Lowy Institute report shows trust in the US has tumbled to lowest level since thinktank began polling
Archived version: https://archive.is/20250615183525/https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2025/jun/16/lowy-poll-2025-china-us-trump-trust
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What makes the US the most powerful country in the world? It’s our cultural exports, our educational institutions, and our technology. We spent decades handing all our technology over to China, and undermining education. Now Trump has poisoned the American brand for at least a generation.
China is way ahead on building a science and technology culture, and promoting education. The dividends from those investments are already paying off, and they are going to start compounding.
A lot of Americans still think of China as the place to make cheap goods, but their manufacturing sector has benefited from decades of stolen expertise. It turns out there are benefits from having engineers and factory workers in the same location. Faster feedback means faster development. Now the US is falling behind.
Bitch please. Trump is far from the only reason people hate the USA. Especially after they used the Internet as a trojan horse to launch mass surveillance upon the entire globe.
Completely agree. Also it’s not really “stolen expertise” as wetern companies and capitalist countries given it away willingly in exchange for cheap manufacturing. They just never expected China to take advantage of it to compete on a global market.
I don’t think they really cared if China took advantage of it. America’s CEOs are only invested in the next few quarters, at best. Something that might take a decade or two is entirely not relevant to their planning and actions.
I mostly agree however you are showing some serious racism when you say they “stole” anything. Do typu really believe the people that invented gun powder cannot innovate?
China doesn’t respect intellectual property
The biggest problem with China is that they are Authoritarian.
That is indeed a problem but, speaking strictly about competitiveness, it does have it’s advantages. For example, the US really needs more strategically important goods to be manufactured at home, but that is really hard to do if market conditions favor offshoring. China can just dictate the sourcing - even in the (so called) private sector.
That is in fact their greatest strength and the primary reason why our usual strategies for undermining our political & economic rivals don’t work on them. Sitting back and allowing shit to fall apart because “freedom” is moronic, just look at what the US has turned into for a perfect example.
I listened to a podcast (Dithering; it’s subscription based) talking about a book about Apple’s manufacturing operations in China. The distinction was that other companies guarded because their techniques would be stolen, whereas Apple focused on “we’re gonna teach you to do this,” which then proliferated to other companies. We wouldn’t have semi-affordable (depending on your situation) iPhones otherwise. They be impossible to build at scale. Really eye opening.
The ep was the second one last week, if you wanna listen.
Yes we would, they’d just have to lower their ridiculously high profit margins: https://www.cnbc.com/2025/01/30/apples-gross-margin-hits-record-as-services-business-keeps-growing.html
Apple’s huge profit margins are only possible because of the scale of their operations in China. They’re moving to India and Vietnam. It remains to be seen how that will work out. China has been building expertise in manufacturing for decades. My statement stands.
What are your “cultural exports”?
Movies, fast food chains, clothing chains, etc. The American brand and lifestyle that goes with it. Not exactly the greatest cultural achievements of all time, but they brought in cash.
Capitalism isn’t culture.
You have a wrong concept of what is culture
Are you trying to tell me capitalism is culture?
Culture is what defines a society, so make of that what you want.
I can get down with that…
Correct, the clothes and movies and music are the culture
Can you name an aspect that is USA specific?
Are you completely culturally illiterate?
No. Are you?
I can’t speak for the rest of the world, but in Serbia 90% of TV shows and movies are American, and generally people watch primarily American movies/series online and in cinemas. Most people listen to American music and use English words in daily conversation. Most are familiar with things like 9/11, Vietnam, 4th of July, Woodstock, hippies etc.
A lot of younger people are more familiar with American history, topics, movies and music than their own culture. I’m not saying it’s good, but Americans have an undeniably strong cultural influence, at least in Europe.
Yes, but what is uniquely USA? It’s US Defaultism.
What did you write this comment on?
I’m gonna skip a step…Nothing invented by USAian, no I won’t be elaborating or entertaining your delusions with further discussion. Search engines are your friend.
So, let me guess, a Zuse Z1?
China has already successfully destroyed manufacturing in most Pacific “first world” countries by undercutting us.
The fact that US, Australian, Japanese, Korean and New Zealand manufacturers were so ready to outsource to China in the first place, just to save a few cents in the dollar is how they got us.
Sounds more like “we got us” to me. It’s our system and our philosophies that made those pennies so precious.