The China Thread

[Tamas]

Those children jumping in "joy" and waving on queue seems so dystopian for me: https://twitter.com/nexta_tv/status/1790995759313142095?t=Xqa8Pv_IjXqiSxFf3MrDQw&s=19

[Josquius]

It does indeed with the whole vibe around it.
Though to be fair its perfectly imaginable a group of western school kids could have been trained to do some silly little performance for prominent visitors. In democratic-Asia even more so.

[Tamas]

It does indeed with the whole vibe around it.
Though to be fair its perfectly imaginable a group of western school kids could have been trained to do some silly little performance for prominent visitors. In democratic-Asia even more so.

Yeah but the fact that we don't do it is sort of the point. The current bastards in power in Hungary do the light version of this, regularly using kindergarten-age children as passive props but that's just evidence of where they are leaning culturally.

And this particular performance is especially horrible.

[Josquius]

Im sure I can remember circumstances where democracies did use performing kids like so.

Anyway. Didn't notice from clip but have read since it was a big snub for Putin with some random nobody being the one to meet him when convention would be Xi or at least his second in command.

[Sheilbh]

Im sure I can remember circumstances where democracies did use performing kids like so.

With mixed results:


Or Sunak's coke addict admission

[Jacob]

I don't think "kids waving flags" is inherently a totalitarian aesthetic. You'll see it with royal birthdays and visits and whatnot.

I think other things around it can make it more or less totalitarian feeling, of course - mostly staging and context.

[crazy canuck]

It does indeed with the whole vibe around it.
Though to be fair its perfectly imaginable a group of western school kids could have been trained to do some silly little performance for prominent visitors. In democratic-Asia even more so.

Yeah but the fact that we don't do it is sort of the point. The current bastards in power in Hungary do the light version of this, regularly using kindergarten-age children as passive props but that's just evidence of where they are leaning culturally.

And this particular performance is especially horrible.

"We" do it all the time.  Kids in our schools celebrate all sorts of things from diversity to significant monarch birthdays.

[Sheilbh]

I don't think "kids waving flags" is inherently a totalitarian aesthetic. You'll see it with royal birthdays and visits and whatnot.

I think other things around it can make it more or less totalitarian feeling, of course - mostly staging and context.

Yeah - and the reality is I think kids would get pretty excited (or easy to hype) about seeing the President or the King or whatever.

As you say though, it's the staging which looks a bit less like just kids getting excited.

[Tamas]

It does indeed with the whole vibe around it.
Though to be fair its perfectly imaginable a group of western school kids could have been trained to do some silly little performance for prominent visitors. In democratic-Asia even more so.

Yeah but the fact that we don't do it is sort of the point. The current bastards in power in Hungary do the light version of this, regularly using kindergarten-age children as passive props but that's just evidence of where they are leaning culturally.

And this particular performance is especially horrible.

"We" do it all the time.  Kids in our schools celebrate all sorts of things from diversity to significant monarch birthdays.

Have you watched the video? Are the Canadian kids made to jump up and down in sync and wave flowers for minutes?

[grumbler]

It does indeed with the whole vibe around it.
Though to be fair its perfectly imaginable a group of western school kids could have been trained to do some silly little performance for prominent visitors. In democratic-Asia even more so.

Yeah but the fact that we don't do it is sort of the point. The current bastards in power in Hungary do the light version of this, regularly using kindergarten-age children as passive props but that's just evidence of where they are leaning culturally.

And this particular performance is especially horrible.

"We" do it all the time.  Kids in our schools celebrate all sorts of things from diversity to significant monarch birthdays.

Have you watched the video? Are the Canadian kids made to jump up and down in sync and wave flowers for minutes?

And for someone whom they don't recognize or care about.

CC is just in a contrarian mood and so trying to make false equivalences.  Ignore him.

[crazy canuck]

It does indeed with the whole vibe around it.
Though to be fair its perfectly imaginable a group of western school kids could have been trained to do some silly little performance for prominent visitors. In democratic-Asia even more so.

Yeah but the fact that we don't do it is sort of the point. The current bastards in power in Hungary do the light version of this, regularly using kindergarten-age children as passive props but that's just evidence of where they are leaning culturally.

And this particular performance is especially horrible.

"We" do it all the time.  Kids in our schools celebrate all sorts of things from diversity to significant monarch birthdays.

Have you watched the video? Are the Canadian kids made to jump up and down in sync and wave flowers for minutes?

Google a video of one of the Queen's visits to pretty much any Commonwealth country and you will see lots of staged celebrations involving children.

[Jacob]

You may have heard about the president of Iran dying in a helicopter accident.

There's very famous Chinese pop-song from the 90s titled "Unfortunately it's not you." For unexplainable reasons that song is seeing a bit of a surge in social media references; sometimes connected to commentary on the tragic helicopter crash.

[The Minsky Moment]

And this particular performance is especially horrible.

It's got the Riefenstahl Tinge.

[Josquius]

An old article but something I didn't know before. China has secretly been building entire villages in Bhutan.

https://foreignpolicy.com/2021/05/07/china-bhutan-border-villages-security-forces/

[Sheilbh]

Interesting:



Going to be a challenge for the CCP to manage but you can see there a political logic for things like banning the tutoring/education market, the "common prosperity" stuff etc. Because I suspect this is potentially an even bigger challenge for somewhere like China. Also can't help but feel that if it persists they'll look for legitimacy elsewhere - like more confrontation in foreign policy/"re-unifying" China.