This thread is for discussing general news, happenings, and political analyses from East Asia. I know that we have a dedicated Taiwan thread, but I would like to have a more general discussion about the geopolitics of China, Taiwan, Japan, and other East Asian countries.
East Asia thread
- Thread starter Grigori
- Start date
To kick off the discussion, I would like to start with the policy "Made in China 2025". It is basically where the Chinese economy is reorienting itself from focusing on manufacturing industries to high tech industries, namely semiconductors, electronics, robotics, drones, cars, planes, trains, factory machines, power plant components, solar panels, etc. China is becoming a major producer of these goods.
One of the most important industries are semiconductors, because embedded systems are placed in drones, cars, planes, trains, factory machines, etc in order to control them. If you've ever worked on an Arduino project, you know what I mean. Right now China lags behind the United States, Japan, Taiwan, and South Korea in the production of semiconductors. To complicate matters, the United States has placed sanctions on China's semiconductor industry. However I predict that this will only slow down China, but not stop it. After all, China can get semiconductors and the machinery necessary to produce them from Japan, Taiwan, and South Korea.
www.cnbc.com
www.brookings.edu
foreignpolicy.com
noahpinion.substack.com
www.benzinga.com
www.cnbc.com
One of the most important industries are semiconductors, because embedded systems are placed in drones, cars, planes, trains, factory machines, etc in order to control them. If you've ever worked on an Arduino project, you know what I mean. Right now China lags behind the United States, Japan, Taiwan, and South Korea in the production of semiconductors. To complicate matters, the United States has placed sanctions on China's semiconductor industry. However I predict that this will only slow down China, but not stop it. After all, China can get semiconductors and the machinery necessary to produce them from Japan, Taiwan, and South Korea.
In battle with U.S., China to focus on 7 'frontier' technologies from chips to brain-computer fusion
China laid out seven technology areas it will focus research on including artificial intelligence, quantum computing, semiconductors and space.
Lagging but motivated: The state of China’s semiconductor industry
Semiconductors have emerged as a key area of competition between the United States and China, and both countries want greater independence from one another in this sector. But how to achieve that i…
www.brookings.edu
Semiconductors and the U.S.-China Innovation Race
The lifeblood of high-tech industries, semiconductors are at the heart of intensifying U.S.-China strategic and economic competition. Escalating trade tensions between these two superpowers and…
foreignpolicy.com
Biden declares economic war on the Chinese semiconductor industry
Now it's on.
noahpinion.substack.com
China's Semiconductor Industry 'Decapitated Overnight': What 'Annihilation Looks Like' - Applied Mat (NASDAQ:AMAT), ASML Holding (NASDAQ:ASML)
The Biden administration unveiled a comprehensive strategy recently to move the U.S.
www.benzinga.com
America's 'once unthinkable' chip export restrictions will hobble China's semiconductor ambitions
America's introduced sweeping rules aimed at cutting China off from key chips and components for supercomputers. That could hurt China's semiconductor industry.
I do not think that China will be able to fulfill all their plans of developing their high tech industry by 2025, however they are on the right path. If they will keep on going, they will get there sooner or later. Perhaps it could take them an additional 10 to 20 years to fully realize their plans, but it's not that big of a deal in the long run, especially compared to the sorry state that Russia and the European Union are currently in.
One of the fundamental cultural differences between China and the United States, is that Chinese culture places a high value on education and knowledge, whereas American culture not so much. In China, the "nerds" or high achieving students, the smart kids, are very well respected and admired. Whereas in the US, "nerds" are bullied and looked down upon by society. Whereas Chinese culture appreciates the pursuit of knowledge, American culture pulls it down. This has been the case even before the "woke cultural revolution", but is becoming even more so, as Chinese academia is being dominated by STEM, while American academia is being dominated by SJW and the beurocracy.
The Chinese educational culture, while it maybe criticized for it's over emphasis on passing exams, and being extremely strict and difficult for students, doesn't have any problems of the American educational culture. I mean bullying the smart kids, teaching transgender ideology instead of academic subjects, calling math "racist", and teaching at the lowest common denominator level. What I mean by the last bit, teaching at the lowest common denominator level, is that the US schools drop down to the level of the slowest students, making everyone else bored and unfulfilled. This has been the case even before the "woke revolution" for God knows how long. Meanwhile in China the bar is raised much much higher. The work load for middle school students has been allegedly reported as not too different from that in American universities. Meaning that it is extremely rigorous and challenging, and not many students are able to keep up the pace. While that may sound unfair, it is an example of "tough love" which keeps people from becoming soft and weak, and forcing them to develop mental discipline and organization. I think that part of the reason why kids in the US are so lazy dopamine addicts is because they were bored and never challenged in school because American schools lower the bar down to the lowest common denominator. Even before all the woke stuff and the covid stuff, the average US school was an incredibly unpleasant place, due to this fact, and also because of the bullying and general culture of violence and delinquency.
These are important points, because having an educational culture like that will enable China to fulfill it's plans of becoming a high tech superpower in the future, whereas in the US ... not so much, unless they would be getting by hiring Indian engineers.
The Chinese educational culture, while it maybe criticized for it's over emphasis on passing exams, and being extremely strict and difficult for students, doesn't have any problems of the American educational culture. I mean bullying the smart kids, teaching transgender ideology instead of academic subjects, calling math "racist", and teaching at the lowest common denominator level. What I mean by the last bit, teaching at the lowest common denominator level, is that the US schools drop down to the level of the slowest students, making everyone else bored and unfulfilled. This has been the case even before the "woke revolution" for God knows how long. Meanwhile in China the bar is raised much much higher. The work load for middle school students has been allegedly reported as not too different from that in American universities. Meaning that it is extremely rigorous and challenging, and not many students are able to keep up the pace. While that may sound unfair, it is an example of "tough love" which keeps people from becoming soft and weak, and forcing them to develop mental discipline and organization. I think that part of the reason why kids in the US are so lazy dopamine addicts is because they were bored and never challenged in school because American schools lower the bar down to the lowest common denominator. Even before all the woke stuff and the covid stuff, the average US school was an incredibly unpleasant place, due to this fact, and also because of the bullying and general culture of violence and delinquency.
These are important points, because having an educational culture like that will enable China to fulfill it's plans of becoming a high tech superpower in the future, whereas in the US ... not so much, unless they would be getting by hiring Indian engineers.
Another interesting thing about Chinese culture vs American culture:
www.theatlantic.com
Six Brilliant Illustrations of Chinese and Western Cultural Differences
The Chinese-born German artist Yang Lin explores how her two cultures part ways in a series of clever images.
www.theatlantic.com
Michio Kaku speaks about American technological coroporations hiring foreigners as employees (especially Indians), to compensate for the lack of domestic skilled employees, as a kind of "secret weapon". But I think that hiring foreigners is just a crutch, and a shameful one. You have a country that can't even produce enough good quality engineers to fulfill the emplyment demands of it's high technology industry, that they have to import foreigners as employees! I think that's a shame. Of coure Michio Kaku has to be politically correct to avoid stepping out of line (otherwise they wouldn't let him even speak), but at the end of the day, we need to call a horse a horse. It is what it is.
As the US becomes less traditional, more wokeist, more dangerous, more infested with criminals, and more degraded in general, it will becoming an ever less attractive place for foreign workers to live in. Even in the Bay Area, you can walk past your job office, and see the homeless encampments. So other countries are becoming more attractive for foreign knowledge workers. That is the danger of relying on foreign employees as a crutch. It is not guaranteed that they would want to live in your country, when there are other even better places in the world. The average Asian computer programmer does not want to deal with all your pronoun gender crap, nor does we want to be threatened by drug dealers at the local gas station.
Interesting topic. I hope the discussion can keep those of us on the other side of the world as informed as possible. I have an interest in China's rise as an industrial superpower due to my fascination with logistics. I've been in the warehouse and manufacturing world of America for most of my working life now and am more interested in how goods move because of that work history. Covid made it all the more interesting as I knew we would have lasting logistical problems since the shutdowns.
I don't have much to contribute, but I have been watching CCTV in the mornings lately. This is twofold: I am currently studying Mandarin and also curious what foreign media outlets have to say about the West right now. As a result, I have many screenshots from Chinese news that I plan to translate on a day off soon. If anyone's interested, I'm happy to post some that are relevant to the thread with my (amateur) translations.
I don't have much to contribute, but I have been watching CCTV in the mornings lately. This is twofold: I am currently studying Mandarin and also curious what foreign media outlets have to say about the West right now. As a result, I have many screenshots from Chinese news that I plan to translate on a day off soon. If anyone's interested, I'm happy to post some that are relevant to the thread with my (amateur) translations.
Will deliver soon.
As for my studies, yellowbridge.com is an excellent dictionary.
I see a tutor every week who uses material from linguist John DeFrancis. Mostly from the book 'Beginning Chinese.'
Katrina Liu has some children's books available on Amazon that include Mandarin, Pinyin and English. There is free audio of those on YouTube.
Rita Mandarin Chinese has a couple interesting YouTube videos. I've seen her talk about stuff my teacher talks about.
Lastly, I play a lot Duolingo. I'm about 1/3 or almost halfway through their "Chinese" course right now.
As for my studies, yellowbridge.com is an excellent dictionary.
I see a tutor every week who uses material from linguist John DeFrancis. Mostly from the book 'Beginning Chinese.'
Katrina Liu has some children's books available on Amazon that include Mandarin, Pinyin and English. There is free audio of those on YouTube.
Rita Mandarin Chinese has a couple interesting YouTube videos. I've seen her talk about stuff my teacher talks about.
Lastly, I play a lot Duolingo. I'm about 1/3 or almost halfway through their "Chinese" course right now.
Last edited:
Here's a video about China's difficulty to manufacture high tech, using the trouble they had making ball point pens as an example. He agrees with the OP that China can't achieve their goals by the 2025 deadline they've set.
This comes from Winston Sterzel, aka serpentza, a South African who lived in China's highest tech city, Shenzhen, for about 13 years; he's been back in the USA for a few years. I've been watching his vids and documentaries on China for almost a decade and I think he's reliable.
This comes from Winston Sterzel, aka serpentza, a South African who lived in China's highest tech city, Shenzhen, for about 13 years; he's been back in the USA for a few years. I've been watching his vids and documentaries on China for almost a decade and I think he's reliable.
Caduceus
Ostrich
Don't be fooled.
With all probability he is/was a spy working for western intelligence agencies.
I highly appreciate this thread, this forum really needs more in-depth cultural discussions outside the Western context, since this is pretty much an Anglocentric space. Sadly we don't have enough insider knowledge, so my insights here are otherwise external observations.
I think this thread deserves to exist because right-wing Americans need to realize that the liberal vs conservative political dichotomy is largely defined in a US context, and people from East Asia don't see things the way that Westerners do, so to speak. An example would be why does the CCP still keep its name if the present Chinese economy is no longer socialistic (and in some aspects, actually more capitalistic than the US), or why do East Asians go to Christian cathedrals for weddings if they are otherwise not Christian.
Yeah it's good to see homeschooling being a solution to the destructive effects of the public school system, but where's the mathematics and science education?
I think this thread deserves to exist because right-wing Americans need to realize that the liberal vs conservative political dichotomy is largely defined in a US context, and people from East Asia don't see things the way that Westerners do, so to speak. An example would be why does the CCP still keep its name if the present Chinese economy is no longer socialistic (and in some aspects, actually more capitalistic than the US), or why do East Asians go to Christian cathedrals for weddings if they are otherwise not Christian.
Taiwan's strategic importance as a semiconductor hub appears to be exaggerated by Western media nowadays for the purpose of pushing the narrative that China is planning to invade Taiwan anytime soon (after the Russian offensive in Ukraine started in February) because they're that desperate for resources. However, Mainland China is already the biggest trading partner of Taiwan (and South Korea) and the island is for all intents and purposes already integrated economically to the Mainland. Taiwan denying chip exports to China thus is a bad idea even from a business perspective; maybe that's why Nancy Pelosi is engaging in insider trading with Nvidia to try gain some financial leverage. And Taiwan is already at an immense diplomatic disadvantage with most countries in the world not recognizing it as an independent state. China simply has no immediate need to conquer Taiwan in other words.
China sees no pressure in winning the tech devt race as a matter of pride, and they have already won over many countries by skillful diplomacy and the Belt and Road projects. And with China becoming the economic and political hegemon in Asia, any geopolitical leverage from South Korea or Japan in tech innovation is negligible.
I have made absolutely the same observation. China does need to relax and ease some of the burden upon high school students especially as regards the Gaokao (college entrance exam), the same can be said for Japan and Korea, so I think that this is a quirk of East Asian Confucian culture. But it is the United States that needs an overhaul for the reasons you stated above. I remember someone else in another thread complaining about Indians getting disproportionate representation in American tech companies, and I brought up that this is a result of STEM education being largely neglected in the US public school system.
Yeah it's good to see homeschooling being a solution to the destructive effects of the public school system, but where's the mathematics and science education?
Why thank you very much, good sir. It appears that @DanielH doesn't appreciate this thread though. He gave me a warning for it.
I'm actually not a right-wing American. Anyway, in studying East Asian culture, I can say that China and Japan are mostly conservative, but they are conservative in terms of Confucianism/Taoism/Buddhism/Shintoism. Preserving the culture of monarchist China, if you will. Family values, filial piety, ancestor worship, striving to education and self development are the general conservative values in East Asia. Conservative in China means nationalistic, whereas liberal means anything western or anti Chinese, which includes not only "baizou" globohomo stuff, but also (gasp) Christianity as a foreign religion seeking to corrupt the minds of the Chinese people. That is why the CCP encourages Traditional Chinese religions, but clamps down on Christianity and Islam, as religions from foreign civilizations.
I studied STEM in a big American university, and most of the diligent students were immigrants or expats of various stripes, such as Chinese, Indians, Arabs, etc. There were very few "white Americans" in the top classes, and only one "black American". I wouldn't be surprised if this demographic carries over to American tech companies also. Although the American tech companies tend to hire foreign workers, a large amount of new hires are local graduates, who are just actually Asians that graduated from local American universities.
Yeah, in addition to learning farming, survival skills, the Greek and Christian classics, you also need to learn STEM subjects in order to get ahead in the world, get a good career, and provide for your family. I think that homeschooling is a very great way to get an exceptional mathematics and science education. If you play your cards right, you can actually skip multiple grade levels over the public school kids. You don't even need to be a STEM nerd in order to teach your kids, and you definitely don't need to have a private tutor. There are literally thousands of free lectures on YouTube that have been uploaded by professors of top STEM schools such as MIT and Carnegie Melon. You can just download the video and watch the professor explain everything. In fact, I didn't even go to classes when I was in college, I just watched the free YouTube videos, because the instructors at my university were so bad at explaining, and also I could rewind the video to watch it again if I didn't understand something and pause to take notes. You can literally learn specialized topics as Quantum Physics or Gradient Descent just by watching YouTube videos. If you didn't know that YouTube can be used as a free university resource, well ... you've been living under a rock.
Here's a sampling of some exceptional channels:
So if you play your cards right, this is how your son will turn out, a genius kid!
Regarding the question, is China conservative? ... It has been discussed many times by different authors here, the idea that the future of a country lies in it's youth. In other words, the youth are the future of the country.
The Chinese youth are on average more conservative and nationalistic than their elders. Many of them are rejecting western fashion in favor of Traditional Chinese clothing, as everyday wear. The American "nerd" or "geek" may as well be someone who likes Star Wars, Minecraft, and other woke shows and movies and video games in addition to STEM. The Chinese "nerd" is a scholar who wears hanfu, practices traditional forms of art, drawing, painting, and calligraphy, plays musical instruments, in addition to STEM. Sure, there are more than enough of those video game types to go around. But within Chinese academia the egregore of the gentleman scholar has materialized, one who combines prowess in mathematics and the sciences with an appreciation of the Chinese classics and arts. So in other words, the educated young people of China are aligned with traditional values rather than against them. If you've ever watched Donghua (Chinese anime), you'll note the prevalent conservative themes. It can be said that this trend is actually a Renaissance of Traditional Chinese culture.
It is worth noting that some of these articles try to paint modern Chinese conservative culture in a negative light, but is that really unexpected from a western liberal journalist?
World's First Classical Chinese Programming Language
Programs written in the language include one for fortune-telling from the I Ching
spectrum.ieee.org
The U.S. Should Take Note of China's New Generation of Nationalists
A more united country, where the values of American citizens are put first, is a stronger one.
www.newsweek.com
HK's youth most conservative about sex, global survey finds
HK's youth most conservative about sex, global survey finds
www.scmp.com
The revival of hanfu, ancient clothing worn by China’s Han ethnicity
Hongkonger Veronica Kam doesn’t just wear traditional hanfu clothes during Lunar New Year but all year round, and she’s not the only one in the city who enjoys celebrating the costumes.
www.scmp.com
Meet Shiyin, the Fashion Influencer Shaping China’s Hanfu Style Revival
Vogue meets the influential Shiyin, one of the country’s leading exponents of Hanfu, a way of dressing that is rooted in Chinese tradition.
In China, young people bring life back to "hanfu", the traditional dress
In China, young people bring life back to "hanfu", the traditional dress
www.tellerreport.com
Young Chinese are both patriotic and socially progressive
That mix is already changing their country, says Stephanie Studer, our China correspondent
China’s Youth Are Trapped in the Cult of Nationalism
Dreams of liberalization have clashed against the reality of successful propaganda.
foreignpolicy.com
How Chinese Youth Enable the Revival of Confucian Culture
Government policy, higher incomes, and commercialization are all fueling a revival in traditional philosophy.
www.sixthtone.com
Five times more conservatives than liberals in China, says survey
Research by the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences has surprised even the study's author, who last polled political attitudes in the wake of the Tiananmen uprising in 1989.
www.scmp.com
Last edited:
Why do you think so?
Caduceus
Ostrich
Because if he was a harmless video blogger the Chinese wouldn't have monitored him continuously, made him report to the police more and more often, and then finally slowly nudged (forced) him out of the country, despite him having a Chinese girlfiend/wife.
RVF member @911 can tell you more on this guy I think.
On a more general basis many people (not all) who are popular "travel bloggers" are in actuality spies for intelligence services.
This goes all the way back to photographic reporters for national geographic magazine from the 1950s to the 1990s.
Many of them were US spies.
Being a journalist or whatever and having direct or indirect connections to intel agencies is definitely a thing, e.g. Operation Mockingbird, but there are many other reasons why the Chinese might consider him to not be harmless.
You haven't given any specifics, so I'll just reply that in general—and I think you're well aware of this—big countries like China and the USA have essentially unlimited budget and resources for surveillance, and when someone becomes a target of that it could be for nearly no reason at all. In China, the initiation of such surveillance could just be that you're a foreigner with any sort of unusual connection, like trying to date a local girl whose dad is a party member of someone with significant pull. I knew a Canadian who was dating a billionaire who wasn't even a party member and he and one of his foreign friends were under surveillance, it seemed to be from the PLA.
I think it's pretty much common knowledge that all Western foreigners had "minders" when they visited the USSR, Russia, or Warsaw Pact countries, such as simple english teachers; I knew one who said she was watched in the early 2000's and even approached her minder on the subway and conversed sparsely.
One of the specific examples that Sterzel and his business & youtube partner give for their increased surveillance leading up to their self-deportation after they sensed the heat was on was their trip to Shandong province and the border to North Korea, as well their visit to Inner Mongolia for their second documentary when they were detained and questioned by the PLA because a local had notified authorities that they must be spies.
When American author, Peter Hessler (famous for his book "River Town" 1996) bought a small house in a rural area within driving distance of Beijing, where he was a reporter for the WSJ, I think, one of the locals in the village continuously reported him as a spy, which prompted a police visit every time he and his wife went there for a weekend retreat. It's not difficult to imagine this kind of thing escalating for people like Sterzel and his partner, since they do not have journalist credentials or any diplomatic connections.
Even without the espionage angle, it's enough reason to suspect Serpentza and other anti-China content creators just for the fact that they always lead their criticisms to conclude for a destabilization of Mainland China and a neocon-aligned takeover. There's room for constructive criticism, and then there's SJW-style agitprop to make gullible people back Uyghur jihadists or Hong Kong rioters.
www.eastasiaforum.org
But mind you, this isn't just limited to China. I've seen many similar liberal hit-pieces against South Korean and Japanese society as well, promoting feminism and LGBTQ ideology (no doubt taking advantage of the cultural influence of K-Pop and anime to indoctrinate adolescents and young people in the West) and doing AOC or Bernie-style "eat the rich" attacks against Asian big businesses, which coincidentally do not allow much multinational control or in competition with Western woke capital.
I would like to add another example, this one from East Asia Forum, which is unapologetically pro-Western hegemony and parrots the Ukraine narrative. In addition to the usual anti-China fearmongering, it also promotes woke articles such as this one encouraging Chinese college women to rebel or defy their families' conservative norms and embrace the degenerate feminist lifestyle when going overseas.
China’s women students escape tradition at home | East Asia Forum
For many women, studying abroad offers an attractive respite from gendered pressures in China, writes Fran Martin (University of Melbourne).
www.eastasiaforum.org
But mind you, this isn't just limited to China. I've seen many similar liberal hit-pieces against South Korean and Japanese society as well, promoting feminism and LGBTQ ideology (no doubt taking advantage of the cultural influence of K-Pop and anime to indoctrinate adolescents and young people in the West) and doing AOC or Bernie-style "eat the rich" attacks against Asian big businesses, which coincidentally do not allow much multinational control or in competition with Western woke capital.
Serpentza, aka Winston Sterzel, and his partner, Laowhy86, aka Matthew Tye, who are both married to mainland Cantonese women, with whom they have children and have transplanted to the US because they were frightened out of China by harassment and surveillance, as well as Chris Chapel of China Uncensored, appear to me to have, after watching them over 10 years, a realistic view of the CCP and mainland China that is not typical of the standard American view of the world's manufacturer that has been shaped by Western MSM headlines and fake GDP, PISA, IQ, and all other numbers, reports, and products coming from the mainland for the past 30+ years.
Perhaps paradoxically, they do all have the same typical, American viewpoint on radical egalitarianism and other Enlightenment ideology that seems to be the soil in which their support for things like Ukraine, Uyghurs, and HK rioters grows. They're all also anti-Putin because "he's a brutal dictator" and "doesn't have a good record on human rights", like Chairman Xi.
I think it's enough to accept their accurate view of the CCP that goes against the fundamental Western narrative, which they have proven by consistency over time is deeper and more profound than Trump's relatively recent Chyna bashing or Biden's obvious warmongering, and give them credit for that and not then suspect them for failure to be 100% redpilled on all American foreign policy, even though their interpretations on Uyghurs and HK aligns perfectly with neocon agitprop.
IMO, they're sincere but imperfect youtubers, nothing more suspicious than that. I would compare them to the British traveloguer discussed in the Russian thread, who was a goodwill ambassador for Russia until he was freaked out by the war, called Putin crazy, and got deported.
Last edited: