miz

Recently, the term "Chinamaxxing" has exploded across overseas social media. The newly coined phrase - combining "China" with "maxxing" (derived from a gaming slang meaning maximizing or taking something to the extreme) - has become the latest trend pursued by foreign netizens, especially young people. From "very Chinese" at the start of last year, to "becoming Chinese" by the year's end, and now to "Chinamaxxing," this wave of "China fever" spreading overseas - particularly among Western Gen Z - has only grown stronger. Even conservative outlets such as the New York Post have had to admit: "America is out. China, of all things, is in."

Why China? Many traditional Western media commentators seem puzzled. Among the various attempts to explain the phenomenon, the most common argument is to blame it on "America's failure." The New York Post article suggests that "it's about Gen Z's desperation to shed their American identity." Somewhat resentfully, the article even claims that this "ludicrous" trend may appear "perfectly innocent" but that many of its followers have already aesthetically, morally and politically "defected." Meanwhile, the well-known US magazine Wired attributes the trend to the "decay of the American dream," arguing that it has paved the way for a "Chinese century." An article by the Australian Broadcasting Corporation contends that amid the current context of China-US rivalry, more and more people are betting that China will emerge "as the winner."

These discussions capture some new dynamics, yet they have not fully broken free from the ruts of ideology and geopolitics. Why is it taken as perfectly natural when South Korea's K-pop or Japan's One Piece becomes popular in the West, but it can't be accepted when cultural symbols with Chinese elements gain traction? In fact, there were times in the past when certain Chinese cultural elements reached Western audiences after being packaged as Japanese or Korean culture. Today, the global rise of Chinese culture, with its deep historical roots, is due in part to the West's still insufficient understanding of China.

The popularity of cultural memes such as "drinking hot water" rests on at least four hard-core foundations of China's social development. First, safety: The latest 2025 Global Safety Report released by the well-known US polling firm Gallup shows that Chinese residents rank third worldwide in their sense of safety, far ahead of all Western major powers. Second, infrastructure convenience: The extensive, well-connected high-speed rail network leaves a strong impression. Third, ease of daily life: Technological innovation is widely applied in everyday living. Fourth, overall governance capacity: Many foreigners are surprised by the efficiency and user-friendliness of local government service systems.

For a long time, Western publics tended to understand China mainly through political issues, economic statistics, or ideological debates. As people-to-people exchanges, digital platforms, and modes of content distribution have evolved, China has come to be seen in a more everyday, authentic way. In particular, younger people who grew up in the era of globalization take a more independent view of foreign things. When ordinary Westerners encounter the everyday reality of Chinese social life, it is inevitable that it will gain traction on social platforms popular with younger audiences.

These tangible realities undermine the so-called public opinion "iron curtain" manufactured by Western elites. As American journalist Taylor Lorenz recently noted in an interview, the US public is often told that things like trains would "make country not thrive." When they discover that these supposedly "impossible" ideas are in fact operating smoothly in China, seeds of seeking truth begin to take root. Rather than asking "why China?" some in the West would do better to set aside entrenched ideological prejudices, engage with China's development, and try to understand the values of its younger generation; otherwise they risk stagnation and being left behind.

Whether it's "becoming Chinese" or "Chinamaxxing," these trends aren't exclusionary as they are expressions of cultural blending. Many overseas creators who imitate Chinese lifestyles also weave elements of their own cultures into their content - often with a humorous, playful, cross-cultural experimental bent. Chinese American comedian Jimmy O. Yang, for example, mixes US streetwear with a Chinese tang jacket and talks about combining tai chi with gym aerobics, drawing wide attention. Other examples include an American vlogger serving Chinese congee in an American-style coffee cup and a British blogger adding goji berries to traditional English afternoon tea - different cultural elements collide and spark delightful, highly shareable moments.

The growing "China fever" shows that Gen Z abroad are, in their own way, reaching for a real, vibrant, warm image of China, freely selecting fragments of life and cultural symbols they like within a multicultural context. When prejudice is broken and misunderstandings cleared up, those everyday Chinese cultural elements and life scenes that showcase China's dynamic development naturally cross oceans and resonate with people. This is the key to the vigorous vitality of Chinese culture in the new era, and the kind of civilizational exchange and dialogue we should aspire to.

Unscripted: An Evening with Gavin Newsom

Golden Gate Theatre

Don't miss this one-night-only event in conversation with California Governor Gavin Newsom as he discusses his new book, Young Man in a Hurry.

In Young Man in a Hurry, Newsom traces the forces that have defined who he is today. From adapting to his dyslexia, to starting his own small business, growing up in the spotlight as a young mayor, becoming a father and fighting major national political battles, Governor Newsom reflects on the long personal journey that ultimately shaped him into one of the most recognizable elected officials in America. Filled with intimate family history and written with candor and remarkable personal insight, here is a deeply resilient California story of identity, belonging, and the defining moments that inspired a life in politics.

An unsigned copy of Young Man in a Hurry is included in the ticket price.

Socialism already does work. You can look to China, for example, to see its success in the modern era.

But, to answer the question more specifically, direct democracy on too large of a scale transforms into its opposite and becomes undemocratic.

The problem is that humans are not supernatural all-knowing beings. There are limitations to human knowledge, and it is not possible for a single person to know every intricate detail about a country with millions of people.

If you overwhelm people with requiring them to make decisions on things on too large of a scale, then what you always find is that most people will end up seeking an “understanding” of what they are voting on through popular media sources.

This is inherently problematic because it means people’s choices then are not something they come to organically decide upon through on-the-ground grassroots knowledge, but they become a decision made solely from consuming popular media, and so whoever controls the popular media ultimately will get to largely decide the outcome of the vote.

This is not a problem you can solve by just convincing people to do more research and vote smarter, because it is ultimately not a people problem but a logistics problem. If what you’re voting on isn’t something you have a deep pre-existing grassroots connection with, then you’re not going to know much about it at all unless some media infrastructure tells you about it, but then what you know about it will depend upon that media infrastructure, and what you know about it inherently will confine the possibilities for what you can vote on.

We see this even without direct democracy, just when elections for representatives are on too large of a scale. For example, in the USA, the mainstream media is privately owned, so if you want more representation in the media, you just have to spend more money. For large-scale elections like those for US Congress, most people don’t know the candidates through any grassroots means, but instead because they are told about them on television, and nobody is going to vote for someone they never heard of before, and so inherently this means that who people will vote for will depend upon who they saw on television, which depends upon who spent the most money on private media.

Hence, the person who raises the most money wins 91% of the time, and it is not like the other 9% are people who raised barely any money, but are pretty much always the person who raised the second most amount of money.

This, is, again, not a people problem. It is unfair to say that regular people are just “stupid” for not knowing better. You are requiring things of them that are just unreasonable, and, to some degree, physically impossible. Humans are not supernatural all-knowing beings, and these kinds of political systems with large-scale elections only serve to take advantage of their limitations in order to create an illusion of democracy, but a democracy that is easily puppeted by those who control resources as they can control what knowledge people have access to and thus frame the whole debate.

In most US presidential elections for example, there are usually more than 100 people, sometimes even more than 1000, who run for president, yet most people cannot name more than 2, and almost none can name more than 4. How can you know you are voting for the candidate who best represents you if you don’t even know who they are? Have you ever stopped to ask yourself why is it that the 2 you did know about were ones you knew about? How is it that the knowledge of those 2 actually entered your brain? It is because they are the ones with the most money and thus the largest media presence.

You have a “choice” between one candidate or the other that the television told you about, but ultimately, no matter which you pick, the television always wins. Or, to be more specific, those who control the media infrastructure, which ultimately comes back to those who control the means of production generally; i.e. the wealthy oligarchs who rule the society. You only are picking between their factions, and you have no possibility of ever escaping that.

This is something a lot of people struggle to understand. They think it is “democracy” just because they have a “choice.” But what they miss is the framing of those choices in the first place. Why are the two choices you are given the two choices you are given, and not some other two choices? Any tyrannical autocrat can give people “choices” that are just between two of their henchmen. Does that make it democratic? Obviously not, but for some reason, people struggle to apply this same reasoning when it comes to corporate oligarchies.

For democracy to actually represent the people’s interests, you have to take into account people’s limitations rather than abusing their limitations for faux democracy. Small scale grassroots elections where people can reasonably know who they are voting for through the grapevine without relying on the mainstream media. Those elected officials then have their own small scale elections to elect officials to even higher branches of government, and you repeat this a few times until you have formed your central government.

You can form a central government for a large country of hundreds of millions without any individual election ever exceeding tens of thousands of people, but with all elections ultimately originating from reducing down to a grassroots democratic election at the base.

You need representatives as a way to balance knowledge in society, to prevent a country from deteriorating into a dictatorship of the popular media. Honestly, most countries these days suffer from too little representation, not too much.

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Hawaii Beef Burger 19.9 元/份

寿司卷组合
Sushi Roll Combo 8CT 15.9 元/8入

牛肉卷
Bulgogi Bake 19.9 元/份

披萨
Pizza 69.9 元/18过 13.9 元/单片

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Spicy Fried Chicken Wings 45.9 元/10对
Bucket 10 Pairs

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Malatang 18.9 元/份

热狗
Pork Hot Dog & Drink 10.9 元/份

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Soda 4.9 元/杯

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Red Bean Mochi Taiyaki 12.9 元/2入

藤椒小酥肉 & 糍粑拼盘
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TELL ME IT WON'T HAPPEN DEATH TO AMERIKKKA

AES gets a mulligan on "patriotism"

in this video Ryan George accidentally explains "stealing surplus value"

he can't be a secret Marxist can he?

Why is the US 2025 National Security Strategy so contradictory toward China? On December 4, 2024, the United States released its 2025 National Security Strategy, calling China a "near-peer competitor" for the first time. While this sounds pragmatic, the document reveals three major internal contradictions that expose the Trump administration's strategic dilemmas. The strategy aims to "prevent military confrontation" while simultaneously strengthening military presence around Taiwan and the South China Sea. It acknowledges China as a "near-peer" yet consistently labels Chinese economic practices as "predatory" and "unfair." Perhaps most revealing, the US proposes "mutually advantageous" relations with China while demanding allies decouple from Chinese supply chains and reorganize their economies to counter China.

Professor Wang Xiangsui, Deputy Secretary-General of the CITIC Foundation for Reform and Development Studies, reveals the core issue behind these contradictions: America's fundamental dilemma of "limited strength, excessive goals." The strategy reflects not genuine retrenchment but a utilitarian containment approach designed to weaken China's strategic development while maintaining economic benefits from trade.

This video explores how China transcends Trump's "transactional" framework through strategic resolve, consolidated hard power, and long-term wisdom.