[emodendroket]

I think that's a mistake to say; I'd say rather that their goals of national unity without domestic challenge override their international image in this case. It's really no different than Trump's obsession with purging immigrants overriding the hit to the US' reputation that his policies have caused

[seanmcdirmid]

With Trump, however, most Americans know he is hurting our image abroad. In China, they are almost completely oblivious to global PR.

[emodendroket]

What do you base that claim on?

[seanmcdirmid]

US western media talks a lot about how trump is damaging our image. Chinese media never even mentions how Xi or decisions made in China are giving it a bad reputation.

[emodendroket]

Perhaps, but you are assuming, I think unjustifiably, that Chinese people are unable to use their imaginations or what information they can find online (the censorship is largely reactive). Also, Chinese papers often will highlight foreign criticism to rebut it and foreign criticism can sometimes be a galvanizing force. On a more basic level I have to imagine that when Chinese people heard Xi Jingping talking about his principle of non-interference in internal affairs they have some idea that he's rejecting foreign criticism.

Additionally, China is a global power and has to care about its reputation to the extent it affects its international projects.

[seanmcdirmid]

It isn’t a bad assumption. Many Chinese have no idea where France is let alone about what France thinks of them. Even in the cities where people are more educated, they are dumbfounded when Vietnam riots against them, completely unaware of the reasons why they might do that. At any rate, China has always been self centered throughout their 5000 years of history, it’s even in the name 中国 that literally means center of the world.

Chinese papers are very weird. They attempt to rebut foreign criticism without even repeating what that criticism is. GlobalTimes does this all the time in their editorials, it is totally surreal. I’ve had cases where I’m reading chinadaily and I have to go to a foreign news source to understand what they are actually railing against; eg the article would be like “the Dalai Lama did something, it was wrong!” without ever elaborating about what “it” was.

[emodendroket]

Many Americans have no idea Puerto Rico is part of the United States or that we bombed the island when an independence movement broke out; I'm not really sure you can attribute that to their iron grip on the media. Or educated people are baffled as to why North Korea would distrust them. Honestly, you could make a lot of these criticisms of any place.