Misguided good intentions

[Agema]

English has become dominant primarily also because of soft power like a highly commercial popular culture(espescially songs and movies) that is exported wordwide. I don't see China ever exporting something to a similar extent.

Of course it will. Population and money will tell: talent will appear, be funded, and produce. There may of course be some limitations - realistically much Western output didn't significantly touch most of the world either, and there will always be likely to be barriers (language will be a major one). But inevitably China will end up with a cultural output that reflects its general power. Gradually, that cultural output will have its hits, its presence will increase, and become more normalised.

Power alone is not enough you need something that resonates among people and American popular culture is still unmatched in that regard. The world is also largely homogenized in terms of international business and economics. You need a language that everyone involved is atleast somewhat literate in not a language that is only useful for native speakers. Even in China's sphere of influence english will remain dominant for the simple fact that communication is otherwise impossible.

Wrong. Lingua francas no more survive forever than empires do.

Curious fact: in 1815, when Wellington met Blucher during the 100 days campaign, the language they spoke to each other was French, because Blucher did not understand English and Wellington did not understand German, but pretty much every one of the upper classes from Moscow to Lisbon spoke French. Europe - the UK included - already had a lingua franca in the early modern era and it was French. And yet it eventually became English. Latin died as lingua franca in Western Europe. Arabic supplanted Greek across the Eastern Med.

As countries increasingly do business with China, it will become expedient for them to learn Chinese. As countries take in newly affluent Chinese tourists, they'll start to learn Chinese, and as they visit China for tourism in return. Businesspeople will learn Chinese to impress, bond with, better understand the goings on of the major economic power. Chinese cultural output will gradually inspire more and more people to learn Chinese to enjoy it. These factors will lead countries to institute Chinese as an official language for schoolchildren to learn, because of its utility. In the Far East, the benefit of learning Chinese will grow and become a lingua franca alongside English, and eventually a tipping point will be reached where the benefits surpass that of learning English, and when it does English will be mostly swept away. It may take 100 years even more, but unless China has some sort of major setback, it will happen. Then the same "contest" will begin to occur at a global level as it had at a regional level in the Far East.

 

[Hawki]

Lmao absolutely not. The Paris/Berlin axis is one of the primary reasons for the aversion against the E.U. France is a grandiloquent relic of faded glory and Gernany is a self-sabotaging guilt complex that both try to push european 'integration' through other countries throat to compensate for their own diminishing relevance.

I'm not actually sure about that.

France still wields a fairly large amount of influence. It's got a heavy presence in its former African colonies. I think it's got the largest army in Europe. It's got a permanant seat on the UN Security Council. It arguably also wields a fair amount of soft power. I mean, yes, the French Empire isn't a thing anymore (least not in its original form, some would disaree), but France is pretty powerful. Also worth noting that French is spoken as a primary language in plenty of places outside France (a holdover of its empire), but not so much German outside Germany (or least outside Europe; far as I'm aware at least).

Then there's Germany. So, I've seen the argument before that Germany has a guilt complex, and it's self-sabotaged its own economy to join the EU, but even then, Germany is the 5th largest economy in the world, and it's pretty much the glue that holds the EU together. I forget who said it (and how), but the weird thing about Germany is that despite losing two world wars in a quest for dominance, it ended up dominating the continent anyway.

What's even weirder is that on the moral level, the roles have arguably shifted. It's Germany that styles itself as a humanitarian superpower, while France is a bit more ambiguous these days, considering its presene in Africa, and holding onto New Caledonia. Go back nearly a century though, and, well...y'know...

English is the dominant language in business and global politics that shape the world much more than domestic fault lines. I'd say the E.U. is a necessary evil to compete with countries like China on equal terms and to provide a bulwark against the subversive policies of say Russia who profit greatly from a divided Europe. In economic and strategic considerations ofcourse english is the dominant language but also in terms of cultural affinity the english speaking world will remain to be the center of focus.

Is the EU really competing with China though? I mean, EU countries still field their own militiaries. THere's no single EU Army for instance, and Europe's outsourced a lot of its defence to the United States.

Economically and culturally, well, maybe. That said, maybe the former, not so much the latter. There's multiple reasons for that, but if China's a rising tiger, eager to export its values to the world, Europe's more the withered lion - used to export its values, regrets exporting its values, and now doubts the worth of those values at all. I certainly agree that Germany has a guilt complex, but it's arguably applied to the continent itself. Whether that's good or bad will depend on one's opinion I suppose.

 

[Kwak]

The "Backfire Effect" generated a lot of publicity when it first emerged, but later studies have called it into question, or at least suggested it is much rarer than initially suggested. Later studies suggest that much more, people just don't change their views much either way.

I refuse to believe that.

 

[stroopwafel]

Of course it will. Population and money will tell: talent will appear, be funded, and produce. There may of course be some limitations - realistically much Western output didn't significantly touch most of the world either, and there will always be likely to be barriers (language will be a major one). But inevitably China will end up with a cultural output that reflects its general power. Gradually, that cultural output will have its hits, its presence will increase, and become more normalised.
Wrong. Lingua francas no more survive forever than empires do.

Curious fact: in 1815, when Wellington met Blucher during the 100 days campaign, the language they spoke to each other was French, because Blucher did not understand English and Wellington did not understand German, but pretty much every one of the upper classes from Moscow to Lisbon spoke French. Europe - the UK included - already had a lingua franca in the early modern era and it was French. And yet it eventually became English. Latin died as lingua franca in Western Europe. Arabic supplanted Greek across the Eastern Med.

As countries increasingly do business with China, it will become expedient for them to learn Chinese. As countries take in newly affluent Chinese tourists, they'll start to learn Chinese, and as they visit China for tourism in return. Businesspeople will learn Chinese to impress, bond with, better understand the goings on of the major economic power. Chinese cultural output will gradually inspire more and more people to learn Chinese to enjoy it. These factors will lead countries to institute Chinese as an official language for schoolchildren to learn, because of its utility. In the Far East, the benefit of learning Chinese will grow and become a lingua franca alongside English, and eventually a tipping point will be reached where the benefits surpass that of learning English, and when it does English will be mostly swept away. It may take 100 years even more, but unless China has some sort of major setback, it will happen. Then the same "contest" will begin to occur at a global level as it had at a regional level in the Far East.

I don't see a closed system producing the kind of pop culture that will be embraced worldwide. The U.S. is truly unique in that regard. it's different from say the Russian crap that was forced down people's throats in their former satellites during the cold war era. And this was at what was probably the height of the age of ideologies. The world of today couldn't be more different with it's integrated economic systems. Globalization created wealth that is unmatched in any time in history. It has become crucial to sustain economic growth to keep living standards intact and without the long supply lines and lasting stability between the great powers any disruption will only hurt the interests of everyone involved. Not to mention entire populations who are dependent on these supply lines not just for consumer goods but also energy and industrial and pharmaceutical manufacture. China understands this context much better than spoiled Americans and Europeans do and Xi's collected composure during Trump's tantrums is ample evidence of this. They want markets for their products to sustain their economic growth and they couldn't care less about exporting their culture.

What you describe is a complete global re-orientation that follows the exact same trajectory as the previous one. That China's influence will extent to their neighbouring countries is definitely not going to result in the far east adopting chinese as a lingua franca considering South Korea's historic grievances and the countries own stature as an economic power house. Not to mention Japan who is going the opposite direction with it's historic revisionism. Just like it's business relations and economic cooperation chinese influence will remain limited to immediate security issues like north korea's nuclear weapons program. There is no conflict of ideologies here that will sway people one way or the other. At most there will be a conflict of interest but this will not convert entire populations into chinese speakers.

The only real threat for the global hierarchy is climate change and fastly depleting resources. Global cooperation can only be sustained due to it being mutually beneficial but when resources become limited or when land is no longer habitable then the incentive to stabilize this form of cooperation that led to 75 years of lasting peace is also put under pressure. The moment superpowers start to aggressively claim diminishing resources is most likely the moment the stability in the global hierarchy ends as well. The only alternative for globalization is perpetual chaos. I don't see any kind of historic re-orientation occuring on a smouldering earth.

 

[stroopwafel]

I'm not actually sure about that.

France still wields a fairly large amount of influence. It's got a heavy presence in its former African colonies. I think it's got the largest army in Europe. It's got a permanant seat on the UN Security Council. It arguably also wields a fair amount of soft power. I mean, yes, the French Empire isn't a thing anymore (least not in its original form, some would disaree), but France is pretty powerful. Also worth noting that French is spoken as a primary language in plenty of places outside France (a holdover of its empire), but not so much German outside Germany (or least outside Europe; far as I'm aware at least).

Then there's Germany. So, I've seen the argument before that Germany has a guilt complex, and it's self-sabotaged its own economy to join the EU, but even then, Germany is the 5th largest economy in the world, and it's pretty much the glue that holds the EU together. I forget who said it (and how), but the weird thing about Germany is that despite losing two world wars in a quest for dominance, it ended up dominating the continent anyway.

What's even weirder is that on the moral level, the roles have arguably shifted. It's Germany that styles itself as a humanitarian superpower, while France is a bit more ambiguous these days, considering its presene in Africa, and holding onto New Caledonia. Go back nearly a century though, and, well...y'know...



Is the EU really competing with China though? I mean, EU countries still field their own militiaries. THere's no single EU Army for instance, and Europe's outsourced a lot of its defence to the United States.

Economically and culturally, well, maybe. That said, maybe the former, not so much the latter. There's multiple reasons for that, but if China's a rising tiger, eager to export its values to the world, Europe's more the withered lion - used to export its values, regrets exporting its values, and now doubts the worth of those values at all. I certainly agree that Germany has a guilt complex, but it's arguably applied to the continent itself. Whether that's good or bad will depend on one's opinion I suppose.

The EU relying so much on America's military is definitely one of it's weakest traits. It dates back to the cold war when the U.S. had an active security interest in Europe but now we live in an age where the U.S. is actively questioning the need of their disproportionate contribution to nato. The European countries can no longer unconditionally depend on the U.S. for their defense so this can make them vulnerable indeed. The perception of weakness alone is enough for a country like Russia to violate air space to probe nato response times or remove a country like ukraine from it's sphere of influence. The EU is really kind of toothless in the face of aggression.

The historic guilt complex hurt the continent tremendously in this regard. From the inside by allowing masses of immigrants to enter and from the outside by not being able to defend it's ideals and interests with military action. This is enough for subversive actors to further try and pick the continent apart.

 

[Agema]

Then there's Germany. So, I've seen the argument before that Germany has a guilt complex, and it's self-sabotaged its own economy to join the EU, but even then, Germany is the 5th largest economy in the world, and it's pretty much the glue that holds the EU together. I forget who said it (and how), but the weird thing about Germany is that despite losing two world wars in a quest for dominance, it ended up dominating the continent anyway.

The strongest country, so long as it has any will to do so, will almost inevitably dominate unless enough others unite against it. Germany was understandably in the political doghouse after WW2, and with a shattered economy. But it's economy and reputation were only going to recover, and with reunification, it's population advantage would guarantee it become assuming some pre-eminence, which its economic stability has only reinforced.

The basic reality of the EU is that it's a lot of small and medium size countries. Whilst the EU still has so many powers invested in national governments with national interests, power decentralised and diffused, its ambitions are necessarily limited. The USA or China act as a whole, because they have a clear unitary exercise of power irrespective of internal differences. There should be little expectation of the EU advancing its "values" in the way the USA and China do for this reason. If the EU wants to become a similar power it needs to unify and centralise more - economically, culturally, diplomatically, militarily. It is plain that a great deal of Europeans do not want greater unification and centralisation.

 

[stroopwafel]

The strongest country, so long as it has any will to do so, will almost inevitably dominate unless enough others unite against it. Germany was understandably in the political doghouse after WW2, and with a shattered economy. But it's economy and reputation were only going to recover, and with reunification, it's population advantage would guarantee it become assuming some pre-eminence, which its economic stability has only reinforced.

The basic reality of the EU is that it's a lot of small and medium size countries. Whilst the EU still has so many powers invested in national governments with national interests, power decentralised and diffused, its ambitions are necessarily limited. The USA or China act as a whole, because they have a clear unitary exercise of power irrespective of internal differences. There should be little expectation of the EU advancing its "values" in the way the USA and China do for this reason. If the EU wants to become a similar power it needs to unify and centralise more - economically, culturally, diplomatically, militarily. It is plain that a great deal of Europeans do not want greater unification and centralisation.

I disagree you need far reaching political unification to sustain strong multilateral organizations. America was never part of Europe yet it was nato's driving force. You can simply be allied against a common enemy or threat without giving up your sovereignty.

 

[Agema]

They want markets for their products to sustain their economic growth and they couldn't care less about exporting their culture.

Of course they care about exporting their culture. One might note, for instance, China's vigorous investment in Hollywood and other media industries. It attempting to control the representation of China-related topics in Europe and the USA (such as that museum in France where they refused to hand over artefacts unless they also controlled the narrative), its creation of Chinese media outlets across the world (It recently banned BBC Worldwide in China, in retaliation for Chinese channels being fined for breaking US broadcasting laws.)

Even without a totally free society and government, it will create cultural products that catch on in other countries. It's an inevitability.

What you describe is a complete global re-orientation that follows the exact same trajectory as the previous one. That China's influence will extent to their neighbouring countries is definitely not going to result in the far east adopting chinese as a lingua franca considering South Korea's historic grievances and the countries own stature as an economic power house. Not to mention Japan who is going the opposite direction with it's historic revisionism. Just like it's business relations and economic cooperation chinese influence will remain limited to immediate security issues like north korea's nuclear weapons program. There is no conflict of ideologies here that will sway people one way or the other. At most there will be a conflict of interest but this will not convert entire populations into chinese speakers.

Yes, some countries might specifically attempt to block Chinese culture, and may slow the spread. If there's a new "cold war", they will be more successful. But big, rich countries spread their influence, bit by bit. If an international hotel has 10,000 Chinese speaking visitors a year and 2,000 English speaking, they will want staff who speak Chinese more than they will want staff who speak English, end of. That sort of simple, basic utility played out across dozens of countries, thousands of miles, tens of thousands of businesses and millions of people will drive Chinese to pre-eminence over English. Never mind that a lot of the far east's mercantile traditions have been Chinese-dominated for centuries anyway (e.g. Singapore).

I disagree you need far reaching political unification to sustain strong multilateral organizations. America was never part of Europe yet it was nato's driving force. You can simply be allied against a common enemy or threat without giving up your sovereignty.

A multilateral organisation is de facto a loss of sovereignty, even if some technical de jure sovereignty is preserved in the background. If the EU agrees to a unified military command, it necessarily means that EU countries must surrender some of their resources to the EU, and accept the EU should use their military even if the country may prefer otherwise, otherwise it would be dysfunctional. One might point out, for instance, the USA also liked to just get things done itself with only ad hoc support from willing NATO members, rather than as an official NATO action, because it was expedient.

Take the Brexit debate. The UK pulls out of the EU for "sovereignty", and then wants to sign a trade treaty which means the UK has to sign up to mutually-agreed terms that limit its freedom and independence - but less so. Freedom and independence, or control, could only be achieved by reducing its commitment to multilateral organisation.

 

[stroopwafel]

Of course they care about exporting their culture. One might note, for instance, China's vigorous investment in Hollywood and other media industries. It attempting to control the representation of China-related topics in Europe and the USA (such as that museum in France where they refused to hand over artefacts unless they also controlled the narrative), its creation of Chinese media outlets across the world (It recently banned BBC Worldwide in China, in retaliation for Chinese channels being fined for breaking US broadcasting laws.)

Even without a totally free society and government, it will create cultural products that catch on in other countries. It's an inevitability.

The regime is perpetually insecure about the country's stability so the only narrative they want to control is the same narrative with which they try to prevent unrest among the population. The state narrative is for domestic consumption. They don't want hollywood to contradict that, espescially in controversial matters. It's not a cultural export but rather belongs to the same category as the regime's inability to admit faults or mistakes or the reason for (social) media censorship. The intent is stabilty and prevention of unrest not propagating cultural beliefs. Unless you consider the regime's self-congratulating policies as such.

Yes, some countries might specifically attempt to block Chinese culture, and may slow the spread. If there's a new "cold war", they will be more successful. But big, rich countries spread their influence, bit by bit. If an international hotel has 10,000 Chinese speaking visitors a year and 2,000 English speaking, they will want staff who speak Chinese more than they will want staff who speak English, end of. That sort of simple, basic utility played out across dozens of countries, thousands of miles, tens of thousands of businesses and millions of people will drive Chinese to pre-eminence over English. Never mind that a lot of the far east's mercantile traditions have been Chinese-dominated for centuries anyway (e.g. Singapore).

At best hotel staff might learn to say 'hi' and 'bye' in mandarin but the notion that hotel staff will learn fluent mandarin just to greet chinese tourists is laughable. It's more likely that the tourists will learn a modicum of english. There are millions of contacts already in the global economy between english and chinese speakers and only a very relative few of the english speakers understand chinese. Is it an advantage to understand chinese? Ofcourse. I think it's definitely a language that should be teached much more in schools. But chinese speakers don't have the expectation that their business partner understands their language and they never will. The supply chain is fragmented across continents with dozens of languages that are too far and diverse from china to ever have some kind of language compatibility. English is the international standard and nothing is going to change that. Cooperation is simply impossible otherwise and in absolutely no one's interest, least of all china.

A multilateral organisation is de facto a loss of sovereignty, even if some technical de jure sovereignty is preserved in the background. If the EU agrees to a unified military command, it necessarily means that EU countries must surrender some of their resources to the EU, and accept the EU should use their military even if the country may prefer otherwise, otherwise it would be dysfunctional. One might point out, for instance, the USA also liked to just get things done itself with only ad hoc support from willing NATO members, rather than as an official NATO action, because it was expedient.

Take the Brexit debate. The UK pulls out of the EU for "sovereignty", and then wants to sign a trade treaty which means the UK has to sign up to mutually-agreed terms that limit its freedom and independence - but less so. Freedom and independence, or control, could only be achieved by reducing its commitment to multilateral organisation.

A few decades ago there were talks about these EU battle groups that could operate somewhat independently from nato. The changing security landscape away from the cold war was already observed. It went nowhere but instead I believe there is now a nato quick response force instead and it underwent somewhat of a transformation during the Afganistan campaigns. Most EU countries have fairly under subsidized military expenditure far below the 2% gdp that the US considers minimum. Most of what can be attained is like slightly above 1% A bread crumb. The problem isn't a surrender of resources the problem is that the resources are hardly there in the first place because they aren't allocated b/c the sense of urgency isn't there. Political parties don't win votes in Europe by increasing military spending b/c the population is complacent to depend on America for their protection. Even with the US withdrawing from multilateral organizations there is very little sense of urgency to increase the budget. It would actually be a perfect role for the EU to compensate for this lethargy as it's actually the only institution able and capable to address the threats this continent faces.

You don't need a 'unified military command' you simply need a variation on Nato that is able to defend the continent's security interests. Similarly as you can't make trade deals with China on equal terms unless your part of an economic block of equal weight. That is why I said organizations like the EU are a necessary evil. But an organization none the less. Not a replacement for sovereignty.

 

[Agema]

The regime is perpetually insecure about the country's stability so the only narrative they want to control is the same narrative with which they try to prevent unrest among the population. The state narrative is for domestic consumption. They don't want hollywood to contradict that, espescially in controversial matters. It's not a cultural export but rather belongs to the same category as the regime's inability to admit faults or mistakes or the reason for (social) media censorship. The intent is stabilty and prevention of unrest not propagating cultural beliefs. Unless you consider the regime's self-congratulating policies as such.

You're talking about these like they are separate things. They are not. China's control of narratives about China is intimately connected to wider cultural presence of China.

At best hotel staff might learn to say 'hi' and 'bye' in mandarin but the notion that hotel staff will learn fluent mandarin just to greet chinese tourists is laughable.

It is not. It is exactly what will happen. The capitalist imperative is to make the comfort and ease of one's guests a premium, and ease and comfort is achieved by the courtesy of having staff who speak the language of guests. And those tourists will go back and write on the Chinese Tripadvisor equivalent "Great hotel, staff spoke Mandarin", and that'll be a +1 in the eyes of Chinese tourists who don't want to fumble around with pidgin English, driving Chinese trade towards that hotel. And all around, exactly the same processes will go on other fields, a million small acts here and there, all of which gradually driving knowledge and acceptance of Mandarin up.

Like I said, in your view of the world, the global trade language would be Latin, because there's no reason Western Europe would have ever replaced it. Unfortunately, that's just not how it works.

You don't need a 'unified military command' you simply need a variation on Nato that is able to defend the continent's security interests. Similarly as you can't make trade deals with China on equal terms unless your part of an economic block of equal weight. That is why I said organizations like the EU are a necessary evil. But an organization none the less. Not a replacement for sovereignty.

If Britain doesn't want low quality US chorinated chicken and to keep NHS centrally negotiated drug pricing, and the USA says "No trade deal unless you bend on these", Britain signs away its right to refuse low quality chicken and ability to force drug prices down or does without a trade treaty. It cannot restore control of these without breaching the trade treaty and being punished. Treaties are designed to be adhered to, and contrain the ability of the signatories to act. They are a de facto loss of sovereignty.

Let's say the USA wants to invade Iraq. It just does so. Let's say the EU does, but then half its member states refuse the use of their military, and so it can't. So the USA can exert power where the EU cannot. Or we could consider naval power. The USA has a load of massive aircraft carriers. The EU has about 4, and all but the French one are tiny - because there needs to be a "critical mass" of fleet size to support an aircraft carrier, and only a few EU countries can support it, so this diffusion means that a lot of its military resources cannot be turned into power. Never mind the lack of unformity of equipment and tactics between countries. Long and short, all else being equal (population, economy, military budget, technology) a unitary power such as the USA is going to have a more potent military than a disparate bloc like the EU.

And the same principle applies to a lot of the politics, culture, and so on too. Russia amuses itself by playing divide and conquer with the EU through eastern European states, and the EU fumes impotently. There simply is no unified EU culture - not even a unified language - to express and press its culture. It can engage in international politics and it can spread it's culture (more the culture of its individual nations), and it's worse at it.