from Revolver News:
Americans have grown used to all kinds of arguments being called “Russian propaganda.” Specific politicians and talking heads are labeled as Vladimir Putin’s apologists or collaborators. Disagree with the current party line of the State Department, and you’re apt to be accused of spreading “Kremlin talking points.”
But consider America’s other great global rival. Most Americans realize China is the most formidable challenger to America. It’s routine for politicians to blame China for American industrial decline, or for the opioid epidemic. Patriotic Americans regularly–and credibly–accuse Hunter Biden and others of selling out American interests for Chinese cash.
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Yet despite that, one almost never hears accusations that someone is repeating Chinese propaganda. In fact, one never really hears about Chinese propaganda at all, or even knows what it would look like.
Why is that? It’s because Chinese propaganda directed toward America is really, really bad. Yet even the feebleness of Chinese anti-American propaganda may, counterintuitively, also be a sign of strength.
In late 2021, we reviewed the book America Against America. The book was the work of Chinese academic Wang Huning, who has since become a part of China’s seven-member Politburo Standing Committee, the highest organ of power in the Chinese state.
America Against America, though imperfect, was a deeply revealing look at how a future Chinese elite reacted to an America that was still at the height of its power, though also on the brink of a precipitous decline.
Not all Chinese takes on America are so astute, though.
On March 20, the Chinese foreign ministry put out a long document titled “The State of Democracy in the United States: 2022.” The purpose, unsurprisingly, is to make the case that the state of American democracy is not good. Well, that ought to be pretty easy; we make that case all the time. And the document does stumble onto some valid criticisms. It points to the Mar-a-Lago raid as proof that the “U.S. state apparatus [is] reduced to a tool for political parties’ self-interest.” It notes polling that shows the U.S. public is increasingly pessimistic about the country’s system of government.
But the upsides are brief. Taken as a whole, China’s report is genuinely baffling in its failure to recognize basic features of the American system. For instance, at one point China singles out the prolonged election of Kevin McCarthy as House speaker for criticism.
In 2022, the US Congress was brought into another paralysis, not by riots, but by partisan fights. The farce of failing to elect the 118th House speaker lasted four days and a decision was only reached after 15 rounds of voting. In the last round, divisions were such that Republicans and Democrats voted strictly along party lines.
There are countless ways to criticize the U.S. Congress for increasingly bitter partisanship, but the choice of Speaker of the House is hardly one of them. The choice of Speaker is supposed to be partisan, and in fact the reason the election was such an ordeal is because the GOP did not monolithically rally behind its top vote-getter.
Similar strange flubs abound. The report claims that “radical white evangelical fundamentalists” hold the reins at the Supreme Court, though there are actually zero evangelicals on the Court; China is simply repeating a Reddit-tier complaint about the GOP political coalition. China mentions the publication of the Twitter Files by Elon Musk and Matt Taibbi, yet amusingly it doesn’t seem to quite get what the Files are actually about. China complains that AUKUS, a trilateral security arrangement between America, Britain, and Australia, is a “racist clique” (and that’s the only time race is brought up, other than a brief note that Republican voters are whiter than Democrats).
