Laurent Michelon Officiel@LH_86_
The Economist's latest hit piece on China reeks of desperation.
Lamenting the recent trend of "Chinamaxxing" and the recent polls in the West that show that China's image in the West has improved despite the massive China-bashing machine it is facing, The Economist pulls out a "rare poll" that supposedly shows China's population growing impatience with the issue of reunification with Taiwan.
Not only does such a poll from a biased US-based think tank lack credibility (who are the "6500 Chinese" they interviewed? Where do they live ? How were the questions framed? etc.), but it misses the point that even if there was a "hardening public opinion" in China, it would be unlikely to move the government's needle as far as Taiwan's reunification is concerned.
Unlike its Western counterparts, the Chinese government doesn't rule according to opinion polls and popularity rankings.
The article gives away its hidden intention in one sentence : "opinion diverges from state narratives in some key areas".
As I explained in my 2022 book (updated in 2024), the Chinese government does monitor online speech, and does police (removal or shadowban) inflammatory speech, so as to not allow overly nationalistic and antagonistic influencers to fan the flames of nippophobia, anti-Western sentiment, and any other opinion that, if they gained traction, could corner the government into a position where it would be losing legitimacy, no matter what it decides.
For instance, letting nippophobia grow freely online would make the citizens angry at the government for doing nothing against Japan's growing militarization, therefore pushing the Chinese government into the exact same illegal, illegitimate, botched up, and therefore failed operations that the US is launching around the world.
The Chinese government will not let the mob rule.
It doesn't mean it does not listen to the people's complaints about the government. Quite the opposite. Policy-making in China is a top-down-top affair, whereby policies are tested at the local level, receive feedback from the people and local governments, before being sent back up the admistration ladder for revisions, and sometimes to be canceled.
This article by the Economist is trying to deceive its audience by making up a story whereby the Chinese mob is getting angry at the government, and that it points at a supposed lack of legitimacy of the government.
Fail.
