All of the press conferences for the model debuts were in Chinese, and I didn’t always have a translator or interpreter at hand. When I could, I wandered around, looking to see what else I could learn while in China.
The first stand I stumbled upon was Buick’s. It unveiled two GM Ultium-based concepts, the Electra L and Electra LT. It had also unveiled a PHEV version of its popular GL8 van. But where the hell was everyone? It was barely 10 a.m., on the first day of the Beijing Auto show; two concepts were just revealed sometime earlier that morning, yet there were only a handful of spectators at the Buick stand. There was no information on either concept. No one seemed to care.
He goes on to describe the same scenario at basically all the other western brands.
Can you imagine if the Soviet Union had operated this way? Just let the western brands in and then utterly demolish them with soviet industry prices and quality. You get the benefits of competition pushing your industry to do better while demolishing any argument that your people want or would prefer western luxuries to what's available.
Closing to the capitalists was always a mistake when you could just let your own industries demolish and embarrass them.
Parenti discussed in Blackshirts and Reds how people in the Eastern bloc were seduced by Western consumer goods. The real and perceived superiority of Western treats is a form of soft power. China will not make the same mistake as them.
The Soviet Union censorship was at a time without social media and university students finding out all the details in person. The underground radio stations and western music being played really leveled up the mystique of western goods, and the only people traveling to the west were more likely to be PMC or boojie in attitudes.
Now you have kids living in working apartments from Shenzhen and Lanzhou going to schools like University of Oklahoma going, “this is it?!?”, and sharing their complaints on WeChat
He goes on to describe the same scenario at basically all the other western brands.
Can you imagine if the Soviet Union had operated this way? Just let the western brands in and then utterly demolish them with soviet industry prices and quality. You get the benefits of competition pushing your industry to do better while demolishing any argument that your people want or would prefer western luxuries to what's available.
Closing to the capitalists was always a mistake when you could just let your own industries demolish and embarrass them.
Parenti discussed in Blackshirts and Reds how people in the Eastern bloc were seduced by Western consumer goods. The real and perceived superiority of Western treats is a form of soft power. China will not make the same mistake as them.
The Soviet Union censorship was at a time without social media and university students finding out all the details in person. The underground radio stations and western music being played really leveled up the mystique of western goods, and the only people traveling to the west were more likely to be PMC or boojie in attitudes.
Now you have kids living in working apartments from Shenzhen and Lanzhou going to schools like University of Oklahoma going, “this is it?!?”, and sharing their complaints on WeChat
The USSR walked so China could run 🏃♂️
The supporting technology is different today. It's easier to run centralized operations and productions than it was in the 20th century.