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Comment by mensetmanusman | Hacker News Reader

CCP is sometimes hilariously bad at international PR. This is like a satire scene out of Team America.

China is hilariously bad at HN and Reddit PR, which they never cared about to begin with. They are tremendously effective at international PR. By providing economic support to smaller EU nations, they've been able to veto efforts to limit their influence.

https://youtu.be/hhMAt3BluAU?t=3270

>Reddit PR

As of late, default subs are frequently flooded with pro-CCP disinformation when any article painting China in a negative light, or (especially) Taiwan in a positive light, is posted.

I'd say that reddit PR for China is doing quite well, when the top comment in a thread is anti-CCP, often other top comments are pro-CCP (and filled with disinformation)

> default subs are frequently flooded with pro-CCP disinformation

Ermmmm we might be seeing different trends here, or at least different things from what you believe to be "favorable to ccp"....

It's my understanding that there are young English speaking party loyalists from affluent (relatively) families who troll western social media. These guys aren't doing PR so much as kicking up dust and defending/denying all CCP actions.

I’m trying to imagine a scenario where he UN could be any less ineffective had a few more EU countries pulled the line but no sorry I can’t.

CCP is hilariously bad at PR, period. Their idea of pacifying unrest in Tibet is to put up a giant middle finger facing the Potala Palace and surround it with posters of Mao and Xi.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monument_to_the_Peaceful_Liber...

Yet Tibet is still part of China, with no signs of that changing in the foreseeable future.

I don't think China is "bad at PR"; they just don't care what you or I think. In international relations it seems a small hindrance at best, and it sends a clear signal to both Chinese people and everyone else: "we just do what we want, just try and stop us".

Caring about PR is a property of democratic systems.

Which makes them bad at PR, no?

Hard to tell. For example, if COVID came from the Wuhan lab, then I suppose we would say they've been brilliant at PR since they haven't really been seriously hounded over that.

Yes they suppressed any possible investigation by removing any possible proof and silencing every single witness, quite clever from them. But also a big reason why that doesn't went along is because that's not only a Chinese issue, at this point is quite public who hired those labs...

I don't think China wants you to see it as open to criticism. It wants you to see it as effective - particularly in areas where freedom and democracy most hamper Western societies. Infrastructure, the pandemic, the influence of tech giants, the effects of mass culture on youth, etc.

Reminds me of the time China gave a tour to international journalists of their reeducation camps:

https://youtu.be/WmId2ZP3h0c

It looks creepy as hell from a western perspective.

Matt and Trey have a Simpsons-esque knack for capturing the tone of the future.

CCP embassy's twitter is joke. I wonder is they think propaganda is succeeding.

I think sometimes the importance of propaganda is overstated. Those guys are around 70 years in power now, and have shut down every attempt ate rebellion so far, so they must be doing something right.

Yeah, their international image is not the most stellar one. But what will people do about it, besides bitching online?

None of the big power players or even medium power players have exactly stellar image. So does image even matter if you can get away with things anyway... Terrorism by state actor is default policy and nothing is being done about it... So why should China act any different?

But TikTok isn't a joke. I'm more than a little concerned by it

> CCP is sometimes hilariously bad at international PR.

The one thing wrong here it is the PR is not international, it's for eyes, and ears of rich, and powerful people at home.

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