Individual battlefield events—or even entire regional wars—should not obscure the larger, long-term global trends.
China first achieved overwhelming dominance in industrial capacity. Then it began closing the technological gap and, in some sectors, moving ahead. Now another arena is coming into play: culture.
For much of the last century, culture was one of America’s greatest strategic assets. Young people in the Soviet Union, Eastern Europe, India, and elsewhere admired the American way of life. They listened to American music, watched American films, and imagined America as the place where modern life truly existed.
Today, however, there is growing evidence of a curious reversal. Increasing numbers of young Americans appear fascinated with aspects of Chinese culture and lifestyle.
River Page, writing in The Free Press, describes a new social-media trend sometimes called “Chinamaxxing.” In essence, Americans imitate everyday Chinese habits—squatting in public, drinking hot water, wearing slippers indoors—sometimes ironically, sometimes quite sincerely. A common refrain circulating online is: “You’ve met me at a very Chinese moment in my life.”
Other publications interpret the phenomenon in similar ways. Time suggests that many young Americans are searching for an alternative model to the society in which they currently live. Newsweek notes that admiration for Chinese habits often reflects a broader disillusionment with American conditions.
In reality, most young Americans would hardly be capable of the level of work discipline, intellectual intensity, or sheer productivity that characterizes modern China. But admiration does not require imitation.
What is striking is how little impact the old Western narrative about a dystopian Chinese “digital prison” seems to have on younger Americans. Those stories—once told with great seriousness—now have about as much persuasive force as the Cold War tales that East German workers supposedly lived in unspeakable misery. Eastern Europeans in the 1970s heard those stories too, and they were no more convinced by them.
Which brings to mind an older observation by Curtis Yarvin:
America, he once wrote, is waiting for its Gorbachev.