...Highly disagree. China can (and has) manipulate the hearts and minds of the American public—skewing their biases in a way that creates internal chaos and dissent, disrupting institutional order, and sewing distrust of thy neighbor. They've been doing this for at least a decade now, and have played a silent hand in reshaping American politics. If (when) a conflict arises, trust that they will use this tool to manipulate the electorate in a way that benefits them in a zero sum way.

>China can (and has) manipulate the hearts and minds of the American public—skewing their biases in a way that creates internal chaos and dissent, disrupting institutional order, and sewing distrust of thy neighbor

Nothing a tin-foil hat can't prevent

As if the public needed any manipulation. You can just read what actual public figures, journalists, and such have been openly saying for the last 15-20 years...

When a long-time political player, wife of a President, and presidential candidate calls a big chunk of the population "deplorables", when opposing candidates call for the jailing or even shooting of their opponent, or when the current President is saying what he says and doing what he does, you need more to get "chaos" and "distrust of the neighbor"?

Outside competition allows progress because we have been shown time and time again that the US will just not solve its problems without outside pressure. I'd also argue that any other country in its position would act the same. For example when the USSR was actively competing with the US, they could easily lob a major criticism of the US in capturing 'hearts and minds' of other nations: "Look at how they treat their minorities. Do you really want to work with those people?"

Yes there were very active causes and groups in the US to correct this issue, but that outside pressure forced leadership to be nudged towards corrective action and I wonder if the USSR hadn't been there would we have gotten Civil Rights legislation passed when we did?

Maybe the same will happen with China showing the US how fast they can get stuff done and what they provide as benefits to their citizens vs a declining US. Already TikTok has helped Gen-Z realize how Israel gets so many benefits (universal healthcare, college tuition, benefits for birthing kids etc.) while the US is in massive debt and continues to send money to Israel. That continued propaganda may lead to an eventual backlash and subsequent reform.

Damn, imagine if an Australian or a South African billionaire did that with big media companies, oh well, that's just a weird thought, nothing to take from that.

> skewing their biases in a way that creates internal chaos and dissent, disrupting institutional order, and sewing distrust of thy neighbor.

I don't really have respect for this idea; we do this to ourselves far more effectively than people who frankly have a pretty hamfisted cultural understanding- just as we have of china or russia.

IMO influence over real concrete choices is much more alarming. Someone with household-level information has an insane amount of advantage in an election. You can target politcal messaging street by street to play up the worst aspects of your opposed candidate and the least repulsive aspects of your own candidate.

But if you're in china, the most you can do is try to push towards whatever of the two candidates is least bad for you. And spoiler, zero american politicians are pro-china.

What conflict? If there is a conflict the whole world is fucked. I've only ever heard about conflicts from the Americans

LOL!