Topic: news China’s International Image and Influence: What Foreigners “Really” Think

I agree very well put. China has historically been a tributary nation, paying off mongol hordes and foreign armies to leave them alone. Their culture does a great job of setting up a hierarchy to insulate people at the top, but then since that power is based solely on their position in the hierarchy it doesn't work on any outsiders, who can sense their weakness a mile away. I think that's why there is this top-down imperative to resist foreign influence and place chinese culture up on a pedestal. Take a powerful Chinese guy and he can abuse wait staff, harass stewardesses etc. AS LONG as those people they abuse "buy-in" to the hierarchy. Put some arrogant Chinese guy in a restaurant in Chicago slapping a waitress and he's going to get his ass kicked and thrown in jail. I honestly think that's why the jackasses here tend to avoid flying the foreign-owned airlines for international travel. Lufthansa is objectively WAY better than crappy Air China, but you have to behave like an adult when you fly it even if your feel your cousin is a major player at the post office!