The COMPLETE TRIPE that US aid is interested in "health and welfare" whilst those evil Chinese are simply interested in profit is pathetic. Take a gander at "Confessions of an Economic Hitman" to see what we were really up to with our "aid"

this is interesting.

i don't know what to make of it.

engaging africa as a source of profit is a fine way to legitimize them.

until america can measure up to china's investment strategy, i say we give nothing at all.

apparently, we are only demeaning them by trying to help them.

Spot on. There is no Sinomania. At this point, China has little or nothing to offer in terms of popular culture.

The spread of 'America' around the world in the 20th had two prongs, culture and products/brands.

Hollywood was and is the #1 exporter of American values on the cultural side. There is no Chinese equivalent. If anything, the serious competition for Hollywood is Bollywood.

There were/are iconic American products and brands like Coca Cola, Pepsi, Ford, Kodak, Xerox, IBM, Microsoft, Apple. There is no equivalent coming from China. Sure, the iPod you buy might be made in China (OK, it certainly is made in China) but it still bears an American brand, and that's what counts.

I couldn't even name any Chinese brand. There must be some, because I keep hearing horror stories about how Chinese companies "borrow" western designs and illegally manufacture and sell them under their own brand, but that's probably not the shortest path towards gaining soft power.

Side note about the spread of American culture - I suspect that for Africans or Asians and many others, it may be difficult and possibly irrelevant to distinguish between specifically American and generally Western culture. Do they really know or care which country, say, The Beatles or Rolling Stones were from?

I'm not much of a Stones fan, so I can't comment on that. The Beatles did cover American rock-and-roll songs at the start of their career, but all their biggest hits were their own, mostly composed by Lennon and/or McCartney. Saying that Beatles "depended entirely on emulating American blues singers and rockers" is, honestly, entirely ridiculous.

Look, I know that everything of importance was invented in America and Americans did everything first, but don't overdo it, okay?

Africans neither know nor care which country the Beatles or Rolling Stones are from because they don't listen to them; most have probably never heard of them. The comparable Western stars who were (and remain) influential were James Brown and Bob Marley, and more recently every major US, UK, and French hip-hop or R+B star. I'd bet more Africans know who Eminem is than know who the Beatles were.

To say there is "no Chinese equivalent" of Hollywood betrays a weird blindness, and to say that Bollywood is the real competitor is even more bizarre. Bollywood movies have never gained substantial market share in Europe or the Americas. In contrast, Chinese and Hong Kong films have done extremely well in the West. There is not a single Indian director who has made the transition to Hollywood successfully negotiated by John Woo, Ang Lee and half a dozen others. Bollywood films remain trapped in a constricting South Asia-only format that has little foreign appeal, while Chinese films have swept the world. Furthermore, China produces a perfectly staggering quantity of television serials, mostly swords-and-emperors stuff, which are syndicated throughout East Asia. (South Korea outcompetes China in TV, though.)

Chinese pop music, like all East Asian pop music except for Japanese, sucks. But give them time. There have been urban hipsters in China for all of 15-20 years now. And to say it's bad is not to say it lacks commercial influence; Hong Kong and China pop stars like Andy Lau are titanic in East Asia, even if they don't travel well outside.

Accumulating Peripherals

I tried to write a massive post on this but it is just too much. The basic point I want to make is that I think the US is slipping, a non west world is coming and China is the driver and the slippage is partially the result of a neglected american state department.
The chinese don't give a fig about sinomania or global popular culture, they want something more subtle. A world of complete international non interference where a sovereign government can do whatever to whomever and no outside body can legally complain. This is what wins them friends, even among some democracies but definately among the sudans and the zimbabwes of the world.
What is perverse is that the neocons agree with this too, they just think that the US can come out on top in such a world but I think the US loses big time with a world stripped of international norms and institutions. we would be back to the 19th century which was a very dangerous time for international relations and led directly to the nightmare of 1914. maybe that is what the neocons want too. They do seem to make a fetish of war.

Chinese directors in Hollywood make Hollywood movies.

Chinese TV serials watched only in China are perfectly irrelevant while discussing the export of cultures.

Apparently the way it went was they're in a room, waiting, and Martin walks in and introduces himself, and George says, "Well, I don''t like your tie, for starters." 

Martin was way into comedy, having done records poking fun at classical music, with him on piano and Peter Ustinov singing. A British thing then, Dudley Moore comes from that musical-comedy tradtition. (We took over later with PDQ Bach.) So there was often a musical-arrangement eye-twinkle when Martin was involved. Think of the farting bass and ocarina solo in "Fool."

There were/are iconic American products and brands like Coca Cola, Pepsi, Ford, Kodak, Xerox, IBM, Microsoft, Apple....

WERE. WERE is the right word.

Kodak, Ford, IBM and Xerox aren't what they used to be, and none of which are identified as "American" anymore just as Honda isn't Japanese and Jaguar isn't British anymore - the 70's are over, buddy, and brand loyalty is no longer tied to nationality.

Let me explain some facts to you about China:

There are more English speakers in China than in the USA.

The largest US city, is nowhere near the largest Chinese cities.

The entire population of the USA is merely a rounding error in the Chinese population.

Back in the 1950s the Japanese used to copy US made goods - then they beat our pants in building cars and cameras (Ford? Kodak? LOL! Don;t make me laugh.)
What makes you think the Chinese can't do that too?

And incidentally, Hong Kong directors in Hollywood are not "making Hollywood movies", any more than spaghetti westerns shot in Spain were "European movies" representing the dominance of European cinema over the US. Hong Kong and Chinese cinema has had a huge influence on American cinema for 15 years now, both because Chinese directors are directing in the US and because Americans are making Chinese-style movies. Quentin Tarantino's fractured timelines, multiple lead characters, and time-out action sequences are all heavily Hong Kong-influenced. Last year's Oscar-winning movie "The Departed" is a remake of the Hong Kong police thriller "Infernal Affairs". You are watching the influence of Chinese culture on the US; you just don't seem to know it.

Accumulating Peripherals

It's when the tune goes to chorus after "...see the world spinning 'round."

My neighbor is also my colleague, the tuba player. That's a tuba in your clip (which I just noticed).

Think you're right about recorder in Fool on the Hill.