| What about the martial arts and cuisine?
Best regards Prashant Kothari
Sent from my cell phone so please excuse typos and seemingly terse messages
On Dec 22, 2023, at 12:22 AM, Alok Prasanna Kumar via Silklist <silklist@lists.digeratus.in> wrote:
As Amitav Ghosh's recent "Smoke and Ashes" made me aware - China has been the source of high quality goods for various parts of the world for centuries before the Industrial Revolution and Opium Wars got in the way. In some ways I suppose China is only reclaiming its "core competence".
On the point of soft power - I would say Cixin Liu's Three Body Problem is China's recent soft power win. If we're only thinking about cinema, Hong Kong cinema was making waves world wide for decades as Chinese soft power (if not necessarily controlled by the Communist Party).
China can and will produce goods to whatever quality is asked for. They also have no scruples in producing shoddy goods to meet cheap price points that then get sold in markets without sufficient regulation to prevent such from being sold, if
that’s what their customers ask for.
I found this particularly interesting not just because I’ve grumbled for most of my life about the lack of finish in Indian goods but also from the (very small amount) I’ve read about China’s ‘soft’ conquest of Africa.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9jadXwMQF88
Interesting, indeed. It is interesting that India has managed to take most of the market for motorcycles in Africa. At least 20 years ago when I lived in East Africa, China dominated the bicycle space. I think China will likely dominate the EV space in
Africa.
India was overwhelmingly winning the pharma space. I wonder if the recent episodes of tainted cough syrup and such will have an effect. Israel and Brazil ought to give India a running for money in this space.
It is also interesting to compare the current complaints about shoddy Chinese goods to what was said about Japanese, Korean and German goods back when these countries were just starting to make their mark. All three have gotten past this and are recognized
today for the quality of the goods they produce.
Soft power, and how it is projected, is a topic of fascination for me. While in historical times China and India were able to flex their soft power and cultural dominance to parts of Asia and Africa (and later to Communist-block countries), these days
India does a much better job of flexing its soft power than China. What was the last Chinese equivalent of RRR or Gagnam Style, I ask you?
Thaths
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