• thethirdgracchi [he/him, they/them]@hexbear.net
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      3 months ago

      China, for over two thousand years, has acted sort of like a cultural SCP, absorbing more and more of the globe because people recognize Being Chinese as a set of culutral norms is actually really good. This is just furthering that trend. Chinese isn’t a race, it’s a way of life. The book Chinese Cosmopolitanism by Shuchen Xiang covers this process well.

    • CloutAtlas [he/him]@hexbear.net
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      3 months ago

      China has always absorbed other people into our culture, sometimes not even on purpose. Even conquerors get absorbed. The heirs of Genghis Khan, the Scourge of Heaven, assimilated into Chinese culture within a couple generations. Xianbei, Khitan, Manchu, etc. The Khitans, despite warring against China on and off for over a hundred years, immediately declared itself the Liao dynasty, adopted the Chinese legal system, folk religion and invented a very Chinese inspired writing system (which to me looks like an AI hallucination of Hanzi) as soon as they secured a kingdom.

      There was a period of time after the fall of the Ming when the Korean Chosun dynasty referred to itself as “소중화” (lit. Little China) because they considered themselves to be more Chinese than the Manchu. There was a Korean Emperor who was Chinamaxxing in the 1600’s.

    • TrustedFeline [she/her, comrade/them]@hexbear.net
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      3 months ago

      I’ve been meaning to read that, especially since I’ve been trying to read more Palestinian authors. But IMO this isn’t like the British public being fascinated at their colonial possessions in the Indian subcontinent. This is more like if admiration of the USSR was more prevalent in the 1950s. Like an “I’m becoming soviet” trend in letters to the editor, or whatever the 1950s equivalent of tiktok is. Maybe I’ll see it differently after reading the book

      • alexei_1917 [mirror/your pronouns]@hexbear.net
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        3 months ago

        There were absolutely Western commies who had that attitude to the USSR all throughout the Cold War. Still some today.


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