As China increases its reach in diaspora communities, Chinese Canadian politicians in Vancouver are the focus of Chinese state interference in Canadian politics.
Archive link: https://archive.ph/DWbZL
China needs to stfu, all they do is complain instead of staying in their own corner. They’re the biggest hypocrite on the planet.
Cultural diplomacy should be positive, so that it doesn’t cast a pall on everything else that the originating culture does.
Cultural diplomacy is typically not a bad thing. Here’s a nice example: Thailand sponsors Thai restaurants abroad, with pretty golden elephant decor and pictures of the King. As a result, everyone thinks Thai food is great and feels positively towards Thailand. So, it is possible for a government to “propagandize” foreign civilians in a positive way, one that doesn’t harm relations between the cultures.
Chinese cultural diplomacy has turned negative: employing violent control of Chinese-language media to attack individuals overseas. This makes Chinese media a local problem for other countries, a source of disharmony, thus promoting the view that (e.g.) Chinese internet services like WeChat and TikTok are vectors of malicious attack, rather than cultural connection.
And so, a lot of people in the Internet security business now expect that anything from China is an attack vector. And regional & national governments are starting to agree — e.g. banning TikTok from government-owned computers. Relations between the cultures are harmed because of the visibly violent control of China government over Chinese cultural media, and the harm done to other countries through these media.
Well said. There’s a lot of nuance and I think this is a good summary.
As China, Russia, Iran, and various other strict authoritarian governments challenge the status quo of increasing democracy and peace, it’s important to look at the alternative they’re promoting.
