That Western societies are under pressure from Chinese propaganda is no news at all. What is less frequently appreciated is that our susceptibility to it stems from a long tradition of exoticizing the Chinese themselves\u2014out of a tradition of Orientalism that, paradoxically, has today melded with homegrown authoritarian tendencies among Western populists, to create a fertile ground for Beijing\u2019s efforts at influence games.<\/span><\/p>\n Orientalism 2.0 is characterized by a barely-concealed, fearful admiration of the recent achievements of the East. Indeed, China today has replaced Japan of the 1970s as the country which \u201cdoes things differently\u201d and is about to overcome the old democracies.<\/span><\/p>\n When China\u2019s Premier Zhou Enlai was asked by Henry Kissinger in 1971 what he thought the impact of the French Revolution had been, he replied cryptically, \u201cToo early to say.\u201d This hoary story encapsulates the whole dynamic: the father of Western <\/span>Realpolitik<\/span><\/i> meets the enigmatic Eastern sage; Western quarrelsome short-termism is contrasted with Chinese strategic patience; \u201cour\u201d superficiality clashes with \u201ctheir\u201d sense of history.<\/span><\/p>\n Read the full analysis by Sorin Ioni\u021b\u0103 on Cepa.org<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" A new form of Orientalism makes the West susceptible to propaganda narratives from China that ultimately aren\u2019t even primarily intended for them. That Western societies are under pressure from Chinese propaganda is no news at all. What is less frequently appreciated is that our susceptibility to it stems from a long tradition of exoticizing the ···<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":23,"featured_media":5952,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[329,11],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5951","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-china-watch","category-stiri"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/expertforum.ro\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5951","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/expertforum.ro\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/expertforum.ro\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/expertforum.ro\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/23"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/expertforum.ro\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5951"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/expertforum.ro\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5951\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/expertforum.ro\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5952"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/expertforum.ro\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5951"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/expertforum.ro\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5951"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/expertforum.ro\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5951"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}