Undermining China, One Knockout at a Time

New York Times ^

[nickcarraway]

Tensions between the United States and China over cybersecurity have risen as the two countries continue to trade barbs over hacking. But according to an essay on the website of a state newspaper that was widely republished this week, there is, in fact, a longer-running cyberwar underway between the United States and China. And the weapons employed, the essay argues, are far more sophisticated than hacking.

Photo Lei Feng, the Chinese soldier revered as a model of selflessness. Lei Feng, the Chinese soldier revered as a model of selflessness.Credit Adam Dean for The New York Times “America has long used the Internet to poison Chinese civilization and manipulate public opinion to influence politics,” reads the essay posted on the website of Guangming Daily, a Communist Party-backed paper aimed at intellectuals. “Hackers are only the lowest level of this cyberwar.”

Pointing to “innumerable articles and writings” circulating online, the essay argues that the “highest level” of this cyberwar has been the insidious advance of American culture, which, it says, has had the effect of “eroding the moral foundation and self-confidence of the Chinese people.”

Titled “Nine Knockout Blows in America’s Cold War Against China,” the essay takes on topics including Superman and the American education system. At one point, it even compares the “indiscriminate smearing” of China in many “fabricated or exaggerated” American news reports to Hitler’s treatment of the Jews.

[nathanbedford]

Here we see a stunning reversal of roles by the statists in China as compared to the statists in America.

Recently, the left has been at pains to debunk Denise D'Souza's new film, America, the thesis of which defends America against leftist attacks which pursue the Frankfurt School's deconstructionist theories. In America, the left attacks America's history and institutions in an effort to discredit our constitutional system in the eyes of the electorate making the way free for people like Barack Obama to "transform" America into a socialist utopia.

Although the left currently holds the White House, the culture, the Constitution, and the popular will are conservatively aligned and are for the most part unwilling to depart from our Constitution, from some form of capitalism, and embark onto a socialist totalitarian experiment. So the left seeks to undermine that culture.

In China the reverse is true. The left has had control of China since 1948 and this author seeks to debunk those who, at least in his mind, present challenges to the culture which supports that system. The paranoia of the author is apparent, his logical overreach is ludicrous, but his motives are clear. He wants to protect the state. The disciples of the Frankfurt School of America, which means the Democrat party, want to undermine the state as it exists even as they seek to extend its tentacles. That is what is meant by "transformation."

Leftists in China and leftists in America have one clear joint understanding which, unfortunately, conservatives in America have not yet fully grasped:

Culture trumps politics.

[nickcarraway]

They have debunked that movie? I’m surprised they have even acknowledged it’s existence.

[PhilDragoo]

Of note in this supposed cyberwar between US and China is Unrestricted Warfare, by Qiao Liang and Wang Xiangsui (Beijing: PLA Literature and Arts Publishing House, February 1999)

A study of the most active of twenty identified Chinese state hackers: Exposing One of China’s Cyber Espionage Units

You are on solid ground when you say culture trumps politics.

In China the state re-educates its journalists and party officials, censors Google, beats Falun Gong women, western province Muslims, Tibetan monks while the people without jobs want jobs and the people with jobs want consumer goods.

In the US the troika of government-media-academia drone on about Western sin, the sin of ownership, the sin of faith, the sin of self-reliance, the sin of self-protection--a fit, a tantrum by a thwarted elite on the threshold of imperial power.

While the people retain their values and value their freedoms and power in Constitution, faith, arms, family.

Sunstein and Chomsky to the contrary notwithstanding, the dog food is not selling because the dogs don't like it.

[Olog-hai]

In bourgeois society, therefore, the past dominates the present; in Communist society, the present dominates the past. In bourgeois society capital is independent and has individuality, while the living person is dependent and has no individuality. …

— Communist Manifesto, Chapter 2

There is no reversal of roles; this is the nature of Marxism, which the NYT writers do not comprehend.

Conservatives are the champions of culture, even in the USA. Leftists always actively try to destroy culture in the name of preserving it. When one conflates power with politics, then one is a tyrant. Underestimating the CPC is a big no-no.

[nathanbedford]

Great post!

[nathanbedford]

"There is no reversal of roles....Conservatives are the champions of culture, even in the USA. Leftists always actively try to destroy culture in the name of preserving it"

That depends on your definition of culture. The Merriam Webster online dictionary (http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/culture) defines culture; its first three definitions are:

: the beliefs, customs, arts, etc., of a particular society, group, place, or time

: a particular society that has its own beliefs, ways of life, art, etc.

: a way of thinking, behaving, or working that exists in a place or organization (such as a business)

Webster then goes on to offer a "full definition" of culture:

a : enlightenment and excellence of taste acquired by intellectual and aesthetic training

b : acquaintance with and taste in fine arts, humanities, and broad aspects of science as distinguished from vocational and technical skills

It is here for the first time that we see the definition invested with a value judgment.

Yes, the left seeks to undermine that which is valuable in a society and in that sense it always undermines "culture" if culture is defined as containing a moral value.

I employed the term to describe our state of affairs as does Webster here:

b : the customary beliefs, social forms, and material traits of a racial, religious, or social group; also : the characteristic features of everyday existence (as diversions or a way of life) shared by people in a place or time

We have no argument, we see the left acting invidiously in the United States and in China. With my definition of "culture" I see a role reversal, with your definition, you do not.

[DJ MacWoW]

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[SunkenCiv]

> Titled “Nine Knockout Blows in America’s Cold War Against China,” the essay takes on topics including Superman and the American education system. At one point, it even compares the “indiscriminate smearing” of China in many “fabricated or exaggerated” American news reports to Hitler’s treatment of the Jews.

IOW, the Chinese dictatorship is spewing agitprop.

[trisham]

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