tamen de gushi by tan jiu is really cute… (err its manhua not manga but, anyway)

my bad I got tesla mixed up with orwell it’s the hair OTL

white jesus, lincoln, roosevelts, fuckin george orwell… i dont think he got that spirit tbh

hold up. the only thing that holds here imo is ‘great man theory’

edit: got tesla’s hair mixed up with orwell sorry king

hmm, how to say this… XHS platform more attracts “instagram” type crowd and trends liberal, and until recently the community generally avoids political discussion. The more politically attuned Chinese netizens stick to bilibili and weibo, although there’s plenty of discourse and “fighting” there too, like, obviously a body of that many people will have a wide diversity of political opinions as well as acumen. Just wanted to point out biases inherent to certain platforms.

Anyway one of my favorite memes from the initial western invasion of xhs event:

that said of course there are some more politically attuned chinese netizens on XHS, my favorite being this guy

The short and medium term means of securing ideological security against the West might be better addressed by a careful toleration of nationalism.

good thing, I got an article for you (sorry don’t have an official translation afaik)(at a glance, deepL does a decent enough job at machine translating it)

Patriotism does not equate to narrow nationalism 爱国主义不等于狭隘民族主义 by 张 健 2016年08月18日10:16

additionally, both patriotism and nationalism in china are colored (in modern history) in anti-imperialism. I think that all kinds of nationalism that grows out of anti-imperialism must manage walking a tightrope on various forms of xenophobia that may also grow out of it; China is no exception. Article details more history specific to China.

segment & translation

对中国共产党人来说，则必须将爱国主义和国际主义结合起来，因为只有为保卫祖国而战才能打败侵略者，使民族得到解放，而只有民族得到解放，才有使无产阶级和劳动人民得到解放的可能

For the Chinese Communists, on the other hand, patriotism and internationalism must be combined, for only by fighting in defense of the motherland can the invaders be defeated and the nation liberated, and only when the nation is liberated will it be possible to liberate the proletariat and the working people.

Dongfeng missile program 🫡

Don’t know if we’ll be seeing chinese scientists in US under house arrest or worse again (hopefully not) but, for those unfamiliar: 钱学森 Qian Xuesen co-founded NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (1940s), later got the attention of McCarthy-ites and his family was subject to basically house arrest and surveillance for 5 years (deferred deportation), went back to China and led a bunch of programs and never looked back, became known as the “Father of Chinese Rocketry”.

the US attracted brain drain candidates for decades now, but would soon rather let anticommunism and racism get the better of them again and repeat the same “mistakes” and shoot themselves in the foot… honestly better for the Chinese people who can and did return as sinophobia ramps up (and probably will continue apace again in Trump’s 2nd term, not that the western media didn’t try to elevate sinophobia during Biden’s term between Pelosi’s flight to Taiwan, weather balloon, accusing zoo of fielding a man in a suit as a sunbear, etc). Space Race then, chips/AI now (article mentions Mr Sun returned during Trump’s first term, motivated by the racist ‘China Initiative’)

i was Not prepared to see where that redirected to. fuck

fuller nuance (love to see libs beat the shit out of that word) perspective from someone who is black and of black culture who i think has better angles on all points than I could - tumblr post. excerpts:

The Super Bowl will always be a bread and circus event that lines the pockets of white shareholders. The fact that they allowed Black people to perform is simply to give the appearance of empowerment and progress, thus assuaging our appetite for real revolution by letting spectators woop and cheer and have the feeling that something happened.

context: US flag and americana imagery:

At the end of the above, all African Americans should be wary of narratives that corral them securely within the frame of the United States. This is an intentional set of blinders that keeps you seeing yourself as belonging to this outsized plantation. We made connection to this land, but we were brought here in chains.

in essence I agree it’s resistance liberal politics

so, with the whole drake thing, it’s larger and not specific to drake himself but what he “symbolizes” which is why the line "you’re not a colleague you’re a colonizer“ comes into play regarding black culture/outsiders who would discard the people of the culture he used and wrung out like a wet rag once he’s ready to move onto the next thing/larger more mainstream stage

/ I think the whole superbowl thing makes it feel more assimilationist and unchallenging rather than liberatory or empowering. im not sure if kendrick was fully ironic or what when incorporating “the revolution will not be televised” while he’s being played on America’s most watched televised event.

maybe im too harsh. maybe im importing too much frustration from assimilationist tendencies from my own background (chinese americans/canadians) into this situation (wherein a certain YA novel author is my own “drake”). idk

ah, facebook. say no more. (Also FLG is overtly and explicitly labeled a cult 邪教 in PRC)

hm i think this belongs in /shitultrassay

yeah I briefly glanced thru a bit and was like… I have limited time on this planet and I don’t need to try to accurately suss out whatever that is lol.

the upvotes to comment ratio on this one is lol

lol yeah didn’t say anything about the particulars of said comments. at a glance, saw a few Wrong (but better than average westerners’… maybe) takes on demography/demographics. I was just astounded on the regular interaction and again, sheer volume, on a site with a format and aesthetics that I would place as pre-livejournal/forums

actual article aside, I’ve never heard of this site before and i’m astounded in the sheer volume of regular comments on each post. interesting.

2 things: 1. coming “to the defense” would be crossing a line on that country’s own sovereignty, or its own development/buildup of sovereignty. (China’s not interested in the soviet model, and I think this has merit because we saw how areas propped up by soviets fell as the ussr waned and then collapsed.) building infrastructure doesnt mean unilateral alliance, it’s a business transaction, albeit one that meaningfully materially strengthens the beneficiary country’s ability towards economic development and sovereignty.

2/ someone come correct me if I’ve got my understanding of how bonds work/macroeconomics/monetary policy/forex backwards but China owns a lot of US debt, and is actively shedding it. Used to be #1 foreign holder of US treasuries, now it’s #2 (#1 currently Japan). In the past China bought US bonds using its trade surplus in dollars, which would basically recycle $ to continue to develop its own manufacturing and towards growing its own middle class+its own domestic market. Now that China’s developed a pretty robust domestic market (eg doesnt need to rely on US to consume those produced goods and fuel economy), China doesn’t need to put dollars back into that machine, but it still has a trade surplus in dollars. So financing other projects like those on BRI or among BRICS with those dollars is a solution to that problem (holding onto that surplus isn’t economically sound…), and bonus points for building material foundations for dedollarization.

someone else’s analysis that’s similar to my second point, and probably has a better understanding of that economics stuff: How China recycles its huge trade surplus with EU, US into BRICS infrastructure projects, risk-free

i forgor my daoisms

wait did you mean 唯物 weiwu (materialism) or 无畏 wuwei (fearless) or 无谓 wuwei (pointless)

Koreans were using hanzi-derived script hanja* before development and widespread use of hangul, which is a syllabic system and part of the motivation behind its development/use is to improve literacy rates.

*(related to scholarly use of literary chinese)(like japanese kanji which is also derived from Chinese hanzi, there were modifications for the Korean language so it is not exactly the same but much of the character base is either the same or at least mostly/highly legible to a chinese speaker who can read hanzi)