Maybe there's a Venn Diagram of information bubble in there somewhere.
The Chinese government doesn't care to attempt to change what Americans think about China; they know they won't be able to convince them of anything after so many other sources have already told them this or that thing to believe. So, to Americans, China is a propaganda machine, and China is fine with that. On the other hand, this means Americans never really get to hear what China is telling the Chinese about America, because they don't bother to publish that outside of their borders.
I guess there are three layers to any information bubble, then: at the core, there are informed citizens who both know the propaganda and have facts to reject it; surrounding that, there is a larger group of uninformed propaganda-influenced citizens; and on the outside, there are foreigners, who don't even know what a given country's propaganda says, only that it exists.
http://www.au.af.mil/au/awc/awcgate/china/09_04_30_infl_ops....
America propagandizes China, China propagandizes America, China propagandizes China and America propagandizes America. Or, if you perfer, each country performs "Influence Operations", "Strategic Communications", "Psychological Operations".
Propaganda is merely the focused government effort to understand and engage key audiences to create, strengthen, or preserve conditions favorable for the advancement of government interests, policies, and objectives through the use of coordinated programs, plans, themes, messages, and products.
Different audiences are going to require different messaging.
The US's propaganda is quite different than China's propaganda when it comes to the exact physical end product, although the countries are starting to share more and more common tactical forms and procedures.
Of course what the US wants US civilians to think is different than was the US wants China to think is different from what US wants Chinese civilians to think is different from what China wants USG to think is different from what China was US civilians to think.
Propaganda is not a blunt instrument. It has to be and is targeted to specific audiences.
Or, to put it another way, domestic propaganda is strategic and continuous (and therefore easily observed, by meeting a citizen of the country who "grew up with the propaganda"); foreign-targeted propaganda is tactical and one-off, and won't usually leak out of whatever domain it was focused on (government, military, investors, entrepreneurs, etc.)
For example the United States government is currently engaged in a blanket of propaganda covering communications, social media and news outfit over the Middle East - they go so far as to create video games for the children there to play. The goal is a deradicalization of the Middle East - the vast majority of which now have turned against or are deeply suspicious of the United States (even NATO member Turkey).
How episodic propaganda operations are depends on the goal of the propaganda. Sometimes there is a specific ephemeral purpose (e.g. military deception), other times it is a short term goal (e.g. increase trust in gov't bonds) and other times it intends to be permanent or long lasting (e.g. America and Western culture is friendly to you and you would like to be a part of it).
But there is potential for bias. VPN exits and VPS are arguably hosted in facilities that serve foreigners. So perhaps their access to domestic Chinese sites is censored.
Me either, can you give a recent example or two?
- NGOs and CSOs the US has in China and their support of Civil Society; Civil Society is a comprehensive word that means signon to US standards, expectations, culture, economic norms, etc
- Source code (hosted on GitHub) that supports civil dissidents and websites (greatfirewall) that align with US narrative work that have US support or funding
- DoD MINERVA's study of housing crises in China and the possibility to use home ownership (surveillance of) for prediction or (propaganda of) nudging into unrest
- Broadcasting by the Board of Broadcasting Governors, such as VOA into China
- Anything you can find via FOIA requests from the Bureau of International Information Programs (this was born to take up responsibilities formerly in charge of by the late USIA)
If you want to get hypothetical there are number of suspicious events and coincidences - but these have no definitive link (smoking gun) pointing to the United States so they are excluded here.
It's important to note that NGOs do not mean that they are not related to government or the USG's national security objectives. ZunZuneo for example was set up through a series of NGOs that were ultimately CIA fronts.
There are people who spend 100% of their time focused on any particular country or issue you are interested in. Find professors of foreign policy or cultural studies and security advisors for the country or area. There are similarly task forces that try to provide insight into the whatever issue - many of these are public.
The short answer here is that no, there isn't any easy place. But the great thing is that, if you care enough about it, some reasonable representation of 'what's going on' is available to you.
:(
Iran does not have nuclear weapons but they are extremely close to having nuclear weapons. They have the knowledge, the material, etc such that if the sustained cooperation of other nations to sabotage their nuclear operations were to discontinue they would be nuclear capable very quickly. This is probably what the author intended - though it is dishonest to round it up the way he did.
When the recent Iran deals were being announced, I read material that said something along the lines of "Iran is 3 months from having a nuke" (breakout). It seemed to be saying, "Iran is holding steady, but could pull the trigger (so to speak) and begin the final 3 months of preparation at any moment". The goal of the nuclear agreement was to keep them perpetually some certain number of months away (or increase it) from having enough material for a bomb.
> The IR-1s installed in the Natanz and Fordow facilities have been performing at an average per unit rate of 0.75 to 1 SWU per year. Using the 1 SWU/year performance of the latest IR-1 model, the breakout time with 9,000 machines using a natural uranium feed would be six to seven months. However, Iran also has substantial stocks of 3.5 percent enriched uranium hexafluoride (UF6) that can be used as an alternative feed, shrinking the breakout time to three months.
http://www.washingtoninstitute.org/policy-analysis/view/iran...
> Mr. Kerry was joined at the talks by Energy Secretary Ernest J. Moniz, who will have to certify to Congress that the deal ensures that Iran will remain at least a year away from being able to produce a weapon’s worth of bomb fuel over the next decade, a complex calculation in which the size of Iran’s stockpile is a major factor.
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/06/02/world/middleeast/irans-nuc...
Now maybe there's far more sabotage than we know about going on, but it sounds like Iran has the ability to accumulate enough material, and is choosing not to. The way this is phrased implies that Iran is halting work toward a bomb.
> The [International Atomic Energy Agency] inspectors, who have had almost daily access to most of Iran’s nuclear production facilities, reported finding no evidence that Iran was racing toward a nuclear weapon, and said Tehran had halted work on facilities that could have given it bomb-making capabilities.
I am certain that sabotage efforts are sustained and a critical part of the US-Israel alliance. Beyond the Stuxnet episode and the subsequent Mossad/CIA assassination the history here is dense.
For countries who want to use nuclear readiness as a strategic deterrent, it does make sense to have a short breakout period but not necessarily be already stockpiled.
It's an interesting proposal. My presumption would be that the ideal scenario for Iran would be what was suggested above: that Iran acquire a stockpile, let other countries know that they have them, but not have them in a truly official capacity. It seems like keeping a short breakout period would be less ideal than having a semi-secret, well protected stockpile.