Good observations in this article. But somebody should write about the obvious, glaring parallels with Nazi tourism.
Just like China, the Nazis also organized foreigners to come and “see with their own eyes” to counter the accusations that the Nazis were doing anything wrong.
And huge numbers of foreign tourists did go to Goebbels Germany, which was similarly full of sightseeing spots, rich in cultural history, and helpful Nazis.
I wasn’t aware of just how striking these parallels are, but there are some outstanding books on this, such as Seeing Hitler’s Germany: Tourism in the Third Reich, by Kristin Semmens (2005), and Travelers in the Third Reich: The Rise of Fascism 1919-1945, by Julia Boyd (2018) which lay out in great detail how the Nazis purposefully organized the tourism, to cover up their crimes by luring in foreigners to play the fool, just like in China now — where we now see lots of Americans marveling about how great is the food, and the bridges and the Autobahns, etcetera.
On X/Twitter, all the usual Chinese “diplomats” as well as the armies of propaganda officers under cover have all be directed to talk about tourists and vloggers almost more than they mention the Olympics.
Magnus Fiskesjö <nf42@cornell.edu>