red line is so thin and most importantly very vague and ambiguous. For example, a very good video uploader channel called PaperClip 回形针got cancelled because it did not include Taiwan in the map of China in one of their vids and one of their employees had allegedly ties to foreign capitals.
Or 王志安 Zhian Wang, used to be one of china’s largest independent Journalists with 100 million views on each videos, got banned randomly one day without any reasons or justification. (Btw he is on youtube so have a look)
So for chinese like myself who know exactly the reason why China is in the current shitshow, it’s quite laughable to see this kinda video discussing china like some normal country. How come nobody talk about softpower for North Korea or Saudi Arabia? Well those are the exact countries China is heading now since Xi just got his third term.
海外中国人求求你别海外爱国了，回去建设祖国，享受全过程民主，动态清零静态封控多好
same as hollywood . it went woke .
True about forced patriotism. Can you believe a drama about how a teen wants to win a ping pong world championship and liking a girl, became a plot for war and survival? Turned me off to continue the show...
Edit: If anyone's wondering what the name is, it's called 《夺金》
Kpop and Anime are super influential here in the US. I work at a fast food chain right now and every 10th drive thru guest has an anime shirt on and hearing Kpop music on the radio isn't too uncommon anymore.
我想动漫大多数是日本更有影响力
What city do you live in because my suburb is redneck af and I don't even feel comfortable listening to foreign music with people around.
@@zawaliki6208 Duh obviously the producer country will be more affected by it's domestic products 😕
LOL, you must be in California. I assure you it's not like that in the vast majority of the country.
@@selohcin I live in Cleveland, Ohio. I would never subject myself to California again.
An added point, Chinese danmei and period costume dramas are holding the down the fort in the popular cultural exports arena. The associated Western fandom may not be as big as kpop or anime, but it's still sizeable and has a large space to grow. Except that China just recently banned their live action BL dramas, and heavily curtailed period dramas to focus more on propaganda shows. So like, on one hand they're whining about the lack of their cultural influence, on the other, they are literally shutting down the areas that foreigners like.
LITERALLY if china exploited the bl/danmei genre just IMAGINE the success. The Untamed already proves how lucrative the market is, but the government's just too homophobic to care.
@@danielzhou2972 Oh yeah, China has the distinct advantage of being able to produce period dramas at a much higher quality than its neighbours, intersect that with a long winding BL plot of magic and monsters and the West gobbles it up. But no, the CCP is to stubborn to capitalize on it.
Bl dramas arent that great tbh.
Whats BL?
@@Vauataf3346 boy love
Soft power is culture and it can't be artificialy created by political party
Soft power in the east. Propaganda and disinformation about china from the west.
Truth
Hong Kong had a fair amount of soft power in the 90s, and it's amazing how much China squandered that despite them seeming to really want to adopt it
Hong Kong's soft power(films and stuff) pretty much disappeared after the 90s. Most of the talents moved to mainland to develop the market. There wasn't much left after that for China to make use of.
That doesn't make sense, Taiwan’s soft power has not been as dominant as before in Asia since 2008. So I think the decline of Hong Kong's soft power is about the market scale and regional economics, but not the political situation.
The HK film scene basically died with the end of British rule. The lack of appeal of modern China was a net drop to what soft power HK had globally, as its media turned towards catering to the market of its new ownership.
this was definitely in relation to the Handover.
i agree as a hongkonger i was proud when i saw bruce lee or martial art references and the portrayal of hk as a huge economic powerhouse in western films. even tho a lotta times it shows the rough, crime ridden but neon light filled streets it still puts the city out on the map and entices people on how HK is cool and worth visiting in its own way
Li Ziqi is an interesting case to me -she was kind of the bastion of Chinese soft power on TH-cam, and succeeded because her content was so divorced from modern Chinese life, a traditional fantasy...she managed to walk that line by simultaneously promoting traditional/traditional ways of life while still being creative and visually appealing. She was selling that fantasy equally to Western and Chinese audiences.
Sadly she is under dispute with her agency/company. I love liziqi too but she portrays a romanticised version of farm work and the rural areas. Nevertheless, her vids r still beautiful and great at advocating chinese culture, esp in terms of cuisine and craftwork ☺
@@hardcoreemomusicgurl idk why everytime theres chinese soft power begin very popular theres always problem , another example chinese drama wuxia boylover like the untamed its very very popular with very good rating in the world this should be new chinese soft power ,but then stupid CCP ban BL content and the result chinese drama getting worst ,CCP k1lling chinese creativity tbh they bunch of old man dont understand what the world want , if they smart openminded the world would respect it ,but they choose to be hated
@@hardcoreemomusicgurl I mean, rural work is already romanticized by many, even cottagecore falls there
@@annierminx I forgot which video I watched said this, but the person said Li Ziqi is literally cottagecore, just in Chinese. Lol
Diangxi Xiage >
I remember my Chinese friend telling me about this one c - drama that's supposed to be about gaming and e - sports. Problem is it's made around the time China started restricting gaming so they couldn't go through with making it around that theme. What they ended up doing is editing it in post to make it about... Internet safety. Which leads to apparently a scene where the character's parents argued to them that "there's no future in internet safety industry", which makes much less sense but also much more hilarious.
Luhan
Lol, so true, I remember watching a series about a girl joining a League of legend professional team.
China has been ruining their image for centuries. It's too late now. The world hates China and will continue to do so. That will never change and China can only blame themselves. I have never seen a Chinese study hard in school and are usually the rudest/loudest kids in class and out in public. Koreans and Japanese are confident for a reason, China is arrogant for no reason. Just stating facts.
is it the king's game? Like I read that novel in all of it the heard there was gonna be anime about it however it I never heard about it anymore. Is it that?
@@DevDev-dm3st Nope, definitely not King's Game, it's live action.
It's been a year since Aini came into our lives! Congratulations on how far you've come, and I look forward to years more of your insightful content.
I'm genuinely surprised this is your first video. The arguments are solid and the presentation on the topic is captivating to say the least, and I love the fact that you put the time to list out all the sources in the description. Definitely a great find, looking forward to more videos!
Simp
The editing is solid too and she has a good microphone. Having a singular banger video with a unique topic is defo rare on TH-cam. I'm subscribing to see more vids like these.
Agreed. She's like an overnight sensation. I was shocked to see it's her only video. This channel will do really well if she decides to continue.
The Keo cosign 😳😳😳
@@gordonliu3972 she has maybe 6 videos on tiktok. So even outside of TH-cam, almost no content. This is a great start. She will have to find a better background, better lighting and could improve the mic but this is much better for first video than most others who became YT hits.
It's interesting, this topic isn't very mainstream despite many east Asians noticing the clear soft power discrepancy between China, Japan, and South Korea. I'm Japanese, and it's definitely extremely noticeable how differently I was treated and perceived by westerners, compared to my Chinese American schoolmates and friends. Genshin was a good example of skewed perception; despite being Chinese made, developed and distributed, it is perceived from a Japanese viewpoint by many in the west, perhaps due to the art style, and with a lot of players using Japanese voice over. It's truly a shame, I think Chinese culture itself is so rich and historically deep, yet China is generally perceived as "anti western" due to the CCP.
I often hear Westerners say "omg Taiwan is the REAL CHINA"... Meanwhile, none of them listen to Taiwanese music, none of them take up learning traditional Chinese, Taiwan is only covered in Western media if there's some kind of danger. Taiwan has preserved some (not all) aspects of traditional culture you would assume they'd gravitate towards, but that's not the case. ofc modern TW and mainland culture are different, but they have common roots.
@@UniquelyUnseen Yeah Taiwan doesn’t do any better in soft power despite being a “democracy”. In fact, I’d argue China is slightly better than Taiwan - Chinese dramas at least have some niche fanbase (still nothing compared to Korean dramas). While censorship does play a role, there’s more to it as to why China is not successful with soft power.
I'm from China and I didn't even know Genshin was Chinese due to its name. If pronounced in Chinese, it would be called YuanShen or YuenSun. But in Japanese it is indeed pronounced 'Genshin'. Had they made the name YuanShen, then I think most people would know it's a Chinese made game.
@@UniquelyUnseen i mean, it is hard to separate geopolitics. i personally like chinese culture and try to be open minded, but of japan, korea and china, the geopolitics are, two allies and one country that routinely makes threats at us. of course i dont blame the people, but it does make a difference if i'm going to invest in a culture, if i could safely go there. japana and south korea, sure no worries, China...maybe if im on good behavior and they dont read any of my post history..
effectively China is Russia.
@@UniquelyUnseen
The PRC has maybe 40x as many people. If they just have equal influence that would already be a huge L. There's also no hypocrisy in thinking one's better than the other while not giving much of a damn about either.
Thank you so so much for this video. It’s been so hard being chinese but born in Europe. You want to defend China and it’s people and it’s culture but also not defend political ideologies that you don’t agree with but it’s hard to try to validate that China is not it’s CCP to all my friends and anyone I talk to in the west, and anytime I mention something positive about China that I’m passionate about it just gets shut down because the subject can not seem to be detached from it’s peoples in power :( which is truly so devastating
Hey,,I get what u r saying. U are NOT alone. Now u will get more n more ppl get mad at china. Its jealousy thing. In human psychology Jealousy is in Everyone. Just like how rest of world always had LOve/h8te towards America, they have with china too. IF China is weak or poor or actually ST*pid. Then no one cares.
Just like Girl A on patio see Girl B show up. Suddently Everything about B looks annoying to her. From her “overly nice fitted LUlulemon, to pretty long eye lashes, to pointy chin. Slim thick size XS looking smoking”. --oh she must be slut, why does she dress like that outside of gym when not working out. Ewrr, i must be trying too hard.
NOT realizing she had seen like so many ppl like that on d street , NOT 1 caught her attention . She will see a few more at passing by on her way home , they wont catch her attention either 5 yrs later. --d 1 she makes her put SOOO much emphasize n Analyze on, is d one made her feel inferior.
I even had coworker--OUT OF BLUE RIP my EYE LASHES at work”i was joking ha ha ha, i thought u had fake one glued on.” Like I let OUT d BIGGEST most panic scream--yeah someone in MID day in restaurant in front of custermser trying to RIP my eye lashes off , to expose me in front of customers . Except my eye lashes were REAL i just happen to have Mascara on. 5-7% Chinese ppl have natrual long eye lashes, there always 2-3 ppl each class have long eye lashes. PPL have jealousy Issues will try to Expose something.
MY GRANDA’s younger brother was IN control of MOST of Taiwanese army , in TAiwan during Cold WAR, and he was 金门县长 , n got absorbed into USA military in LA for 20 years as Major General. Its like “oh OKAY….but u are not from there so i still hate u.”
N my cousins n my uncle n aunts. Were so rich, they immigrated to Canada by investment class- Having $1Million USD Cash in business acc n having succesful business. My cousins finished their business school after 8 yrs, went back to China Making a LOT of Money as Invesnt/security/bond senior trader in Shanghai in the late 20s. Making $100000-400000/yr before 30. My Canadian friends were MORE ANGRY that they WERE Able to make more money in China(they were Valditorians in School get scholarships in Canada ). They wont frigin care if an American or UK guy came over n went home ditch Canadian citizenship. Lol YEAH my Canadian Born, (NOT hot,but always jealous of me) gf was So upset, she started to scream at me. It was d most NONE chinese type of Disgraceful rude act. I was asked:”where are ur cousins” n I just answered her questions .
K d more angry ppl are , they more jealous they are. My rule of thumb --dont pick a battle that u cant win. Ppl who are hidden racist will UNLOAD their biased anger on u. So avoid political opinion at all time. Its like Democrats cant convert Donald Trumps army. If u remain humble, n actually be kinds, slowly ppl open up n given more thoughts towards CCP. :) cuz I am my own charactor. even if someone RIP my eye lashes in front customers, in mid summer day near Biggst University in Canada. I am not going to be sour at it. She was being Jealous .
😀Because they are clowns。That's what the United States is talking about.
You dont agree with marxism? So you dont like freedom, liberty, equality or worker's rights? You mean the ideology that seeks to free humanity from the chains of capitalism? You dont have to defend the chinese government, but there is nothing wrong with the ideology that it is based on.
@@DonHaka No country has absolute freedom, such as the internet. Why is China's internet not open? Because people's cognitive level is generally low, if you know about Phone fraud in northern Myanmar,You know many Chinese people are deceived by a simple lie, imprisoned, and forced to do fraudulent work there.Knowing how to use VPN to access the internet is at least not too foolish, as it is a screening mechanism that prevents people with low cognitive levels from using software such as ytb and being manipulated by the navy.
@@DonHaka yeah communisk is better woth authoritarianism social media is runing genz not gonna explain mucj
who is here after black myth wukong came out?
As someone who is Chinese born Canadian. The influence of other East Asian cultures is very apparent, as both anime and K-pop are widely popular here. As far as any sort of Chinese media, or influence goes, there's only bubble tea which was invented by Taiwan and Americanized Chinese food.
I can give you 3 examples of Chinese soft power in the west that out revenues K-pop and anime combined, Riot Games, Tencent and Hoyoverse, those three gaming companies alone generate more revenue than K-pop and anime industries combined
@@Hhhh22222-w Yeah but the games 'they make' aren't really designed and made by the Chinese. Like I know for a fact that the studio GGG which is owned by Tencent and the latter doesn't have anything to do with development. Mobile gaming is huge in China, but not many really outside of China care about that.
In a way games are a cultural influence on people and if we measure soft power in this way China has none. I don't know a single Chinese game. I know intellectual property that is owned by Chinese companies, but really I don't know, if there's a single big game that is Chinese worth mentioning and like I said mobile games aren't really big outside of China.
@@whitegoose2017 Hoyoverse is though. Genshin Impact is made by the Chinese in China, not like other studio where the game is created outside China. And Genshin Impact do become one of the biggest game in and even outside China. PUBG mobile do is a big thing in Asia(outside China), but not so much in other continents. Genshin Impact however, it is a big thing not only in Asia, they also managed to break the European and American market. The game is only just 2 years old and is already one of the highest grossing game in the world
@@whitegoose2017 they will be a game called "black myth: Wukong" release in 2023. They do show some gameplay already and it is pretty cool. We still don't know much of it. Maybe the overall gameplay is sucks. But I have high hope for this mainly because when genshin impact first release it's trailer, people has a mix feeling for the game until the game release and they're actually surprised of how good the game is.
@@Rex-ww4cw MMORPG market is oversaturated. There is no future there. There's already BDO, WOW, FF and a lot of other smaller ones.
As a political science major who loves geopolitics (which is why I assume the almighty TH-cam algorithm sent me your video) I loved this analysis ... I remember studying theories on soft power back in college, and I think they put too much emphasis on government policies and actions. It seems you conclude (and I would agree) that the most powerful soft power tool a country can employ is to just create fertile ground for their own people to innovate, create, and profit from their own inventions.
I mean, the cultural revolution and the book "quotations from chairman Mao Tse-Tung" created Maoist movement and impacted every major power in the west in a major way, with actual impacts in the political life of a lot of country
So pure government policies and actions can definitely be a impressive source of soft power
Geopolitics is bs
@jacksmith-mu3ee its bs but affects us the most
@@Moreso_fly how
Western soft power is basically the extension of military might and economic dominance. When they have such advantage, they fully use their propaganda machine to smear anyone who may be becoming competitive. That is why USA allocated hundreds of millions of dollars each year, for the sole purpose to smear China.
I remember the Chinese mall I went to in Saudi Arabia. It had Chinese propaganda everywhere, a Confucian Institute, and a bunch of stores selling knock-off brands. The place was always empty, and the workers just stood at attention and grinned behind the counters waiting for customers that would never come. China's PR/soft power attempts always come off as so creepy and bizarre, like someone produced them with a gun to their head.
Exactly. It's hardcore manufactured in a way that's deeply unsettling. It doesn't come from people expressing ideas in crazy creative ways, it's made from fear based motivation to fan the government's ego. If it doesn't fit the government's likes, it's crushed immediately. So we get hyper-capitalism propaganda slop instead of something from the people themselves, which is something I've wanted for a long long time.
That store is probably stupid idea, but would you even care to step in if you were told that Chinese government is pure evil and the Chinese people are rude and horrible with no manner? is that really the case? have you been to China? but this is what in everybody's head because the west hate China simply because western oligarchs cannot put China into their pocket because of socialism and communism which they thought they can change initially but failed. They still manage to destroy China via their MSM so they can own the big population to suck everything out from them like they did to Americans and others whom they have compromised. What do you think of all these homelessness phenomenon?
its no different from the insidious capitalist propaganda you see in the west. you may not find it weird because you grew up with it but its wild to outsiders
It's funny that Chinese that were not born in China are more proud of their and better at showcasing thier culture then their China born cousins.
im Chinese but the last sentence got me lmao🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣im screaming😂😂😂😂😂
The Japanese are not looking for soft power. They were just mastering what they like to do and foreigners fell in love with it on their own.
lol.. they spend billions on promoting "cool Japan"... Japan is probably the only country in the world frequently buys advertisement on New York times to say how great the country is...All to hide the duplicity and racism in their society from naive people like you..
日本外务省的每年宣传不少
Yeah, but they didn't have the censorship China does. China without censorship has just as much great art as Japan does.
@@louleloup2607that mightve been true if the communists never took over but communists are incapable of creating great art because they have no souls
I know people love to talk about how much the Japanese government spends on overseas promotion, but specifically in the realm of media, no, it's still kind of trash.
There is a huge reason fansub groups exist, because they have been pretty much the only way you could even watch anime outside of Japan. Even now official subs have been plagued by bad or malicious translations by companies that don't even care about quality.
Official licensing for anime is confused and often counterproductive for wider promotion, which would be hilarious if it weren't so tragic.
You know where the funding actually goes? More mainstream stuff like commercial promotion and travel shows in other countries. I'm watching HK TV and they have so many travel shows set in random parts of Japan I am pretty sure that stuff gets government funding. And how about an entire segment literally just called Japan Hour in Singapore's CNA? That's where the funding goes, not anime or video game distribution.
This was so interesting! As a Chinese-european person I feel really sad that the chinese can’t creatively express themselves… Like I’m not even pro america or china for that matter, it’s just sad that the average person has to compensate for that…
i'm so glad you enjoyed this vid and found it interesting!! it genuinely is such a shame, as i think creativity is so integral to our development as a society and it is able to transcend language and cultural barriers. we'll never know what could have been for all the projects that got altered or censored, but i'm hopeful for a future where there are lesser restrictions and a greater exchange of creative works from china and the rest of the world :)
Can you explain what stops them from doing so? Some days ago they uncovered 80+ Chinese police stations in Europe, is that why perhaps?
@@bayenne5b basically if one wants art to become successful especially on an international level, you often need money to get funded. But if the government doesn’t support creative businesses that don’t directly make propaganda for them, that kind of stifles the chance of becoming successful as an artist. Just look at kpop companies, if they weren’t as supported by the government as they are they wouldn’t have gotten as much international success. Hope this answers your question bc I’m not sure if this is what you meant🤡
@@yinssleepydiaries380 hmm yeah kinda, but isn't it also difficult for a European artist for example? Because I have a company (I'll compare that to selling art) in Europe and I must say that it was/is very difficult to become "known" even when nobody tries to censor me (you could argue that Google censored me in the beginning because I don't pay ads and the website was young => had no credibility yet). The government also doesn't support me so every form of success only came/comes from me literally sending 1000+ mails to people I know will care at least slightly about my services. I'm sure that if you get completely censored online it will be even more difficult, but sending personal emails and visiting companies is where the real money/relations come from and idk if governments also stop that part, that would be pretty sick if it were the case
@@yinssleepydiaries380 i like your honest video, hope your depression gets better ❤️ you are pretty btw :x
As a Chinese-American, I've definitely noticed how people are less interested or enthusiastic when I respond that I'm Chinese instead of Korean or Japanese. Happy to see it discussed about in such technical terms.
Same here.
it’s cause of ccp bro
there are koreans that dont even watch kdramas or listen to kpop.
@@psychoticdropshots4165 yeah, I'm korean and I prefer chinese entertainment over korean entertainment lol
@@psychoticdropshots4165 lmao if you go to china be prepared for super racism
I loved how the creators of Genshin weaved Chinese customs and traditions into the world-building and story of Liyue (a Chinese inspired continent in the game). As a Japanese person I’d never really seen Chinese media so it really opened my eyes to what it can offer. What I loved the most was the character Yunjin, who is a Chinese opera singer. Her story quest includes a performance by an actual professional singer accompanied by the amazing animated visuals of Genshin, and when I first heard it it sent chills down my spines because of how good it was. I know that Genshin is inspired by Japanese anime and games that came before it, so it’s really cool to see a collaboration between Japanese and Chinese media.
As a Chinese , none of them I know😂
The clothes in genshin are Manchu clothes. The majority clothes of Chinese is called Hanfu
And after that they just “stop making men feminine”
@@tonoslayer9880yeah but Manchu are just as Chinese as Han or Uyghur or Hui or Mongol or anything else. China isn't an ethnostate.
Touch grass genshin fan
Chinese so unfamiliar w free speech they think the Houston NBA managers opinion on X matters 😂
i’ve definitely noticed this, whenever my japanese friends say their japanese they always hear “omgg! that’s so cool! i love anime” or something like that but whenever i say i’m chinese i never get much back, one time one kid was like “so u know mao zedong?” like no? not personally😭
Reminds me of that time I visited France and met a Chinese-UK person in the hotel. I chatted with him a little, his attitude and culture was more leaning towards east asian than english. I told him how I only ever see asian cultures on my phone and that it’s actually so comfortable for me to talk to him, that it’s really nice how the culture is different. He paused and… i dont know. He just looked awkward until he finally said, you know there are different cultures, I’m Chinese not Japanese or Korean, and I said yeah I know that. And I thought I messed up somehow but he seemed cheered up as we kept chatting. I guess now I understand the background behind that reaction of his.
Ofc I know Chinese is different, I was commenting on how I felt talking to him personally, and that even while France and Germany are different, they have many things in common, because they’re both European.
Well what did you expect.
You can't even experience their culture WITHOUT the regurgitated vomit of political-approved agenda 🤌🏻
They're the authors of their own downfall.
that's sad ....
This is actually the reason why I don't want to commit suicide
cuz who knows, I might reborn in China as a Chinese and live a miserable life forever envying Korean and Japanese.
@@sonic66646 That's because the European cultures, for the most part, ain't at each other's throats. the big three in East Asia however, has had that standing animosity towards each other going back to before WWII. while Europeans frown at getting their cultural background misidentified, East Asians, for the most part, outright HATE being even just identified WITH the cultures that're supposedly that of the 'enemy's' or 'inferior'. it also doesn't help things that China is currently getting increasingly aggressive at shitting over everyone who so much even disagrees with ANYTHING they do.
@@FalconWindblader how is China getting "increasingly aggressive"
Specifically about Korea, China's censorship is why TV shows and movies like "The Squid Game" and "Parasite" will never be made there. Chinese storytellers are not allowed to depict social inequalities, corruption of the state and the flaws of the justice system. The state is totally afraid of the light that will be shone on them.
And then you got the wolf warrior diplomats - let's just say that having nothing but insults for EVERYONE does not endear you to anyone.
Try "Tientsin Mystic" or "When a Snail Falls in Love" - two great gritty Chinese dramas. Although they might lack the social commentary you're looking for. But I'm hard pressed to find many US dramas that criticise US foreign policy. Quite the opposite: think of propaganda films like Black Hawk Down or the awful revisionist propaganda of Chris Hemsworth's adventure into Bangladesh. No, the US was driven back by India in the East Pakistan war of Independence .. but propaganda in the West would have you think otherwise. China has a long way to go...but so do we.
@@SirGryflet Full Metal Jacket.
@@αστρον Yep. Starship Trooper, Generation Kill, Jarhead and so many more. This assessment has no merit.
There's another explanation. Chinese audience. Chinese movies are made primarily for Chinese audience, and the movies content reflects the audience's taste. Perhaps, the reason why Chinese movies are not provocative is because the audience don't go watch such movies?
@@αστρον Good flick. Dr Strangelove too. Good director. The antiwar sentiment during and following Vietnam hasn't been repeated with Iraq. More the opposite, ie Hurt Locker.
Well. The moment where they went after Bolsonaro ironically endeared them to many Brazilians...
Thailand or learning Thai is also becoming very popular - their dramas (including hugely popular BL series), T-pop, etc. I'm learning a few asian languages at the moment (Chinese is one of them) but I definitely agree that it's true that I was drawn more to learning Korean and Thai compared to Mandarin (also more motivated) precisely because of culture, music, TV, their soft power etc. To some extent though, we can't really blame people around the world for knowing almost nothing about China's music or movies or culture in general (compared to for example K-culture) - China isn't really working on exporting any of their culture - whether it's because they don't need to (because they already have millions of people huge market at home) or because they purposely don't intend to export anything due to their isolationist approach
@WoodPileDenmark racist much?
As someone who's partially Thai (and other buncha Asian blood) lmao I'm glad Thai media is gaining popularity internationally as an American, but I knew from an early age before BL blew up that Thai isn't an easy language at all, people sticking their toes into the pool is gonna need a lot of commitment. 😅 My dad's making me learn Thai as I'm attempting to learn CJK and it took one look at the tones that knocked me out. Cantonese is my first language so I'm attempting to learn it (my mom is Hoa Chinese) and it's not easy at all either. I salute anyone trying to learn Thai, it's extremely difficult to read. 😅
Thailand is south east asia, not east asia
@@phoebesekine4783 Exactly, I am SEA myself but I cannot relate to East Asians though. Especially, the ethnic chinese that live in SEA for generations.
I feel this deeply. Learning Chinese is way more practical. But I enjoy consuming Korean & Japanese media way more, so I want to learn those languages. If I didn't interact with people from work or other social settings, I would only hear Korean everyday. But I don't want to seek out Chinese media to consume. It's just not as entertaining for me...
This also may be offensive, but I don't like the way Mandarin sounds but as I think about it... how much of this, is just lack of exposure to the language? It's common to feel uncomfortable when we're not familiar. I wonder if I felt that when I first heard Korean or Japanese... And if I did, I wonder what compelled me to still engage with their media...
As a Korean, I feel like China's soft power potential is really really high. I've seen some of the brands that's hot in main cities in China, and it's super cool. But I feel like the government's and some of the people's hegemonic stance towards other culture makes foreigner's reluctant to acknowledge and embrace the rich culture.
what do you mean hegemonic? LOL.
US: 800 + international military bases
China: 1
Koreans have no problem being friends with the biggest hegemony in the world.
What you're missing is the billions the U.S. spends on anti-China propaganda.
This video is just more anti Chinese propaganda.. Softpower is something that China have far more than Japan . Today china is traveling to the moon and mars , its the ONLY nation in the world that truly challenge American high tech industry, Not even Korea or taiwan can do that , by developing 100% locally high tech electronics and its software too away from American control or influence.
South korea can't do that, Neither taiwan or Japan. If you country is developing its high tech electronics it needs to ask permission the west and include american tech inside . or else they will sanction it. CHina also own Disney movies.. is that not softpower? How about Chines Video Games.. Black Myth wukong and phanton Zero are the most anticipated games in 2024/ CHinese do have far more softpower than any other nation in the world.. Is only weak in music ,but in Movies ,video games ,space exploration ,Electronics ,Tourism ,its super trains , its Business are amazing , its food.. wow.. is ridiculous what the japanese/korean blogger claims ,she is simply out of touch with reality. Most people in the world will rather live in CHina than in Japan or Korea.. based on Chinese super modern cities ,clean infrastructure and security. and its amazing nation development in absolutelly all areas of science. Even PUtin told , he envy china amazing development. So this is not a small thing. Even western major International banks are saying China will surpass US economy in every area possible in next decade. China is the only nation in Asia ,that can survive western sanctions by just trading with itself. No other nation can do that.. Not even Russia ,that depends on China trade to bypass Western sanctions. China is going to become the only Truly Independen nation in the planet. where its business are so strong that will cover absolutely everything , every area and compete and surpass the west in every area. China is a Truly the Only Industrial Super Power in the world.. And the support and unity of its society with the Government is worthy its weight in Gold.
thank you，i am Chinese
I think an important reason why China struggles to create a soft power is because the Chinese government want others countries to be influenced by their culture but they're also unwilling to be influenced by other cultures and this plays a massive part in them not being able to create a soft power.
The people of Japan and South Korea have access to the internet and are able to see western media and culture and be influenced by it and are able to communicate with us. Vice versa, we have access to learning about a lot of Japanese and South Korean media and culture and are able to be influenced by it and communicate with the people who live there. These interactions are what help to create soft power.
One of the biggest ways that BTS became popular is by using youtube and using English subtitles in a lot of their content to appeal to western viewers. They also changed their music style to fit in with western music trends. And their fanbase used social media to spread their popularity. But china isn't able to have these interactions with the west because of the control and censorship over their internet.
Kpop has heavy music and fashion inspiration from other cultures. Their music evolution has been influenced by hip hop and EDM and other musical styles that were popularized in western countries, which might also be an example of Korea's music trends being influenced by western music trends. Some of their fashion styles and aesthetics have been influenced by western trends as well and vice versa.
There are also a lot of anime's and mangas that are set in other countries and that portray other cultures in them. For example "jojo's bizarre adventure" which takes place in england, america, egypt, italy etc and the creator used the western fashion industry to create the iconic outfits. There are also mangas/animes that have been inspired by stories and mythologies from other cultures as well as from their own culture.
Because they have shown the ability to accept influence from other cultures, it may be why it is also easy for other cultures to accept them. And because we have easy access to buying and watching animes, mangas, kpop by using the internet, this also increases the popularity of those things because people have the ability to talk about it, learn about it and appreciate it
Even Genshin Impact has regions that are based on different real countries and their cultures.
If the Chinese government refuses to accept influences from other cultures but still want their own culture to influence others, this kind of hypocrisy and double standard is ruining their ability to create a soft power. And their refusal to let their people freely use the internet and have freedom of speech is also preventing them
Right, this too. I've not expressed it in my own comment but their reluctance to be affected by other cultures is playing against them as well. Both Japan and S.Korea has a history of adopting other cultures immensely, they both had no choice honestly, first from China then from the West. Japan more eager than Korea, hence opening up faster, but S.Korea went a lot of revolutions to understand they needed to adapt to survive. This created a mix of influx of ideas/genres combined with their original culture, resulting in diverse creations that were also uniquely their own thing.
Generally speaking the more melting pot a coutnry is the more soft power they seem to have. The US has obviously led in this regard, exporting their culture absolutely everwhere. Korea and Japan are less racially diverse, but mentally they have opened up increadibly since their modernization.
We cannot ignore the innumerous potentials of mixing cultures when it comes to soft power and artistic innovations. China already has the base and backbone, and the fertile population and potential idea factories. If they could just open up not just economically but culturally as well.
It’s so sad because between the 70s-early 2000s, Chinese culture was gaining popularity in America with the allure of martial arts, food, movies, pandas, etc. Firefly (a show released in 2005) even had Mandarin Chinese as a universal language in its universe because it was “a way to depict a futuristic integrated culture.” At that time, Chinese influence completely outshined other Asian countries.
Nowadays, China is preventing organic growth of its own culture. Since the Chinese government is irrationally strict in preserving the “purity” of its culture, they are rejecting creativity and the overall conversation of new ideas. New ideas that could have it compete and dominate against other East Asian cultures again.
It's not just refusal to accept Western influence though, Chinese culture itself is just too conservative (China, Taiwan, Singapore, etc.). Especially when it comes to depicting sex or graphic violence, that's a kind of artistic self-censorship that even democratic countries are guilty of. Whereas with Japanese culture, for example, even Westerners think that certain Japanese movies are way too extreme or weird. The good thing about not being afraid to be extreme and weird is that at least you're original, that's how you generate a cult following. Point is: all this was inherent to Japanese culture, if it were a western influence then Japan wouldn't have been an innovator in the horror genre for instance.
You misunderstand what soft power even is. The governments DO NOT "create" soft power; governments don't create culture. Soft power is cultivated by the people of China, NOT it's government.
Yes! This was one of the main reasons that came to mind for me. It seems like Korean and Japanese cultures are open to dialoguing , interacting, sharing, with outsiders, and that in turn makes us open our hearts and minds to them as well. In simple terms, I feel like they are extending open arms and wanting to be friends.
I listen to C-pop, watch C-dramas and I'm a big fan of chinese webnovels, but one of my friends recently asked me why I kept consuming chinese contents since China "was so horrible" and honestly... It breaks my heart because people tend to think governement bad = culture bad, but it's not true at all!
I don't think consuming and learning more about another culture is the same as condoning what a government is doing right now. Also with that logic, I shouldn't even consume american contents, then, since I don't like what the US government is doing lol
See, but the horrible actions of The US, and the Western colonial powers never matter, they're always good. It only matters with China. It's hypocrisy and sinophobic.
Exactly
You are right. But then again, I dont wan't to explore a culture that turtures many innocent people so you also have to understand their perspective.
@@reflectlight1368 USA has bombed so many middle east countries (Iraq, Iran, Libya, Syria, etc) and even brought destruction to some Asian countries like Vietnam, Japan, etc.
Yet a lot of people still visit Disneyland, watch Marvel and Star Wars movies, etc.
But in a by way supporting and watching their content you re economically supporting them and subsequently their regime? Idk it's far fetched but this year I avoid it
As someone who's learning Mandarin Chinese, for me the hardest part of the language is finding content that interests me. When it comes to reading material it's pretty solid, there are manga translations from Taiwan and great novels from the Mainland. For listening materials though it's very hard to find interesting content, and having to navigate Chinese websites to look for them is a different challenge altogether.
if you want to listen to mandarin chinese songs, there are plenty of great taiwanese songs that are readily available although the taiwanese/hk entertainment industry is experiencing a decline ever since the rise of china lol..as a matter of fact most people from china listened to taiwanese songs in the past...cpop just sucks imo...
Yeah. Getting entertainment and other things from Taiwan is far easier and in my opinion, youku is really bad. It is slow and the entertainment is bland or behind a paywall.
Watching on Viki instead is basically the way to go. Or watching bilibili animations on youtube.
I would recommend you to stan the Chinese boy band wayv, they got amazing music and a lot of content to watch
Mao's redbook supremacy 🗿🍷
The case of Genshin Impact Aini talked about reminds me of this whole MINISO shenanigan. For those who don't know about MINISO, it is practically a retail brand that sells all day-to-day stuffs, and just like their name, every product has a Japanese name on top of the barcode. It gives this MUJI vibe and many people include my mum referring it as "cheaper version of MUJI". And guess what? It is a Chinese brand, and every product they have are made in China. You would think this is a Japanese store if you walk pass it or just browsing in the store. Somewhat they think hiding the fact this is a Chinese brand will help them with the sell and can be a cool concept.
This is so true, there’s similar aspects to this with Arabic for example. It’s not as “popular” as any east asian languages so no one sees the benefit in learning it. I literally remember my friend was telling me how he was in a club and they had to pick between learning Russian, Arabic, and Swahili. Literally most people, my friend included, picked Russian over any other languages- Arabic was the least popular.
ahh that sucks, i hope arabic gets more recognition in the future as it is a beautiful language!
@@aini_ Arabic is popular due to Islam
Arabic is popular due to Islam
I’m sorry to hear that :( . I took Arabic in high school, and I loved it! It’s such a beautiful language. I’m hoping I can take at least one class in college!
im suprise Swahili ended up more popular than arabic
For ELA, my teacher assigned us to make a short TedTalk. Originally, I was gonna talk about how East Asia changed social media with things like anime, kpop, Kdrama Etc.. But while researching it really became prominent how China is treated compared to its East Asian neighbours. this video, and alot of other videos on your TT page really has gotten me interested in this topic! I was just going to try to get a good grade at first, but now I really want to put as much passion as I can in this Presentation.
As a Korean-Canadian I felt like I've experienced both sides of this varying Western perception firsthand. When I was still a kid in elementary school, nobody here really knew anything about Korea other than Kim Jong Un and I still remember one of the first questions other curious kids would ask me was 'Are you Chinese or Japanese?' as if those were the only two possible options. So as I've gotten older, it's been very interesting to see more and more people in the West becoming interested in Korean culture or at least becoming more aware of the country in general, as opposed to maybe 10-12 years ago when they would still be asking me if I was from the north or the south. It is nice to feel like your culture is finally being somewhat appreciated so I understand why people would feel disappointment when the prevailing view of the culture they identify with is a negative one.
As has already been mentioned though, it seems like the less than favourable perception of China will remain so long as they are at odds with the west. USA has an incentive to keep China as being perceived as that other country while China continuously feels the need to block any significant cultural exchange with the west which ultimately stifles its own cultural exports.
Disadvantages of China
Xi Jinping
nationalism
communism
language sound
fake
Advantages of China
history
ruins
Hanzi (character)
food
population
Chinese is very difficult to hear, but I think it's good to approach it in a business way without worrying about it. However, it is very difficult for me to adapt to Chinese sounds like Chinese animations and dramas. I think this is the case for all countries.
And China has a lot of prejudice against people around the world. For example, because of nationalism and collectivism
The most important fact is the sound of the language. To make people like and like a country, first of all, the sound of the language must be good. But to me the Chinese sound is very terrible. As I explained above, I think there is no problem with the Chinese language if we approach it in a business way.
@@kublaikhan6248 What an idiot take,
@@kublaikhan6248 im good with chinese food and i always liked their stories like journey to the west and their novels. aside from that im filipino so i still have a bad perception of china LOL its not just the west theyre takin our stuff and setting up their gambling centres and all the politicians are sat down like "stonks"
still cannot get used to hearing chinese it depends like on the person i'm good with voice actors and the like but normal people speaking it sounds so eargrating and they're almost always the loudest and the problem passenger on the aeroplane. and with our teacher's telling us about sinocentrism im just like what china isnt the centre of da world and your dash line makes no sense its west philippine sea bruh not south china sea (pulls out military boats) i curse your mothers why
same thin with america i guess. theyre also a superpower and huge, so, very egoistic i guess...i dont like any rich or big country but especially china cus theyre like RIGHT HERE WHY
@@kublaikhan6248 bot
@@charlienoii clearly not
The China soft power I can think of is Romance of The Three Kingdoms and Journey To The West, and who made it popular is mostly Japanese video games and anime adaptation (Dynasty Warriors series, a lot of anime about Sun Wukong, anime about three kingdoms heroes, etc.) example was popular perception of what Lu Bu is like and the first image that comes to mind was the Dynasty Warriors series version 😀
win-win-win game🤣
The Japanese-produced TV drama "Journey to the West" was also broadcast in China, but was cancelled due to public and private outcry over its content, which was far removed from the original story. In Western countries, however, it won high acclaim. Although Japan may not have had any bad intentions, it must have set Chinese people's teeth on edge…😅
@@user-tc6wf5xlee I actually liked the Japanese version of Saiyuki with it's twist of a female lead as Tripitaka.
Funny you say Journey to the West/Sun Wukong, that inspired arguably the biggest cultural export from Japan: Dragon Ball
It’s heartbreaking that I just know I can’t really experience real Chinese culture without visiting the country. Some things will get passed the censors, but for the most part - what we see about China in the west is stuff that has been approved by the censors.
You can from documentaries. Expect less translations, and a sort of limit on the direction (for example, most of it will be about food and architecture), but they are widely available on TH-cam in very high quality. They are very good at making documentaries.
Try Taiwan, they pretty much preserved the culture while Mao was busy burning their history from the history books.
@@covenant_mog05 yeah, gotta try it before it gets absorbed by China πwπ
@@covenant_mog05 the chinese culture is much more than just taiwan's which is mainly from the fujian province because china is just so damm huge..but yeah, the concept of religion is mostly wiped out in china due to the cultural revolution...
You just need to visit Taiwan. It really is a different country from the mainland. You can find traditional Chinese culture there without all the communist bull#*&!
As someone who is an avid reader, and has read the THREE BODY PROBLEM and numerous xianxia/wuxia novels, I must say they are some of the best in their respective genres (sci-fi and historical fantasy). It’s really sad that they’re not more popular because it’s just soooo imaginative and unique
Uh, don't worry. I'm a fan of fiction too. Fiction is booming in China. It's only the novels that spread pornography that are restricted.
But that's the thing, porn is inspiring. No one would be writing danmei otherwise....
@@haochengzhai7156 The problem to make more people outside of China notice those works
@@InternetsToughestGuyasian porn is weird to westerners in general. Whether it's from Japan, China or Korea. The Three Body Problem is being adapted for TV and I hope it does well.
What is the theee body problem
One of the key differences between China versus South Korea and Japan is that the latter two aren't afraid to show the negative sides of their cultures to the world (think Parasite and Satoshi Kon's films), which allows them to seem more genuine and even relatable to outsiders whereas China wants to show their culture in a squeaky clean way, which for many it feels fake and less appealing. For China to achieve its soft power potential, there needs to be a huge political change.
Not exactly true, since Japan skims over much of the details that led up to the Atom bomb, so they aren’t exactly completely honest about the history of ww2 and how they were involved unlike Germany. The only real distinction between the three is that today two are friendly with the US and one isn’t. The stuff you see on western medias in regard to China is also usually quite negative these days. All that combined with the difference in political ideology has created this sort of bias/dislike towards anything Chinese here in the west.
You are 100% Chinese, every time you talk about Japan in your youtube comments, you bring up the 80-year-old war that has nothing to do with the topic, claiming that Japan does not recognize history and that they should apologize. I have seen many Chinese people who start to do it. Perhaps, by doing so, we can maintain our moral superiority at all times, so we can eliminate the cognitive dissonance of losing to evil Japan. I think anti-Japan is like a huge identity that you Chinese are born with. If Japan disappears from this world, you Chinese will surely lose the pillar of your identity and fall into a big panic 🤣
@@犬まにまにThis is just the truth, you might not like that people bring up your nations ugly past, but it’s history and people deserve to know it. The way you call me “you Chinese” is interesting though. I can tell you hold a lot of resentment towards the Chinese for whatever reasons by the way you talk about them.
Complete conjecture and mostly fabrications
@@JDoe020 Also, China caused Covid-19! China needs to pay for their crime!
Soft Power is the cultural victory from Civilization.
Been in China for 5 years, It was amazing people and culture, however the government CENSORSHIP is crazy! It’s like they want you to forget what is outside of china😅 Luckily there’s VPN, although it’s illegal but it is a must for us as a foreigners.
Source ? Proof ?
as you said there are VPN in China, so it is allowed for any usage of VPN in China. Censorship is everywhere (also in YT)
@@leqiaop1840 nothing wrong with that
那是国外软件进去中国市场不遵守本国法律条约被政府限制，中国有自己的互联网，我们也可以使用vpn并不违法，只是只有年轻人才使用。
在大陆使用VPN名义上是违法，但实际上并不违法，只要你不发布反动言论，网监并不会管理，我们翻墙出来 真不是为了政治，TH-cam，INS等等，我不否定看“片”是其中一项，哈哈！中国走过谄媚于西方的阶段，这几乎是所有后发展国家都要经历的，而墙的存在则是过滤对技术，分辨是非能力较弱的人，避免被误导，而且youtube反华是有流量的，只要你说大陆不好便会获得更多流量，所有国家均有自己的国运起伏，周边附属国讨论中国没有文化输出，搞笑不？大陆不输出，怎么方便韩国说屈原是韩国，孔子是韩国，宇宙中间是韩国的...
I grew up with Japanese anime and games, It actually shaped my worldview.
As adult I learned that Japan is not some utopia i thought it would be as a kid, there were some bad shits in Japan as well but I can't bring myself to hate Japan.
So soft power is really effective!
There are always crazies in every country. It’s important to recognize that no country is perfect but there are some really good people despite all that
Same story here. I know Japan is not a perfect country to live in, but I can't say I have a negative image about it. Thanks to their soft power by-products I have been taught to admire some aspects of the Japanese culture.
@@sayurivkg ummm its actually good country to live
What? A whole country isn‘t perfect and games and movies aren‘t a perfect representation of reality? How suprising, I‘m really proud of you to make this discovery
oh damn.. you guys never heard of Rape of Nanking, Sex Slavery by Japan in Korea, China and South-East Asia right?
I remember one of the biggest Yuri/girls love manga was “begin with your name” and it was from a Chinese author/artist, it was so popular and it was a lot of peoples first manga/Manhua they read (me included), but sadly the Chinese government forced it to be censored. so literally after they finally shared mutual feelings and kissed, the author was forced to make it a friendship school comedy, which very disappointing. its sad to see the updates continue but the true story completely lost, seemingly never to finish…
I remember that as well! That was really depressing and honestly turned me off exploring Chinese literature; hard to want to get invested when stuff like that can happen, yanno?
I mean, its kinda symptomatic of why china will never gain any soft power, because their censorship practices will ultimately prevent chinese media from producing much distinct content. After all, what made japanese media so appealing when it started to enter the west was that it crossed boundaries and was by far more experimental and 'edgy' than what we were used here.
Thank god the government censored it, can't stand it now a days
@@banjoowo4001bruh censorship is awful
@@liviwaslost nah it's good and moral you are not normal
Its not even about the gay novels and things. I having spent a significant portion of my life in china and the US as well as Canada, I feel most westerners see China through the way it is portrayed in western media, as a evil tyrannical government, and usually don't realize a lot of it isn't as accurate as the media portrays. Sure the Chinese government arent exactly good samaritans, but everytime I tell someone I am from China, they think its some dystopian 1984 oppression state, like sure, we don't have freedom like the USA does, but its not exactly the hell they think it is.
This as a result, I feel just leaves a bad taste in the mouths of people learning the things they enjoy are Chinese. If you scroll down on the comment sections of Chinese channels like SCMP, people will leave comments just trashing china. Even when its not a government owned news channel, doesn't report on anything political, and the content is generally lighthearted, people will still leave comments down below saying "free XYZ" or "down with the dystopian regime" even when it has nothing to do with the content of the video. For example if people hear china in a tech or engineering video, they will default to "the construction quality is probably bad" or "its just more spyware".
I'm not saying the people are unjust in saying this, in china, especially among the older generations, there is heavy anti japanese sentiment because of the aftermath of WW2, and its not really fair to call the older generation bigoted and to say that their beliefs are wrong. Its why I don't really say much when other people say things like that about china. I just hope western news and yt channels like china uncensored can actually report more objectively and make the act to separate the ideas of the people from those of the government, and I hope that the Chinese government can learn to have mercy and strive for better reputation in the world stage.
Not much point to this comment, just frustrated I guess, frustrated how its cool to be jap or Korean, but china is just known for tyranny and obnoxious and rude exchange students.
Jap is a derogatory ethnic slur.
@@sara.cbc92Is Chinese-taipei recognized as part of China?
China Uncensored DOES make a point to separate the people from the government. I don’t see anything about their reporting that’s not objective, either. As the title suggests, they just talk about things that are censored in China.
Another thing I’m thinking about is pop music and how insular that is. I’ve loved the Japanese girl group AKB48 and all their sister groups. They’ve got co-groups in Indonesia, Taiwan, Philippines, India, and China. But the groups in China split off from the 48 label and made their own music and follow a completely different vibe AND THEYRE REALLY GOOD. but they truly wanted to be by themselves and not co-exist with the groups from the other countries. I think it’s a micro-example of how the party interacts with their soft power problems
yess I love snh48 :D
in India ?😂😂😂 there is no asian country which has influenced India/Indians other than Japan ( only cultural and civic sence ) No K-pop ,No J-pop ,yes there is some kpop lover which is tiny than our folk songs viewers 🙏
Indian kpop fan ,please accept the truth . After bts thing over you than you will.......
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omg snh48! i love them sm especially team sii, but i lost interest after gen 1 and 2 members graduated :'(
i found out about them through 7senses (which is probs the most successful subunit group to come out of snh48) when they appeared on show champion.
SNH48 leaving was so strange
Fascinating video. Thank you for making it! 'Grand Master' actually got Archive of Our Own, the world's largest fanfiction site banned from China. Which brings up c-drama. I have quite a few friends who enjoy c-drama and it could easily have become a soft power, just like k-dramas have. Except the censorship seems to constantly be shifting the goalposts with c-dramas and even after something is filmed there's no guarantee it will ever be broadcast. Even when it is broadcast, censorship often leaves huge chunks of it on the cutting room floor so that the story isn't compelling and sometimes doesn't even make sense. Its hard to be a fan and look forward to new movies, have favorite actors or be anticipating another season when you have no guarantee that even the things you're told will come out will be released. C-dramas are a great way to show off culture, current and historical, but as long as the censorship is so extreme, it shoots itself in the foot before it even starts the race.
I have to correct you: it was not the novel Grand Master or the live action The Untamed that got AO3 banned in China. That "honour" goes to Xiao Zhan's fans. Also known in China as the 227 incident.
ohhh myyy godddd everything you said it's true. I've been waiting years for several bl novel c-drama adaptations to be released and there's absolutely been no updates on them. the original works have massive fanbases, and the c-dramas would bring in a even bigger audience. this harsh censorship is just ruining the art and fun for everyone
Of course danmei and c-dramas get hit hard like this, but honestly Donghua (Chinese animation) as a whole gets screwed over. My mom and sister were watching a (hetero) romance donghua, Fox Spirit Matchmaker (reincarnation of humans who loved spirits based plot). They also watched the Outcast, which was a modern martial arts action type show, my mom watches Daily Life of the Immortal King (action, high school characters, OP protag), and we both watched Link Click together (thriller, murder mystery-esque, action). All of these shows are great, but the huge problem is 1. Translations, 2. WHEN IS THE NEXT SEASON???? They don’t really give foreign fans an expected release date or calendar/schedule of any kind like anime studios do, and so you’re kinda like what’s the point of getting into a show that’s gonna be left unfinished or poorly translated? More and more people are starting to like donghuas, but if China doesn’t let creatives do their thing and flourish then they’ll kill one of their few cultural influences they have.
As someone who have lived in China and other countries, the censorship is so real. There are so many manhuas, novels and animation related to mo dao zu shi that just gets parts that are censored when its related to same sex relationship. Especially in these novels, cause a lot of bl shows and manhwas originate from novels and there is a very clear plot and scenes that the characters are gay or in a relationship, as it was written by the author themselves but when its aired or published in physical copies, those parts just get deleted or changed or they are not allowed to published it. Many Chinese citizens are also really tired of these situation and realize it too, honestly I think the younger generations gen z are more open-minded about this situation compared to the older generation.
You are super correct. MDZS are a huge magnet to study Chinese culture, many non Chinese are fascinated by China through MDZS. But now since CCP banned Danmei and survival show, their interest changed to Thailand and Korea
I remember a girl who had stickers of characters from a gay manhua on her stuff. That was the first time I saw any Chinese media in my daily life. To think how much great Chinese media there is that never gets out to the rest of the world.
its as if you think the censorship isnt worse in LGBT america. go back to your country.
Not only sex related content has been censored, something like 東躲西藏 will replace to 東躲XZ，西藏 means Tibet. It's so annoying.
I'm pretty enjoy of cultivation stories of Chinese novels, but Chinese writers are very difficult to choose word or avoid some type of story, like political, PRC army, gangster and any negative of China, no even China this word has been banned, usually take hua xia(華夏) to replace.
-----------------------------------------------
I'm apologized for my poor English. English is not my native language. but I really like Chinese culture, especially philosophy(老子、莊子). It's very sad to see CCP ruined everything.
文化传播必须是正向的，难道要传播如何吸毒，如何搞同性恋？引导孩子正确的取向是必然的！一群病态的心理只会让人类走向毁灭
this is a really interesting video! i’ve grown to like a lot of chinese trends like fashion, food, et cetera - but it always feels like the government tries to intervene despite how helpful these user-generated trends are. the government are shooting themselves in their own feet.
honestly as someone who started learning chinese partly because of how much I fell in love with mo dao zu shi, it really saddens me how the backlash to the popularity of the novel and danmei in general affected stuff, both the censorship tightening and the author being bullied off soical media (and rumored to face much worse). I think in addition to the direct affect it has on art, censorship also plays a much more covert and insidious role in essentially exacerbating "tall poppy syndrome", which kind of makes sure anything truly unique/talented that gets popular is essentially pushed down and isn't really given it's time to develop/flourish.
I haven't heard about Mo dao zu shi author been bullied.
She writes the most precious stories, how dare they🤬
@@aureliaaurita8138 I don't know a whole lot but I heard she has a lot of really dedicated anti fans there. They spread nasty rumors, doxxed her a few times and in general kind of ruined her reputation among general audiences and so she hasn't been seen much on social media for the past few years.
I really hope she is ok because some of the rumors about her well being are really concerning
Wasn’t she planning to right another series? Tgcf was over 3 years ago and I haven’t heard from her since besides rumors that she went to jail or the nasty bullying, I really really hope she’s doing okay
@@ToscaTee yeah she said back in like 2019 that she had at least two more novels in planning stages and gave an outline to one of them (modern with magic setting about death gods) but she went offline soon after so no one really knows what are her current plans for them.
Those old leaders in China are mostly engineers but they somehow need to learn the importance of promoting an attractive culture outside of China. I'm not too enthusiastic about that. Those old Marxist engineers are ill suited for the job. They're too used to controlling the populace with their communist ideologies and censorship network and using wolf warrior diplomacy in the political ring domestically that they think it would work abroad. They're going to learn a hard lesson and Chinese people abroad will have to suffer for it through increased discrimination.
I myself actually consume quite a lot of "Chinese soft power" because I love reading Chinese web novels. I think that if they focused on that like japan focuses on light novels and anime they could have their own kind of "weeb" culture.
I'm also in the novel space. My thought regarding the novel industry is the translation being the biggest roadblock not the quantity of novels. Sponsoring these authors would also be nice but the issue is really a decent chunk of the space overseas is piracy. We aren't really strongly supporting the author or the translators. This is why on webnovel you see a sudden flush of local novels on the platform, to save translation costs. Then you have MTL used to save costs but weakens the quality harshly. Its a money sink for something thats not being consumed massively and not having a large paying market. sadly.
I recommend the recent work of 'Cuttlefish who likes diving' and 'First Order' btw.
Funny how you are even using japanese words to describe possible chinese culture.
@@nobodynoone2500 Did you just say weeb is Japanese word?
sameee I'm also a webnovel reader and there's a lot of good books (but also see a lot of mid-tier power fantasy) but yea translation is a problem and its a niche franchise
bh i like chinese webnovels too but the only way they're gonna focus on them is add more censorships, also i feel like majority of them r streamlined. just take the same setting and write infinite variations of it, so i just treat it as an indulgent fanfiction. but then again there are true gems once in every while and i respect that. wish they could live up to their full potential but with their government, it prbly wont happen ever.
Another interesting thing about Genshin specifically is that it's always associated with Japanese media by the fans themselves. Ask any English-speaking Genshin fan what language they choose to set the game's voices to, and they'll probably say the English dub or the Japanese dub. I’ve barely seen anyone who speaks English as their primary language claim the original Chinese one, even though that one is probably a lot more directly connected to what the writers themselves intend. They cast huge Japanese names with lengthy resumes of popular anime and games, and it's probably the most popular thing (i.e. most cosplayed and most art being sold in artists' allies) at most 2022 anime conventions.
They still try to inject Chinese culture in, obviously (I personally loved the Chinese opera song they included within a quest through the character of Yun Jin), but it feels like fans don’t really opt to delve deeper into other Chinese art or entertainment through it. Rather, the fans see the Chinese influence as limiting due to the potential censorship policies that the game wouldn’t be subject to if Mihoyo worked outside of China, and Genshin seems widely seen as the exception to a (rather narrow and prejudiced) viewpoint that many Westerners have of Chinese media being inaccessible or unappealing.
(legit, though, I have talked to one person who went “I’m not bigoted against China; I play Genshin” as an excuse to justify Sinophobia, in similar fashion to how I’ve heard at least one K-pop fan say something similar about South Korea. To me, the game is potentially an interesting case study in how entertainment can be used as either a shield or an open forum to both deflect or exuberate criticism towards a culture, especially for outsiders whose main source of positive interaction with a culture is through a fandom and the products tailor-made to profit through that fandom.)
I’ve heard that Mihoyo used the romanized Japanese name of the game which is Genshin instead of the romanized Chinese name Yuanshen because they don’t want to be associated with being Chinese and have people assume negative things by them being Chinese right off the bat, heck despite being a Chinese company they have a “Japanese sounding” name which is why they are associated with Japanese media instead of Chinese
zhongli is one of the most popular characters and he's supposed to be chinese right? as he's from Liyue ?
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Genshin feels really Chinese to me though, but i grew up in Singapore so maybe thats why.
On the last paragraph, if liking a piece of culture from group would make that group look more favorable then America would of solve racism 100 years ago
I find it interesting that a lot of China's most successful soft power comes from women, such as Douyin makeup, danmei, and fashion. Even though The Untamed was heavily censored from its original danmei source, it's still to date the most successful Chinese drama overseas. Even people who aren't really into Cdrama's or danmei know about it. And then the government of course had to further ruin the soft power potential of that series by banning ao3 (again, writing and fandom mostly by women and girls). The late CEO of the video game company which owns the adaptation rights to 3 Body Problem, Lin Qi, was adamant that fans be encouraged and allowed to create and interact with the source material however they wanted. He understood that fandom is how properties become successful and wanted to encourage fans to make their own indie games, write fanfiction, create fan films and fan art without fear of his company taking legal action (too bad he got murdered by his own employee before that could all come to fruition...). He had a goal of creating a media company that could export Chinese media and rival Western media like Netflix amd HBO. Clearly he understood and believed in the potential for China's soft power through films and video games and cultivating fandom around these properties. His company had too many internal problems though, so even if he hadn't died, idk if his vision would have been successful.
This video is so interesting! I haven't even thought about this topic. I am Mexican and in my country Japanese /Korean cultures are really popular and on the recent years people tend to idolize people from these countries as they're something more than human beings...but if you talk about China people tend to have a negative reaction. On a less serious note, I loved your voice and accent ❣
China has more influence in Mexico tho, there's also many communities of Chinese Mexican people here!
@@momoonkissed yeah, like Baja California
@@JazzTheWhiteHawk I'm not from the north and even in my small town there's lot's of Chinese people and restaurants
The crazy thing is that it feels like this issue is only a recent phenomenon - I remember as a kid I loved learning about other Asian cultures and it felt so much easier to see and learn about Chinese culture, and this was before social media! It really feels like the richer China got the worse off they got at exporting soft power
Yeah it definitely is. Korea wasn't really that known until the last 10 years imo.
Because in the late 2000's China had a lot of promise. They had the Olympics in 2008, Confucius Institutes were popping up everywhere, Ni Hao Kailan was airing on kids TV. Even the song for the Olympics show this. China had quite a bit of soft power in the 2000's and early 2010's. Xi Jinping and his nationalism pissed that all away
@@sosoable 谁提到台湾的自由？还为什么你认为我们不知道越南，台湾的文化？
A lot of that credit is due to Hong Kong, especially their film industry. Now they are quickly losing whatever freedom of expression they still had left.
@@sosoable If you're going to assume someone is Chinese just because they can read & write Chinese, why are you asking non-Chinese people questions in Chinese?
First, I would like to say thank you for this well-made video. I am part Chinese and part Japanese living in the U.K. I was actually having this conversation with my friends the other day. We talked about how Chinese culture was popular in the 70s. Mostly with the popularity of Kung fu movies, especially among the black diaspora. A lot of younger Chinese tend to dismiss the Kung Fu label since Kung Fu is stigmatised due to its link to harmful stereotypes. I guess it also has to do with the fact that Kung Fu is only a tiny part of Han Chinese Culture, and doesn’t play a big role in Chinese popular culture today. Compared to K-pop, k-drama or Anime which are both integral to the respective countries’ pop culture. Also, I believe Chinese soft culture export is only weak when compared to its east Asian neighbours. It still has way more presence globally then Vietnam or the Philippines.
I feel like the CCP and some Chinese people in general only want the world to see China portrayed in a delicate sophisticated manner (this is when mianzi comes into play). Things like Xue Hua Piao Piao or the recent dodging the stick trends on TikTok, gained mass popularity, yet it is frowned upon by some. Also, I heard that Chinese dramas are very popular in SE Asia and Latin America, but not as many people seem to acknowledge the success of this kind of soft culture export. (Is it only considered successful cultural export if more white people like it? I don’t know)
Another thing I want to add is how some Chinese companies tend to mimic the Japanese-Korean branding. (e.g. Miniso, a Chinese brand that branded itself as Japanese to a point they used Japanese flag during their press conferences) On one hand, this reinforce the idea of 'Chinese designs lacks creativity'. But on the other hand, would brands like Miniso be as popular as it is, if it brands itself as Chinese.
Just some random thoughts.
You bring up a very interesting point that I often find myself mulling about. And that is the division of internet spheres are how we judge the popularity of chinese culture only adjacent to the "Western" internet/cultural sphere. Naturally in this area, chinese's influence and its culture is greatly diluted given the huge cultural and political barriers in place. However, chinese culture is actually gaining speed in other parts of the world, which of course, western audiences don't necessarily see. And this is the problem I have precisely with those who blame china's soft power or nonexistence thereof solely on political machinations. China as a political entity is viewed as evil incarnate almost everywhere, and yet, why are some regions more accepting of chinese cultural products than others?
@@sarllie8271 well! As a south east Asian, I gotta say we do gobbled cdrama etc. We love Chinese cultures and esthetic. But there is a love and hate relationship (if you actually called it hate). Chinese products still and continue to be seen as fake products that would not last long. This has nothing to do with politic. People just generally think Japanese one is better. Also rises of kpop and kdrama have overshadowed cdrama. We still loved both tho. It is just korean wave is very strong right now.
On that last point, note how Genshin Impact, arguably the single most popular and impactful (kek) media product to come out of China in recent years, is marketed and known by its Japanese name - though granted it also borrows very heavily from Japanese trends and aesthetics so of course it makes sense.
Visibility is important to power and influence.
The more exposure or attention a country gets compared to others it gives the false impression that it “matters more.”
I think due to the fact that many people don't know anything about Chinese pop culture because it isn't promoted in a global scale, that those people treat any Chinese trend as a meme,, xue hua piao piao, the song (wild flower scent?) that accompanies the "jiafei" meme trend which mocks those weird Chinese products, super idol & "social credit" memes all of those aren't taken seriously they use certain normal aspects of Chinese culture and laugh at it. The things that we do globally know China for are all negative, like bad government, cheap quality products, and those are the opposite of what we know Japan for for example, we know Japan as this high tech country with high quality everything. So this makes Chinese pop culture even more prone to mockery.
You have an amazing channel and I think the dedication and simplicity of your videos are a nice mix for late night vibes ❤
Even though Sara.cbc92 is Chinese(taipei)that doesn't mean she represents all Chinese.
Another thing people don’t mention is that Japanese culture has been present in the west for a long time. Starting from the 1980s with things like Sega and Nintendo they had a really big influence on western media. Things like godzilla, Sony,anime and manga and even Japanese race cars in the 1990s. Also keep in mind most the cars we drive are actually from Japan 😂 like Toyota and Honda etc. So it’s been here for awhile but don’t underestimate the power video games has had on the west.
You know Sega is an American company? That was reinvested in Japan in the 80s.
Yes, China copied Japan and created something new
After growing up on Disney cartoons, you could say that shows like Robotech in the early 80's were an eye opener.
As a mainland Chinese, I totally agree with you. I want my country to be part of the world, not an isolated country. It is heartbreaking that most mainland Chinese do not have access to the world. It is ridiculous that a big country with a population of more than one billion lives in a big and small bubble!
@@metal_fusion Your comment is old, that is months ago. China is opening up, and the protest is decay.
如果互联网是世界的而不是美国的我同意你说的
哈，老外都明白x西方势力对中国的诋毁和抹黑，而你作为被抹黑的一份子却不自知。我不否认我们有问题，但调转枪口成为敌人的帮凶我就不理解了。
you know like 70% of the population uses some sort of VPN right?
@@zoukai0000 互联网大概率是世界上最强大的国家的，那个国家刚好是美国而已
I used to be really intrested in old chinese history and culture, but whenever it got to more modern day stuff it just felt empty and cold, and it’s because of how limited and censored it is. i feel like this best summarises my feelings towards the three in current day: Korea is the cool cousin who makes trendy stuff and is fun, Japan is the fun uncle who will enjoy stuff with you but still has that sort of elderly feel of knowing modern and old arts and conveying them both pretty well, and then china is the grandpa who’s there, but feels too cold and stuck in the past to form a meaningful connection with. not sure if that makes much sense as a metaphor?
Japan is the uncle, but for entirely different reasons I'd say
共产党打压主体民族。
same honestly
@lauren su The US and Japan also pump money into their cultural stuff. The main difference is that writers/authors are allowed to put anti-authoritarian themes into their work. There is still censorship, like in most of the 20th century you weren't allowed to show inter-racial relationships in TV movies in the US. It wasn't "officially" done by the government but rather by corporations but pushed by politicians. Now you see the same thing where the government is "unofficially" pushing censorship on social media.
modern china is too political. thats why
Just discovered your video after the release of "Black Myth: Wukong" which plays a significant role in introducing the rich diversity of Chinese mythology and the novel "Journey to the West" to the gamer community throughout the world. Most gamers will previously associate "筋斗云" or "悟空" with Dragonball, of which the Japanese anime itself is inspired by the original novel. A huge step in China's display of soft power in my opinion.
I think one part of soft power that's often overlooked is a country's prowess in professional sport. Sport was how Korea got recognised prior to their technology and entertainment boom, and its how you get recognition from the traditionally masculine sphere who otherwise ignore media such as anime, dramas and pop music that are unfortunately sometimes seen as either "nerdy" or "non-macho".
In terms of sport, I think there are two aspects: 1. Fame, where the top pro-athletes are bigger celebrities than actors or popstars, and 2. its one of the only forms of direct competition between countries that isn't war.
Yes, China is dominant in the Olympics but that happens only every four years and their medals are from niche sports such as weightlifting or table tennnis.
Meanwhile Japan and Korea's international squads are known for being skilled at football and baseball, which are the sports that are the most popular in Europe and the Americas. China, despite its massive population, aren't that great at any of the popular sports, internationally or professionally.
There are many Korean and Japanese athletes performing in top overseas leagues while there are practically no Chinese, and you have Shohei Ohtani in the MLB and Son Heung Min in the Prem who are some of the top players in their sport.
This furthers the impression that Japan and Korea are "important" nations or cultures that deserves similar recognition as its western counterparts.
That is a really interesting point! There’s definitely a lot of prestige that comes with winning at an international level for sports, both on a personal level and in reflecting the capabilities of a country, as you had mentioned.
I also agree that China’s dominance in sports definitely skews to more individual competitions rather than team sports. However, in terms of having a top athlete, I think Yao Ming being drafted to the NBA is a great example of both earning recognition in a popular sport and in having a culture exchange for China. Yao’s draft into the Rockets in 2002 allowed the NBA to really crack open the Chinese market and his career, even now, is cited as a source of pride for the country. China hasn’t seen as dominant of an athlete for a popular sport since, but it would be unfair to say China has never competed at the top level for a popular sport and received such recognition.
China’s weakness in team sports is evident though and I’m not sure if anything will change because China at a structural and systemic level promotes individualism. Without the culture, interest and time for kids to develop a passion for sport I don’t see China reaching Japan/Korea’s level anytime soon because unlike individual sports, 11 good players don’t make a good team.
That was a lengthy reply but thank you for taking the time to share your perspective on sports! Definitely something to consider and keen to see how Asian countries continue to get better and expand their presence in these spheres.
@@aini_ Thanks for your response! you're completely right about the goat Yao ming.
I didn't forget about him but I guess I failed mention him and only mentioned current players since his playing career ended in 2011 while Korean and Japanese culture has only seen a rise to it's mainstream status in the west from ~2016 onwards.
Also international prestige is important, but I guess I was also focused on the popularity or commonality of Asians in western pro leagues contributing to soft power the same way westerners are now used to Korean actors and pop groups as a whole.
Which is why "winning over" the traditional masculinity had a big impact as they're the group most likely to gatekeep (or discriminate) against others (but this might start delving into white validation and colonialism hahaha).
I mean Japan and Korea don't have that much presence in football compared to their population.
@@αστρον
*In the top five* European leagues (English Premier League, Spanish La Liga, Italian Serie A, German Bundesliga, and French Ligue 1) Japan and Korea both have over twice as many players per capita as the United States. Korea has seven players in those five leagues, representing 0.135 per million of its population. Japan has sixteen, representing 0.127 per million. The United States has nineteen, representing 0.057 per million. Russia has two, representing 0.014 per million. China has zero, representing 0.000 per billion.
@@vaffangool9196 0 per billion ouch
it's so wild to me that donghua isn't as widely appreciated as anime, i feel like the few i've watched have really smooth beautiful animation and really good plot lines
I will check it out
Because instead of focusing on their own direction, the industry just imitates existing products, mostly from Japan and Korea. It's not the industry fault, per se. You want to imitate what's already successful, because consumers prefer something "familiar". That guarantees sales. Anything that's too "radical" will suffer. The industry is also not vibrant enough with small players. Movies industry, for instance, in the West can have huge budget studio movies, being on the same cinema as independent movies made by small film makers.
Hong Kong movie industry produced great movies, completely dwarfs the Japanese, so there's no excuse for Chinese comic book, graphic novel, animation and contemporary Chinese movies.
@LTNetjak dude, Chinese VA is awesome.
@@elmohead I agree!
Chinese have a dilemma whether or not to export authentic content. Even chinese p*rn is labeled as japanese...
Living and working in China since 2019. I've always thought it a massive shame that TH-cam is banned (and of course other platforms) because it would help people learn more about not only about the average Chinese person but also for Chinese people to learn about other cultures from primary sources. Fro example, I follow a few Russian TH-camrs who are explaining what the situation is like in Russia is right now, and I trust them a hell of a lot more than just the news. Also, a lot of trending social topics (quiet quitting/not having kids/no affordable housing/feeling abandoned by the government compared to previous generations) are mirrored in China too, and we'd all very quickly realise everyone is pretty much the freakin' same and just vibe together.
You could freely use weibo and bilibili, not sure why you think TH-cam should be the end all be all social media platform.
@@yume6532 You are REALLY stretching the definition of "freely."
@@NinetooNine I'm in the US and can access these sites among other popular Chinese social media platforms, not sure where the stretch is.
@@yume6532 so tell me which other countries using it other than China? How they can get different views if only Chinese people using it. Is there any video talks about political issues? Ccp doesn’t censor contents on those?
She isn't. She is in China. So for her to use Weibo would mean she would have to watch what she says. And even if that wasn't the case she would not be able to get the truth about what was going on due to the moderators.
I think you speak the truth, but what i hate most is not that they lacking soft power, but the fact that they don't really try to be better at it and they usually dislike constructive criticism
i think another aspect of china's lack of soft power is that it had a period of complete rejection of globalisation (re 1949-1970s) whereas japan and korea were opening western influence, for korea during the korean war and for japan to recover their image after ww2. kpop is largely based on african-american music and anime was developed after european/american cartoons were introduced in the early 20th century. it kinda reminds me of how most mandopop or cantopop singers are from taiwan or hong kong and a lot of their pop culture was eventually exported to the mainland in the 1980s and 90s.
it's because of american influence in japan and south korea that essentially forced them to become open to the rest of the world. japan had no choice because of their total surrender in ww2, and south korea was founded under an american puppet dictatorship. china never fell victim to this american interference and so didn't have to rely on globalization to maintain autonomy.
Don't forget Mao literally obliterating Chinese culture
exactly
@@MasterIceyy What Mao did was industrialization, which every country went through and it was Chaos in every other country too. Except in China they took money from rich people. That voice spreads out wider.
Exactly what I was going to say. The only reason Japan, Korea and any other South East Asian country is more appealing to the Western Market is mostly because those countries adapted to Western culture. Kpop nowadays is becoming more American mainstream. Only original thing is that they have like 5 different genres in one song.
I really enjoyed hearing your thoughts on this matter. As someone who is half-Chinese and lived my whole life in the US, I have recently been quite curious about the reasons why China has been struggling with soft power while Korean and Japanese culture have become very popular and even mainstreamed among the younger generations here recently. I appreciate the non-overtly political lens you used for your analysis and look forward to see your future videos on Chinese culture, I feel like it is a topic that is not covered much on western platforms outside of heavily politicized contexts that tend to strip the humanity from the matter.
Because hiding the truth is harder than the CCP thinks. Can't have a good cultural export if there's a cloud of doom hanging over it.
China has always had soft power, they literally have billboards in Chinese across California. Anime and Kpop is only recent and has only came up with Nerd Culture. The problem is Kung-Fu movies, Chinese food, Chinese markets and even Chinese fireworks have already assimilated into US society and aren't look to as foreign.
I would also like to point out the elephant the room.....China created TikTok
That's cuz EVERYTHING is political in China. unlike Korea & Japan, China LITERALLY DOESN'T give free rein to their media in whatever forms to expand outwards. EVERYTHING, especially in the past several years, had to be scrutinized by the government for correctness before they could even be disseminated DOMESTICALLY, let alone for foreign markets.
this is a really interesting video!! always been curious about chinas lack of soft power and why people have no problem separating the people and the government for other countries, but not for china. i learnt a lot from this and will be looking forward to your future videos :)
thank you for the support!! ♡ i've literally had the exact same thought as you haha, so I'm glad to hear I was able to provide some insight into that question!
I feel like it’s really important to have this discussion as it really is a consequence of the actions of the ccp
even chinese citizens have a hard time separating government from people. if you criticize anything about their government they take it as an insult to all chinese citizens
It really puts it into perspective!! My mom is Hoa Chinese (Chinese from Vietnam, my great grandpa was from Guangdong) and she says she doesn't associate herself as Chinese but as Vietnamese. Meanwhile I never associated Chinese people with their government whenever I heavily consume Chinese media, Cantonese is my first language and I'd love to learn it, and learn more of the culture.
I was so shocked that she told me not to label our family's ethnicity as Chinese, because I've always been proud of being Chinese amongst my small Asian-American community, and we have a solid friendship with a SEA-Chinese family whose kids were my classmates and also came from a Cantonese-speaking family.
People have problem seperating Chinese people from Chinese government because that what the CCP wanted, CCP spent the last 70 years conflating the concept of Chinese Culture and the ruling party to give the political regime legitmacy, both domestically and internationally. But it's a double edged sword, you cant expect people to distinguish the government and the people when you've spent 70 years conflating the two yourselves.
Tip: not being an oppressive totalitarian state helps with the coolness factor
I really enjoyed the commentary about this topic, particularly because it's hard to find any discussion about China that doesn't end up in political-cultural mockery. Looking forward to more content :)
how do you think people should treat a country currently committing genocide?
@@wesleywyndam-pryce5305 With racism? You understand people who arent ccp officials (and quite alot of them) also live in the country right?
@@yuehan6711 they didn't say racism so I didn't think "political cultural mockery" was a stand in for it. no racism is of course not the answer or ever an answer or helpful. "soft power" though is still government power and so by using that term I assume you're talking about the government and its propaganda.
also you didn't address or acknowledge that China is doing a genocide, you tried to change the subject instead. are its people not complicit?
@@wesleywyndam-pryce5305 I think YOU tried to change the subject of the conversation. The comment said "discussions about china" and I interpreted this as discussions about the many facets of culture and history china has. And even mockery, lies, and/or insincere discussion about a bad government doesn't help anyone. It just spreads misinformation and makes it all seem like a joke. There was a serious, educational video about the Tiananmen Square massacre on youtube and all the top comments were *jokes.* Under a video where people DIED. But I don't see shit like that under videos about Russia invading Ukraine. The evidence of the "genocide" is also incredibly flimsy. China offered Nato a chance to check out Xinjiang, but they refused. Only 5 out of the 190-something countries in the UN actually believe there's a genocide (and those 5 do NOT include muslim-majority countries or countries who had been affected by colonialism, such as african countries) and the numbers of Ughyurs in camps doesn't add up. When a seasoned and well-respected reporter went to Xinjiang alone to check it out and said that he did not think anything bad was happening, his peers criticized him for simply going, aka for basically doing his job. one time, western media got a photo of a crate of tomatoes that fell and smashed to the ground, blurred it, and claimed it had been a ughyur person brutally attacked. There's been instances of the ughyurs who were in the camps not telling consistent stories. Not to mention, many if not most chinese people who have emigrated from china and regularly criticize its censorship issues but still track its political news and modern culture do not think the genocide is happening. You can think you're standing up against a genocide, but if something like this was happening in a white european country, I don't think you all would act like this. In fact, you all already give Russia a lot more leeway. America also had/does bombs muslim countries and you all consume american media like candy....
@@wesleywyndam-pryce5305 China is so much more than the CCP and its brutal regime. That is all I meant.
i really hope this goes viral because i really want more discussion about sinophobia
ahh thank you so much! sinophobia is so frequently expressed in discussions of China and it often goes unacknowledged. I'm glad to be able to spark some convos on this and hopefully get more people to think about why our perception of china is the way it is! thanks for dropping by and leaving a comment! :)
You can't paint this as sinophobia. While sometimes mainland China can be unfairly maligned, the lion's share of it does come from the government. The government constantly claims that it is inseperable from China, represents all Chinese and that they are the sole entity doing so. If they want to stop Chinese culture being ridiculed worldwide then then onus is on the govt to change.
@@makoy2689 it is sinophobia if youre unable to separate the people and the state. yeah the government sucks but your claim that people making comments abt the chinese governement under posts related to china but not the government is sinophobic.
@@theresahe4181 But this is about Chinese culture, and how it loses out to japanese and Korean culture on the world stage. My point is that it is not reasonable or accurate to chalk it up to sinophobia when you have a government taking such an active role in antagonising everythjng, including Chinese culture itself.
@@theresahe4181 if the republic of China was democratic, I would disagree as you would assume that the govt represents the people.
It's refreshing to see content that isn't talked about a lot. I love the mix of geography and pop culture. Two of my favorite things!
K pop is just ripped of American pop
@@phylicia595Okay? 😭 I'm talking about beyond k-pop. China's soft power deficiency.
So sad you didn’t mention Kung Fu Films. As a 90’s kid, I grew up watching films from the 70’s (Bruce Lee), the 80’s (Jackie Chan, Jet Li), and Wire Fu (Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon). It made me want to learn more about Chinese culture and had a huge influence on me. Now it’s all so subpar in comparison that an American animation studio was able to showcase Chinese culture better than China could (Kung Fu Panda).
HK not mainland china
Kung Fu films are not Chinese. It is Hongkong. And Hongkong dislike mainland chinese so much because Mainland Chinese support CCP
I’ve talked to my friends about this. China is bad at marketing their stuff. Take food for instance. Japanese food like mochi and ramen have become globally popular, but few ppl know the food originated in China or know the Chinese equivalents. In the West, Chinese goods are unfairly seen as cheap or unoriginal copies. The stigma is hard to break, but it’s been done by Japan and now Korea with strong marketing and soft power through media.
Japan in the past was stigmatized in very similar ways. Back in the 70s / 80s it was so bad a Chinese American named Vincent Chin was murdered by white Americans that hated Japan. It’ll take a long time and lots of change before China can export pop culture.
Chinese locals dont really trust their local food due and prefer imported stuff due to food safety issues, etc. Kind of difficult to market that when locals know how bad it can get. That milk protein scandal and sewer cooking oil are just a few of the many footnotes.
Americanized Chinese food seems to be popular among non-Chinese people
@@scholarssolutions6735 Yup. They have a fairly uphill battle. A lot of people underestimate how long its taken for both Japan and SK to cultivate the type of soft power they have today though if China could get past certain BS (ie: massive CCP meddling) they could probably cultivate their soft power faster then both countries did. Japan took literal decades but SK's growth has been considerably shorter thanks to the internet. The current and ever evolving internet culture along with the general wider acceptances and interest in Asian entertainment and culture offer pretty fertile ground for Chinese entertainment to capture the world imagination.
@@scholarssolutions6735 yes, building a strong soft power required decade of effort, japan start build their soft power in 1970s and korea in early 21 century. Heck even south korea have the same kind of censorship like china in 1980s
So i pretty sure that china could potentially become a huge soft power in 20-30 year. Because chinese cinema and animation are having a huge potential in the future
What is even more sad about this is consider the population of these respective countries: Japan 125 million Korea 51 million china 1.4 BILLION. China has 8 times the population of these two countries combined. Really puts into perspective the lack of cultural exports to the west/broader world. And unfortunately a lot of it has to do with the oppressive levels of censorship by the government.
That’s also why they don’t feel as strongly the need to export their culture. They definitely want to but they don’t need to at all.
@B1ackkv£ns I mean south korea, most of the time when people say Korea, korean etc they are referencing the south
@B1ackkv£ns If someone says they are Korean, do you ask them if they are from North Korea or South Korea? No, you already know the answer. So in conversation where it is obvious there's nothing wrong with just saying Korea lol
those numbers are deceiving, remove the old people first
@B1ackkv£ns lots of people refer to South Korea as just Korea
I'm from India, and Chinese food is extremely popular here, Chinese food is 2nd in popularity after indian food. I'm not sure if food is a soft power though, i have also always been very fascinated by ancient Chinese culture, since it is the civilisation that influenced the rest of East Asia
The thing we call "Chinese food" is something Chinese guys themselves don't eat. What we call "Chinese" is actually Indo-Chinese made by Chinese settlers in West Bengal, India fusing Chinese and Indian food elements.
No food does not qualify as soft power lol by that logic the Arabs and Turks have a significant soft power because of Hummus and kebab respectively. Also Chinese can include Taiwan and Hong Kong not just Beijing.
Same, but im in south Africa
No, usually it is not considered. Soft power is cultural/media content that influence how people think.
@@hindaviswarajya8853 yea chinese food for locals = Jamie Carragher , Chinese food for international = BBC News
I am not saying that it’s fair , but where I live, contemporary China is synonym for cheap. Many Chinese families opened markets that sell cheap (and sometimes counterfeit) wares, all you can eat cheap restaurants, cheap hair and nails salons etc. then there’s apps like T*mu that sell very cheaply. And so where I live, Japan is seen as a classy country, Korea is seen as a fashion country, but China is the cheap Country.. and there’s no soft power in cheap, because it’s not aspirational. Again, I understand this is a generalization, but I wonder if it’s a generalization that other countries have too, and that might contribute to less soft power.
Korea is a fashion country? That would be Japan. LOL, name me some famous world renowned Korean fashion designers or luxury labels. Korea is known for used and knockoff Italian goods in Myeongdong ^^
中国没有雄心？😂😂😂世界第二经济体。最大制造业国家。
Not anymore. India is surpassing China in production. Foreign companies like Foxconn prefer to invest there because of Chinese government restrictions. China might be ambitious, but it's heavy handed and stifling creativity. @@mikepeng6749
I agree. Here, China is a synonym with cheap, fake goods and copyright infringement. Not helpful for soft power.
@@mikepeng6749 你沒看懂吧。China經濟確實第二大，可是他是說在大部分人的看來，中國只有注重*便宜*，不像日本從事多是細心、“classy"，也不像韓國流行文化。
我拿CFMOTO擧個例子, 我感覺他們很愿意給自己產品寫上”CFMOTO"，很想改進自己產品，但你想想，有多少其他小製造商，只要產品名聲出點臭，就會改公司名再做下去，而不改進商品？
這大概是他想表達的“太注重便宜”的意思。
This is honestly, super interesting. I've never thought about soft power, but have noticed the proliferation of Eastern Asiatic cultures in the global mainstream over the last decade. I would be interested to see more of this type of content in the future.
As a Chinese person born and raised in China and growing up exposed to both western pop and kpop, I can attest to some of the things you mentioned, like censorship and artists not having full autonomy of their works. But the pop cultures in China, particularly those who have nothing to do with CCP, have always been active (underground rap culture, not the kind of rap videos posted here obviously, c-drama, variety shows, celebrities who compete for attention, memes, viral videos etc.) except it didn't get proper exposure to the west as Japan and Korea did, because the government hasn't planned to export it and benefit from the cultural expansion economically, unlike Japan and particularly Korea who has been promoting their content for decades on a national scale. Our domestic market is big enough for actors and celebrities to earn millions of dollars just by showing up on a few episodes of variety shows or starring in any tv series and make much more money than Korean idols/actors. Korea had always tried to break into China’s market by co-producing shows etc., partly because money is so easy to make in china with just a bit influence with the demographic edge. This trend continued until Korea-china relationship deteriorated in recent years. Then they switched their focus to the west as a result.
Plus we have our own separate platforms/apps running and promoting shows/content/music that the west either simply doesn’t have access to or hasn't been aware of their existence even if some of the platforms have international versions, like iq.com. Netflix bought a few shows that probably account for less than 5% of the content we consume daily.
We had a certain degree of creativity freedom until recent years, evidenced by award winning movies focusing on gay couples, reflections on past historical mistakes like the cultural revolution (farewell my concubine). The lack of freedom only aggravated in recent years, for obvious reasons, which is sad to see. We have so much potential but because of ideological clashes we may never see the culture as widely spread as japan/korea.
To sum up, 1. Censorship, although some of the content that passed the censorship are just as good. 2. Hard to access if you don’t know the language. 3. We don’t export. Our own market has not been saturated yet. 4. The west politicizes everything about China.
Excellent comments.
thank you for this input! I've always felt the western position on china felt too extreme because I have several chinese friends living quite normal lives and wondered if they were privileged themselves or if everything about china was politicised too much. I'm definitely aware of the booming chinese industry and how they're doing fine being insulated because it's similar to my home country where people enjoy media and cultural exports from the west but also are very connected to and preserve our country's culture simultaneously and our entertainment industry is flourishing enough to make artists extremely rich and famous within our country itself, thus the lack of strategised, strong outward export.
Correction on the point 4. - The CCP politicizes everything it touches
China is not exactly friendly with America, I would not be surprised if there was some gate keeping on America’s part on Chinese content. It for sure would not get the same treatment as Japan or Korea which are basically American colonies at this point.
@@JolieGirl2002 I honestly think both sides politicize a lot, like you had it with the olympic games for example where ypu had to get CCP approved to get in, its always those big things that get shown in the west where they apply a lot of politics. Or these rap songs released about Taiwan or the cotton fields and all. Everything they want to show the west has politics in it because they feel that way they can manipulate the west into supporting them.
Remember the first olympic games in china? Thats how promotion works! People loved it and didnt say much about politics because they only displayed culture mostly, but thats really changed now. They dont purely show culture or people anymore, only what been heavily controlled and approved and thus western media will become even more negative about it.
All in all I just really think the CCP doesnt know how to really advertise itself or its country to the outside anmyore and thats casuing issues. I also know china has a booming media culture, but if they want to use that soft power, why dont they grant some access to that once in a while?
i want to add tho, I feel like the US is messing up a lot now too, in recent times ive seen less and less good things, only stuff that has been politicized or things that are going wrong. I feel like its starting to become similar with my media intake about that country and many others are seeing this too. I also feel like many big soft power markets are decreasing in popularity a bit. If you present yourself wrong, like both of them are doing now, you lose a lot of favor even if you live there and its not like presented.
Korea is boiling with internal collisions. Clash of ideas and ideologies. Almost a civil war without bullets. Still it is a peaceful country with quite a resilient economy. This stark contrast is the source of K culture.
This comment section can be summarized as "Place, Japan 😍 Place, China 😡"
as someone who loves c-drama, c-novels, and Chinese music etc. im very sad when i cant watch or read or legally stream because of lack of translation and availability. it has such a great potential. but i can see its definitely better than 5 years ago. I started to learn Chinese and went to Taiwan for a year. But its a very hard (BEAUTIUFUL) language, and it will take take me many years to master it.
I understand chinese entertainment industry is not that much great unlike koreans and japanese but what about taiwanese? They are democracy right why can't they produce the quality output then?
WOW VERY DANGEROUS SIRR!! 😠😠 THIS WHY IM SO LUCKY LIVE IN SUPER INDIA THE CLEANEST COUNTRY IN THE WORLD 🇮🇳🤗 , WE NEVER SCAM! WE GIVE RESPECT TO ALL WOMEN THEY CAN WALK SAFELY ALONE AT NIGHT AND WE HAVE CLEAN FOOD AND TOILET EVERYWHERE 🇮🇳🤗🚽, I KNOW MANY POOR PEOPLE JEALOUS WITH SUPER RICH INDIA 🤗🇮🇳🤗🇮🇳🤗🇮🇳🤗🇮🇳🤗
@@indiasuperclean6969 Keep it up 👍my friend
It’s too hard for me to get over the weird voiceovers they do. I don’t want to hear the same voice actors throughout the entire drama and it always just looks and sounds weird because of it.
I love c-drama sm
another thing that blocks their soft power is almost everything is on their state-run platforms so to get a lot of info without hunting for it. i even remember a while back I was watching produce 101 and Idol producer on youtube and then they were gone one day, only to find out it was because of the government, I don't remember why tho.
I was very interested in Chinese culture and language (still am) and I wanted to dig my heels into it more but the content that got me into it was basically stripped from me i didn't know where to look or how to find anything (this was 3 or 4 years ago) when i couldn't find i basically switched to other countries and stayed there.
i was having a lot of fun with the context but you couldn't just get the content and that makes it hard to stick with it.
u could try using twitter if u can't use chinese social media ^^
Bilibili Is perfect
The deficiency is quite astounding. I am Chinese American, yet I know far more stories, music, movies from Korea and Japan than from China due to things you mentioned like anime and Kpop. It's sad because there are great Chinese stories to tell. Just look at how prevalent Sun Wukong, a Chinese character, is in Korean and Japanese manga and manhwa
It's really weird because I was really hoping for more epic movies like Red Cliff and then... nothing happens with that momentum.
The deficiency can be summed up quite easily… the CCP. Hopefully they implode soon.
So when are the Chinese people going to apologize for spreading Covid-19?
Dude you guys need to bring back the Kung Fu movies. I watched so many as a child.
@@herp_derpingson Those are so cheesy!
As a sinologist I know how amazing Chinese culture is, but I also know how it is being kept inside of China by the authorities. If they allow for free expression then they no longer have the thought control that they seek, and social stability might be affected.
Right on point. 💯
Based usernwme
A major reason is that China is really self-eccentric. We're already really lucky that some Chinese Tv shows and Dramas put English subtitles. I also remember reading many Chinese novels, but the updates on our platforms come very late because the aim for the novels is mainly the Chinese audience, it's very frustrating. When I don't find subtitles for some TV shows, I feel like pulling my hair out. In conclusion, China is self-sustaining and doesn't need outside help in any way, whether it be economic or political, I mean they do have like 1.4 billion people.
I totally agree with your comment. Those cdrama platforms even don't work for better and reasonable subtitles. Not only foreigners have language barriers towards Chinese contents, but also Chinese creators won't do more work to cover foreign audience. Though they post dramas on TH-cam, they seem like not to really care about non-Chinese speakers.
LMAO xD bro china is NOT self sustaining. They need foreign investment and a market to sell all their stuff to. The chinese internal market is not big enough. Aslo china is not food or energy independent. Having lots of people doesnt mean youre self sustaining...
@@captainalex157 They were doing very well before Britain colonised them so why can't they be self-sustaining? They are just moving with the times, who wouldn't want more money? If they weren't self-sustaining then how did they get food for their people before Britain came into the picture, they didn't have any trade routes back then and they were surrounded by sea and mountains. They only started doing these things when Britain hit rock bottom and went to China in SEARCH of trade and then all this stuff happened. Don't make me laugh and go do your history.
@@faizasoha636 because they had less people genius, go read some demographics of china, if you have half a brain you will see the inevitable problem.
@@captainalex157 As I said, they're moving with the times. Back then if Britain hadn't colonised them, who knows how they would've survived? Since that obviously didn't happen and trade routes started appearing that's not something to discuss. You are off-topic and have nothing to say. This conversation is over, good day.
This is a totally different scenario in Southeast Asia. In Vietnam, we have access to a lot of Chinese fashion trends such as ( as you previous mentioned in the video) douyin makeup, taobao fashion (online shopping application in Chinese), life hack from douyin and a lot of trending styles actually deprived from Chinese like the dopamin makeup, dressing styles. Moreover, Chinese people appear to be very funny and entertaining to us due to a large number of funny daily Chinese life being uploaded on facebook (which is the most used social media app in VIetnam). However, us Vietnamese don't want to touch the CHinese government as it's related to the previous colonisation. Watching this video makes me realised how China may appear hostile, inhospitality to the Western side and it reminded me of how badly China was advertised.
As a Brazilian, I want to add:
The US overthrows democracies, sustains over 70% of the dictatorships in the planet, funds terrorist groups and commits war crimes against everyone else.
China gave us their traditional medicine, Daoism, rich history, and much better trade conditions.
I’d stand for China over the US any time, any day.
I don’t perceive China as unhospitable. I perceive them as an amazing country with incredibly hard working people.
I’m a “woke” guy who actually puts history in perspective, but I don’t think I’m an exception.
I guess most brazilians have a positive view of China. Except for the far-right idiots…
But they are YET another reason for us to dislike the US, since all they do is mimic the american right wing…
From Chinese side the "colonisation" was actually a good try of reunification (with bloodshed of course, but all reunification comes with war and bloodshed like what you did during your process of reunification in mordern time), We failed at it than We let North Vietnam go and never invade again.
Your comment is a perfect demonstration of how soft power (brainwashing) influence people's view. Inhospitable to western world? Quite the other way around.
Vietnamese still don't get their government do so much censorship? Maybe it's the same ignorance of communist countries
Many Vietnamese in the United States are mangosteens, who are hostile to China, but also do not understand China, and even hostile to Vietnam.
i just want to express how thankful i am for this video. as a chinese person living in europe, the bad treatment stands out every day. im kind of scared to share my experiences but i hope to find the strength soon and comment again
As a European, I’m sorry to hear that and I hope your experience improves. But let’s not pretend bad treatment is something that only happens to Chinese people. Do you recall how badly Africans were treated in China during the pandemic?
@@numb15 what? this isn't about african people, this is a video about chinese people. of course i know but this really isn't the place to discuss that
@@numb15 nobody brought up African people
@@thiccynicky8657 it’s a bit hypocritical to complain about other countries being racist towards you, when your own country is racist too
@@numb15 no one said that other countries/cultures dont face discrimination, this video is on the topic of chinese so we’re talking about the chinese people? To me, youre kind of putting off the hate chinese/asians get by saying that “african people get hate too! By your own country even!!”
I remember watching the Karate Kid (2010) and the Beijing Olympics, which gave me a really positive perspective of Chinese culture as a kid. Seeing all the censorship though makes me sad of what else they could have made but didn’t
Karate kid was a Hollywood production tho.
@@sara.cbc92 the image portrayed of China
@@monke234saru karate = Japanese, just saying
@@inhokim3598 No fucking shit. What I’m saying is that the movie was based in China, and that portrayal of China was appealing to me as a kid. Why do I have to explain this far into something this simple.
Being seen as “rule-following,” “frightened” & “conformist” are seriously uncool…..Everywhere.
so is "rude" & "dangerous" , "mentally illed" 😅
@@tocreatee3585 (I would have mentioned “rude” and “bad-mannered” - but I assumed that everyone has had their own experiences with Chinese tourists-or seen dozens of vids of them on YT already)….
This so interesting and I always used to ask myself this as an African when I was in China. Chinese things just aren't perceived as cool like things from Japan or Korea although some good things that can be good soft power for China are genuinely nice. I think you're video was spot on as I think its a big dilemma for the CCP to maintain their power and control over Chinese people or expanding soft power, I think the CCP will always prefer to maintain power and control in China rather than exporting their culture
@Trinity M If you want to fix Sinophobia then change the gov simple as that. Imagine saying "we cant ignore the north korean phobia that contributes to the perception" when their leadership is literally launching missiles to neighboring territories and threatening nuclear war. Of course people dont want to associate or engage with crazy that's completely normal. People started to let go of germanophobia because the war-prone Nazi german government ceased to exist. People don't want to play chinese games or watch chinese movies or whatever mainly because they associate them to the government since the majority of business there is government owned and of course they dont want to support a government who represses its own people and threatens war with Taiwan every singe week.
Chinese culture will grow. It's an inevitability, just as how soft power from Africa will grow. Why? Because soft power always rests on a bedrock of HARD power and ECONOMY. It's just that China has to fight through the West's monopoly on media and public opinion.
The West is very good at marketing and they set the agenda, Korea & Japan are both very dependent and very connected to the West. China can still do good, but they might have to target the global south first.
@Trinity M the sinophobia only grows each year the CCP is in power. I’m African American, and I don’t think you understand how big martial arts and Chinese culture was for years before the CCP started getting so aggressive.
China really shouldn't underestimate the boom that recent danmei webnovels and liveactions are bringing, with the Untamed having hit 10 billion views I think according to an article I read somewhere. It just really furthered my interest in their beautiful culture too such as the amazing OSTs they feature in their period dramas which in general lead me to falling in love with the genre of Gufeng music.
Whatever culture you think China has is being actively destroyed by the CCP government as they legitmentally commit crimes against certain demographics within their own population. Compounded with the rising tensions with nations surrounding China and the end result in a negative look from most against China. Also unless your Chineese the broader chineese internet is cut off from the world.
@@PrettyBabyAngel why do you defend Chinas concentration camps?
@@PrettyBabyAngel you literally said in other comments that you don’t know why westerners bring up the concentration camps on the topic of Chinas authoritarianism. That sounds exactly like someone defending those camps or else guy wouldn’t complain
CCP doesn't underestimate it.
Rather, CCP is afraid of it. CCP is not interested in "soft power" if it does not directly benefit the state on a geopolitical level; similarly, it would rather kill off this source of "soft power" if it can potentially harm CCP by posing a salient, China-based challenge to the narrative the Communists want to foist on all of us.
A Malaysian Chinese's observation.
I personally dislike danmei, but it’s undeniable that its got lots of fans. But the issue is that danmei is a homegrown cultural phenomenon that goes against the official Chinese stances for Chinese culture and society. To them, it’s Chinese culture, but not the ‘correct’ Chinese culture. It’s seen as the product of exposure to Western decadence, which tbh isn’t without merit. Danmei, like yaoi, is the woman’s version of lesbian media (and p*rn) made for men.
Another example of politics undermining Chinese culture are the artisanal craftsmen videos that are popular on TikTok. They could be making ink blocks or silk or paper and will show someone with incredible skill and dedication crafting something beautiful. The videos often have traditional music and are set in some rural mountain area. But it doesn't take too long before you realise that these videos are all manufactured. The person probably doesn't work in this beautiful rural village but a dirty factory in town. The videos are clearly trying to show the rich history and culture that China has but the whole message is undermined when the viewer realises they are just watching another form of propaganda.
like a Japanese restaurant that hypocritically takes out the rice balls that are easily kneaded by a machine and says they are handmade?