Strategic Fooyou?
“Can India defeat China in a full-fledged war?” In Quora, Tien-Yu Hsu, a Chinese from “Strategic Fooyou Agency”, answers yes and uses false information and circular reasoning to prove his standpoint. The answer gets forty-six thousand upvotes. Similar answers are posted by other Chinese in the same question below. Are these Chinese lack of information about their own country and bad at reasoning? Definitely no. What they are doing is called “Strategic Fooyou”. In Zhihu, a Chinese website, they clarify that they are trying to mislead other countries’ foreign policy to assure that China is not a threat. Some of them also have other intentions. Tien-Yu Hsu declared in Zhihu that he was meant to be sarcastic with the ignorant Indian netizens who would only like to learn about their advantages so that they realize the truth. Though the sarcasm creates fun, “Strategic Fooyou” does not help these Indian netizens realize the truth and might lead to war.
“Strategic Fooyou” creates fun for some Chinese, including authors and audiences. As Przybylski suggests, people have fun when they are acting their ideal roles. The idea of “Strategic Fooyou” is originated from an anecdote of a Chinese military theorist to successfully mislead other countries’ military by his military commentary show. The author of the “Strategic Fooyou” answers are pretending as a member of a military agency, so they have fun when they are writing these answers. Some Chinese audience have fun in a similar way. In bilibili, a Chinese video website, some uploaders produce videos of collections of “Strategic Foo You” answer. Some of the audience are pretending as directors of the “Strategic Fooyou” military plan and giving out instructions to other members in the “Strategic Fooyou” military plan. They have fun when they are playing this multiplayer online spy game.
On the other side, unlike Tien-Yu Hsu expected, the ignorant Indians are still ignorant after they read the “Strategic Fooyou” answers. In the comment of Tien-Yu Hsu’s “Strategic Fooyou” answer, many Indian netizens, like Harun Resit Aydin, believes the author is writing in an unbiased way and China is weak. They do not notice the false information and the logical fallacy inside the answers. They do not believe in other answers which tell them the truth because they love to be praised and know their advantage. They are hard to realize that the author is sarcastic. They are still ignorant.
Since the ignorant Indians believes Chinese is weak, the people who want to mislead other countries’ external policy successfully mislead some Indians’ knowledge of China. However, it is questionable whether it would affect the Indian’s foreign policy. Because of the nationalism in India, it is hard to predict whether Indian’s government policy will be affected by the Indian civilian. However, if it does affect the government foreign policy, it will increase the possibility of starting wars. The Indian government is adventurism and would like to start a battle if they believe China is weak. In 1962, Nehru adopted the “Forward Policy” and start the Sino-Indian War after China constantly tolerant their intention of moving Sino-Indian border. They supposed the reason of tolerance is that China is weak. If we successfully mislead Indian government to believe China is weak, a war, which none of us want, might happen.
Some Chinese are having fun with “Strategic Fooyou”. It successfully misleads ignorant Indians to believe China is weak. However, it might increase the possibility of having war. If it really increases the possibility, “Strategic Fooyou” should be limited.
