I'm sure that China will suffer greatly from any trade war, and I'm positive the US will blink first. Chinese consumer and workers are already significantly less likely to revolt, stop working, drag their country down. The second that dollar store becomes $10store in the US, it'll be pandemonium, and they only have a single person to blame for their troubles. China? They may be doing anti-competitive trade practices and haven't been put to task, but if you ask the Chinese citizen who to blame on the trade war, it'll be trump. If you ask a US citizen who to blame for this trade war, it'll be trump.
I actually have made it a personal rule to never sign up for TikTok. Instagram usually gets the stolen reposted content of whatever trends on TikTok a week ago. Browsing Instagram on the phone you are just swiping and taking in whatever the algorithm feeds you and unless you save it, that content might be gone forever. Who knows how much slop has just "drive by" messed up my brain.
Nevertheless I saved a couple pieces I found interesting or amusing:
I made a new TikTok account out of curiosity after Trump "saved" the platform. No exaggeration, half of the "For You" content was from "Team Trump" or Charlie Kirk. They are actively pushing propaganda, but I've seen no signs that it's Chinese propaganda, unless you assume that Bytedance is bowing to Trump, and that Bytedance is controlled by the Chinese Government, which just raises more questions.
Youtube Premium is the only "streaming service" I actually pay money for, and I use it quite a bit. Rarely ever does something off the wall get pushed to me. I do consume politics on YT, and occasionally something right wing shows up, but it's rare. I have no doubt that this stuff would be prioritized on a new account though.
The TikTok bill appeared to have died on the vine until it started to get a lot of Pro-Palestine content then all of a sudden it reappeared and the ban got put into law. I think Trump stopping the ban was actually the first major loss for pro Israel interests(certainly not the last we have seen so far).
I would say its not that extreme on the platform(I still see the week old TikTok posts sometimes reposted on other platforms) but regardless, the damage has been done. As they continue to lose this information war, their tactics become more and more unhinged. See the recent bill banning boycotting Israel products with a punishment of a million dollars fine. It was met with such backlash that politicians quickly withdrew it. Even MAGA jumped on board to block that.
Like it or not this is a competition between two nations. If they are going to push content that sways the populace by exploiting weaknesses why not the other way around?
You are acting like this started as soon as Trump opened his mouth, its been in the shadows for years but it really ramped up after he started this nonsense.
It's a competition between nations, but why support the political party that straight up says they hate you just because China also hates them?
Like, if I hate the idea of eating kittens, and someone I hate also says they hate the idea of eating kittens, I'm not going to say "oh hell no, I can't let them shittalk OUR kitten eaters!"
I'm just going to be like "yeah, they have a point on this one", accept that a broken clock is right twice a day, and move on. Nationalist/jingoist garbage just for the sake of it makes countries worse.
There are many ways you can look at this situation. In my view, I don't think its a matter of hate. You gotta separate the actions of the clown on top with the actions of the government. The government is tasked with protecting the people and ensuring their best future. To them, it does not matter if its competing against China or any other country. Its not personal, its business.
To that end, the US's rivals have long used its weaknesses against it. While there are unconfirmed reports that China and Russia helped to prop up BLM in 2020, we do know for a fact that the USSR fanned the flame of racial tensions during the cold war. The best way to fight this? Get as close as you can to a fix for the problem. In that regard the USSR's attacks could have been used against them as a motivation to improve things and the US has improved.
Likewise its questionable if pushing the lie flat movement would harm regular Chinese people. From the government's POV, it looks bad: Chinese people being worked to death, can't afford a one bedroom apartment and one couple has to take care of possibly four elderly people. Of course some will just decide to 'opt out'. Makes China look bad while also possibly helping regular Chinese people in the long run.
