To Many Chinese, America Was Like ‘Heaven.’ Now They’re Not So Sure
Personally, I want to keep myself neutral as a Chinese. But I think I can provide some interesting perspective from China, according to the order of timeline. I&#x27;m by no mean historian so errors and non-seriousness are expected, you can think of this as an OverSimplified[0] cartoon on Youtube:<p>0. China was a 3rd world communist country after WW2.<p>1. The Korean war broke out, USSR ordered China to strike back to maintain the iron curtain. China also worried about the border so it joined the war. The result of the war is basically a draw, but the border and iron curtain was &#x27;saved&#x27;.<p>2. After the Korean war, China&#x27;s self-confident increased, and sort of complaining USSR&#x27;s control. Then these two countries start to hate each other.<p>3. Vietnam war, China also joined because of the alliance relationship. This time the North won.<p>4. Meanwhile, Nixon visited China. Since China was one of the promising countries could weaken the iron curtain.<p>5. &#x27;Reform and Opening&#x27; started in China.<p>6. After the Vietnam war, Vietnam became very powerful. There was quite a risk Vietnam could unify the Indochina. China was in the middle of the USSR and Vietnam. This became embarrassing after China and USSR hated each other, and the USSR was keeping investing in Vietnam. Then there was another war broke out between China and Vietnam. Both of the countries claimed they were self-defending. There was also no winner, but Vietnam seems less dangerous in China&#x27;s perspective.<p>7. Japan grows really fast in the 80s. China was just started to grow after the opening policy and found the importance of the economy growing.<p>8. After that, the US feels threatened, there were some economic sanctions going on. There was an essay &#x27;The Japan That Can Say No&#x27; from Sony co-founder. But eventually, it seems Japan said yes for most of the time.<p>9. The Gulf War. The US almost beat Iraq in no time, and Iraq was actually pretty powerful at that time. According to the rumor, this made the Chinese military pretty shocked. After the Korean and Vietnam war, China was kind of self-overrated and reduced a lot of military margin in order to grow the economy.<p>10. According to 8 and 9, the US shaped a very powerful image to China, and China also realized it&#x27;s not wise to like Japan which always be the &#x27;yes man&#x27; or omitting the military advancement.<p>So the competing mindset was already formed pretty early. But there was also &quot;闷声发大财&quot; according to the president Jiang at that time, which basically means don&#x27;t let other people notice you while you are growing fast.<p>Another interesting thing is about cultural defense. Korean TV series and K-pop was very popular in China, but the first Korean TV series was introduced by official TV Channel. There was some theory believe the US and Japan culture are very influential and hard to replace, so China tried to guide people to consume Korean (and also Thailand, etc, since Asian culture are easy to introduce) culture instead of from the US and Japan. And then in recent years, Korean TW series and K-pop is largely replaced by Chinese own products, which seems pretty similar.<p>[0] <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.youtube.com&#x2F;user&#x2F;Webzwithaz" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.youtube.com&#x2F;user&#x2F;Webzwithaz</a>