Can China Turn the Middle of Nowhere into the Center of the World Economy?

Re:Can China Turn the Middle of Nowhere into the Center of t... by allemagne on Wednesday January 30, 2019 @12:33PM (#19037201)

You're criticizing this article as though it was intended to be groundbreaking and authoritative, and then expand your criticisms to the entire New York Times and an entire profession.

That may or may not be a fair assessment, but I'm not really convinced. This is a New York Times Magazine article with flashy pictures. It's entertainment for people who are interested in geopolitics. It's not Ben Mauk's fault that he's an American and his piece shot to the front page of Hacker News.

What I think you're looking for is a really good Wikipedia article or research study on BRI.

Unless you can expand on why this piece is "propaganda" or what exactly the article got wrong, why not enjoy the piece (or not) as a travel diary with the BRI as a broad geopolitical context?

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Can China Turn the Middle of Nowhere into the Center of t... by Joe-Z on Wednesday January 30, 2019 @12:47PM (#19037337)

>Unless you can expand on why this piece is "propaganda" or what exactly the article got wrong, why not enjoy the piece (or not) as a travel diary with the BRI as a broad geopolitical context?

Because it does not market itself as such. It makes some bold claim to answer a question that's probably interesting to a lot of people follwing BRI-developments. Instead it's 'I've visited the Kazakhstan-China border and talked to a few people', but I guess that headline doesn't attract as many clicks.

EDIT: Not the GP and I don't want to claim that this is propaganda.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Can China Turn the Middle of Nowhere into the Center of t... by allemagne on Wednesday January 30, 2019 @01:54PM (#19038030)

I might agree that it isn't marketing itself as such if it wasn't written in the style of a first-person narrative, have "New York Times Magazine" banner across the top, and didn't have panoramic pictures every few paragraphs.

I don't know about you, but I react a lot differently to information presented in that format as opposed to something like this: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/01/22/business/china-foreign-po...

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Can China Turn the Middle of Nowhere into the Center of t... by malandrew on Wednesday January 30, 2019 @12:54PM (#19037408)

> It's entertainment for people who are interested in geopolitics.

And that's the crux of the problem. This entertainment geopolitics is no longer confined to just places like the NYTimes magazine. It has basically blended in with all "journalism" today because it's great for engagement. In the best case scenario, the hallmarks of good journalism like informing the reader with facts and being impartial are mere afterthoughts.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Can China Turn the Middle of Nowhere into the Center of t... by allemagne on Wednesday January 30, 2019 @01:48PM (#19037965)

Is the issue the content itself, or an expectation that any given human writing any given article should be considered an absolute source of truth?

Again, I think it would be really valuable to point out the facts or "spin" that the author got wrong here. Please do this if you have an issue with the article not being impartial or getting facts wrong.

[ Parent | on HN ]