like what singapore diplomat, Kishore Mahbubani said, soft power is built on top of hard power foundation. But I just worried that China is too focused on hard power, and not very effective in building up soft power. The private sector is pretty good, but the gov side is not.

Google and Hollywood are pretty succesful outside of the US, I think we must not forget about it. China also a big market of movie today, no less than the US. But unfortunately, not very successful in exporting it. HK in the 90s are actually more successful.

Tiktok is threatened, because it has foothold in the US, while the US tech giants like google or facebook don't. It make it easier for the US to target China without fearing retaliation. Of course China can threaten other sector, but then it could easily slide into full scale trade war.