it's a real telling on themselves moment

technically they're telling the truth!

will Xi further tighten his grip on ShanDONG? tune in next week to find out

I was mostly lampooning a shitty idea with an equally absurd idea.

The "real" culture of China is the culture of China. China can't be a "fake" China by definition and claiming so is like claiming that I'm not the real me because I don't act like I did 10 years ago. The ways that people who believe that Taiwan is the "real" China try to prove their theory is to point to some arbitrary tradition or way of doing things that's different from the PRC and claim that the PRC killed it in the cultural revolution (very rare, except maybe for small things like bowing). From a logical point of view, that doesn't make sense any more than me pointing to Taiwan and going "well if you're the real China why don't you burn books and bury scholars anymore? Huh?! Gotcha!"

The people who argue about "real" Chinese culture also tend to conveniently forget that there are many instances in Chinese history where China (the sociocultural unit) was broken up into many competing and de facto independent polities for decades at a time, much like China and Taiwan now. It's like arguing that Shu, Wei, or Wu "weren't the real China". People would think you're insane.

That being said, I think the funniest variant of the "real China" discourse are the ultra-fringe wackjobs who claim that Japan is the real China because they were never conquered by the Mongols.

Also, tangentially I want to point out that it's more valid to point to Ancient Chinese history over ancient European history (like Rome) because unlike almost all modern European states (except maybe Greece?) China claims that it has an unbroken historical and cultural lineage going back to 213 BCE, and even earlier.

You'd never see these outlets write about a European country like that.

they do literally all the time, just with positive instead of negative stuff, and to the point where other countries' stereotypes are appropriated and assigned to european ones (assuming they're positive)

love the cheese, embrace the camp

Like Bacteria in Petri Dishes, the ruling class has had a considerable effect in cultivating what would likely only be a very very small incident. For example, the antivax org in the UK that launched the original huge suit that caused the antivax scare we know today had like ten members in it before the case and the news running with the (false) possibilities of the case.

In October, a Chinese book distributor recalled a recent reprint of a biography of the Ming dynasty’s last emperor from sellers without a clear explanation. The Chongzhen emperor, as he was known, hanged himself when his dynasty collapsed in 1644. Perhaps the book’s cover language, which advertises that “Chongzhen’s repeated mistakes” had “hastened the nation’s destruction,” could be construed as an implicit criticism of Xi amid the country’s mounting economic problems and geopolitical tensions.

if there's one thing you really, really cannot claim modern China does, it's repeat mistakes. I mean fuck, even if you wanna stick to the exaggerated western historiography, they went from the failures of the Great Leap Forward to being the rising center of global production in little more than half a century. China is a country that learns from mistakes. To suggest otherwise, especially in a United goddamn States newspaper, is absurd. And to cap it all off;

Whatever the reason, today’s censors, much like the Qin emperor, seem to prefer that readers not compare present and past.

this is all supposition from an ocean away. There's a million reasons to recall a textbook, Michael just wants you to know his personal hypothesis