I am hoping you all can talk amongst yourselves and not just ask me questions. I will be lurking and may jump in but collectively you all know so much more about China. To kick it off I have seven questions about which I would love to hear your thoughts, but please feel free to add your own:
The US responded to the expulsion of three Wall Street Journal reporters by effectively expelling 60 employees of four state/party outlets. China says it will respond. If China kicks out more reports how should the US respond, and how does this tit-for-tat cycle end?
How successful will China be with its new narrative that China may not the origin of the SARS-CoV-2 virus?
Will China decide to ban travelers from the US if there is a surge in cases in America?
If you were advising Joe Biden or Bernie Sanders what would you tell them to keep from Trump’s approach to China, and what would you advise them to change?
What are some of the longer term effects from the virus outbreak that the stability maintenance system will have to deal with in Hubei and especially Wuhan?
How should foreign countries concerned about CCP propaganda, information controls and possible political interference deal with WeChat inside their borders?
And what ever else you want to discuss, respectfully please. Thanks-Bill
I currently live in Beijing and seeing the way in which the Party has mobilized so many community members to take part in the "epidemic prevention measures" is very telling when looking at this question. Through all of the posters, news articles, and power given to the "community health volunteers", it is apparent that the propaganda is working on the surface. In my neighborhood surrounding Guozijian hutong there were so many community volunteers that they had to create extra roles for everyone to fill. Through empowering so many communities to lead their own neighborhood response, it also shifts blame to local bureaucrats if and when there is a continued spread of the coronavirus. This has led to many communities creating rules that are even stricter than those issued by the city government. Furthermore, most locals are praising the increased restrictions and stating that China is the country most adequately poised to keep its citizens safe due to their ability to quickly enforce new regulations.
The only way I could foresee a breakdown of this trust and celebration of Party efforts to combat the virus is if there is a widespread movement of people from Wuhan criticizing the treatment of coronavirus patients or the lockdown of the city.
After the situation has resolved, I foresee unemployment and youth underemployment as the biggest obstacle for the stability of the Party. A stable economy is the current "mandate of heaven" that ensures the Party's longevity. It is apparent that the government is already nervous about what a destabilized economy with high unemployment rates will do as they announced: "a string of measures to ensure job creation, facilitate employment of migrant workers and college graduates, and solve difficulties for businesses to stabilize employment amid the novel coronavirus outbreak" (Xinhua, March 9). While college graduates this year may have increased opportunities in the public sector as the central government tries to manage the excess labor supply, many young graduates will struggle to find work within their intended field which could create tension.
1. I think Pompeo was smart to couch this response in terms of reciprocity. China’s arrogant response (in particular Hua Chunying’s smug “let’s play” tweet, which displayed the relative maturity level of a teenage Xbox gamer) was a missed opportunity to save face. Trump’s got no love for most of these Western media outlets, I doubt he cares if they end up as collateral damage in his effort to castigate China.
2. Successful inside China (at least to the point of muddying the waters), no effect on prevailing narrative outside China.
3. I don’t think they will ban Americans. They were badly stung by their failure to prevent the early US travel ban and they will find it useful to have the moral high ground, at least for now. In practical terms the number of non-ethnic Chinese American travelers entering China is probably so low right now as to make it a non-issue.
4. Keep it all, add additional punitive measures as needed. Keep saying nice things about Xi as that paradoxically robs him of the victim status he needs to benefit personally from US measures and actually creates a subtle dissonance between his relationship with Trump and how Chinese people see their relationship with America. In other words, “Why is this Xi guy so buddy buddy with the American President when they are constantly doing things to harm China?”
5. This one is just hard to predict until it happens. The CCP will eventually fall in a spectacular fashion as the Qing and the KMT did, but until it happens it’s continued survival will continue to serve as evidence of its infallibility.
6. Hubei is the new Henan/Dongbei. Those people will face lots of internal discrimination as dirty/unclean. The local government has basically been purged so patronage networks are going to be messy for a while, so it will be hard to get things done. It will be a tough decade (even relative to the rest of China).
7. Wechat should be blocked in all countries outside China. Aside from the national security issues of having a service like this operating in a foreign country, it’s a hub of China centered criminal human trafficking networks, visa fraud, and illegal commerce such as unlicensed cab and bus operations. If you can’t ban it then pass local data storage laws, require a domestic joint venture with a suitable partner, or use whatever other provision on a reciprocal basis (all of these laws already exist within China re: foreign social media) to get your hooks in it.
In response to number 7. I'm Canadian, but I believe this response goes for the US and other countries as well: a well functioning democracy requires a well educated population. We need to boost education quality, especially in media literacy and critical thinking.
When everyone is well educated and capable of scrutinizing information on their own, we won't have people falling for conspiracy theories. Well, at least the numbers of these people will be much smaller, and there will be more educated people around to convince the conspiracy nuts they are in the wrong.
For the US, they could block WeChat for trade reasons. How much have the big American tech firms lost out on? WeChat and perhaps others could be blocked until China lifts their ban on Facebook, Twitter, Google, etc.
But blocking WeChat to stop the spread of disinformation will not work. (They use Facebook already) The only solution for that is education starting from a young age.
I'm a college counselor in Xi'an. I'm just going to point out that as I predicted in the last thread, most schools across China have not resumed beyond online classes. Many universities are only starting online classes this week. Personally, in Shaanxi, it feels like we are waiting for a goddamned proverbial Godot. No one at our school or in the edu bureau here can make any kind of educated guess about when schools will resume. First it was announced as March 2, then it was pushed back to "later in March" and now it is anybody's best guess.
Here in Xi'an, there are more cars on the road and people walking around than before, but the reality is most businesses are still shut. The ones that are open are mostly in malls that have almost no foot traffic (excepting supermarkets). The public spaces that I have seen return to normal is in the parks: lots of elderly people without masks. If it were me, I would probably be sick of the idea of spending my last days cooped up at home. Divorce offices also reopened, and apparently are booked up with appointments through the end of the month. I guess those folks couldn't hack it together. For some foreigners who don't know Chinese, getting around here in Xi'an is a pain in the ass, because you need to register in a city-wide system (Chinese language only) that requires scanning a personal QR code to enter malls, etc. It is like Xinjiang in that way that they ask for your personal and passport info to enter public spaces, but higher tech. If you made it this far, thanks for reading my frustrated rant. It sucks to not be able to do my job properly lol.
HOW PANDEMICS CHANGE HISTORY - The New Yorker March 3. Interview with Frank Snowden (History of Medicine, Yale). Worth reading. His comments on China's handling of the virus are more humane and fair-minded / objective than most of what I've read. -- Moss Roberts
Whether Biden or Sanders to get the nomination, I would like to see an honest debate with Trump on China. The assumptions the U.S media (including Bill) made about China, her leadership, her governing system, her world view (for example BRI) and her attitude towards the corona virus are seriously twisted. China and Xi appear far more self-confident than the U.S. media postulated, it worries me that the people of the U.S. are being led (by media? By right wing think tank? Or by an anti-China cult?) to a cliff without realizing it. China may not be doing everything right but she is doing and doing for the benefit of her people far more than what American government is doing for her people. Corona Virus is just another example.
5. As I told my colleagues, there must be a much much severe societal crisis to overturn the CCP than a mere pandemic. The CCP's downfall comes from chaos, and the shutdown of the economy is more a sign of control. What I do think is that when the dust settles there may be increased bargaining space for reformers to press some changes in the top-down, bureaucratic governance of the CCP to allow the system to become more flexible in responding to sudden and new crises. More channels for whistleblowers to report to relevant bodies without having to go through the chain of command is one potential innovation, though this will obviously be weighed against the need for control of agenda. While the general population in China appears satisfied that the government responded forcefully once the cat was out of the bag, the intelligentsia and factions in the CCP will likely keep in mind that Xi was absent for a long while and how the system failed to respond swiftly, which in turn forced such a heavy cost on the economy to stop the spread. How that will play out in two years is interesting, but I'm sure Xi will have lots of time and allies to help devise a plan to at least stay in power, if not in a different way than currently.
For us crossing our fingers for a return to more devolved leadership at the top, I'm at least happy Li Keqiang, obviously the high-profile fall guy, managed to run a relatively tight ship, even if the boss swooped in and took credit in the end. Li lives to die another day, most likely 2022.
7. This is a tricky question. Countries which claim to uphold freedom of speech and of the press can't exactly shut down WeChat outright, as China has done with almost all foreign social media platforms. Getting WeChat censors to take down content that violates foreign laws in real time could take a Herculean effort, too. What seems obvious to me as a first step, though, is for countries outside of China to step up their monitoring of what's being shared on the app. And when foreign leaders find illegal or subversive content on WeChat, they should start talking about it more too, and include pictures and videos of the content in their messages. This will help make people see the problem as something a lot more real than if all they heard were some vague references to an app that they'd never heard which uses a foreign language they can't read anyway. And who knows? Publicizing the CCP's attempts to subvert the media and even politics in foreign countries could even help to dampen their influence by encouraging WeChat users to take what they see on it just that much less literally.
Re 4: i d say carrot and sticks work. Divide and conquer work. All sticks and all out demonisation of the entire Chinese government/system/civilisation (especially when against obvious facts) dont work. World history everywhere and throughout shows real successful change happens when the ruling elite itself split into pro and anti change factions. Under Trump and his ragtag army of charlatans and amatuers, the opposite has been taking place.
1. Engaging in international tit-for-tats is risky and destructive in any case, but this time I think it's going to be China that pulls the stops first. It seems like they have a lot more to lose if their journalists lose access to the US than Americans would lose if most US journalists are barred from China. Chinese media can't as easily lean on reporting from other countries' journalists, and the immense restrictions on foreign journalists in China makes it very difficult for them to do the kind of reporting from the ground that they wouldn't be able to do remotely anyway.
6. It's going to be really tough to prevent a wave of unemployment, and unemployment is by its nature a source of instability which could potentially spread across the country. While the government's certainly had its eye on containing this possibility through adjusting policies, the already lengthy duration of the crisis control measures and high likelihood of further lengthening them mean that circumstances are already pretty serious. My anecdotal evidence says that lots of people have already left their jobs or been abandoned as their small-scale employers simply ceased to exist, and much larger numbers have been stilted on their wages for January and February. It's impossible to fully predict now, but the damage in the service sector is going to be very extensive.
5. This isn't a question for me. I'm no Party-watcher or specialist on semiology in the Sovietologist tradition. But as a layman, it sticks out to me that most Chinese right now are not altogether satisfied with the government's response to the crisis.
4. I'd urge him to stay on course! Trump hasn't exactly set a great precedent for this, what with pulling out of the TPP being virtually his first act in office, but it's vital that Americans present a united face to the Chinese government in a period of tension like this. The CCP brass see the continuity and long-term consistency of their government as one of its central advantages over democratic political systems. Whether this is true or not is up for debate, but it's certain that they'll jump at the chance to exploit perceived inconsistency on the American side. Why bother making making meaningful concessions on a deal when you can just make halfhearted ones with one guy and renege without consequences when a new guy who has all new priorities replaces him?
3. A day ago I would have said that a travel ban on Americans into China due to the virus is impossible. Today, after the announced quarantine restrictions on travelers from Japan, South Korea, and Italy, I'm less certain. Still, I doubt that travel will be banned altogether even if there is a surge of cases in the US. The number of Chinese stateside at any given time is huge, and many of them have ties to the elites. A mandatory quarantine, on the other hand, seems very likely.
2. It looks like it's gaining some steam on the mainland. My gut feeling is that conspiracy theories are really hard to extinguish, especially in the Chinese context where WeChat and the media environment give a higher prevalence to irregular sources of information as compared to the West. Even if all figures at all levels of the government were to turn around tomorrow and denounce this as a rootless conspiracy theory, I think the idea that the virus was spread unintentionally into China from foreign countries (or else that it was an American plot) will stick around for years to come as a kind of "received wisdom" about this crisis.
RE: #4, I'd tell them to consider the macro - a) "Face" is everything with China. You embarrass them, constructive negotiations become almost impossible & b) their government needs to keep 1.4B people just-happy-enough not to revolt. Best way to do that is bring more people into the middle class. Consider how we can help them there while also protecting American principles, security, and IP.
#7 - the harsh control mechanisms inside China coupled with the pernicious influence campaigns externally should be taken very seriously by all free nations and free people. One of the pillar concepts of Chinese history, the Mandate of Heaven, recognizes China's leaders' power comes from a divine source, but it is contingent upon capable and benevolent rule. This concept helped develop China into one of the few enduring civilizations on this planet. How does China today measure on the Mandate of Heaven scale? I'm no historian, so I'd like to hear how some of you educated in Chinese history would compare Xi's CCP to different rulers in Chinese dynasties through the ages. Does anyone out there feel China today is determined to be on the other side of the Opium Wars saga (i.e. fentanyl, social media influence war, land grabs)?
The second point to consider in 5. (CCP and the WuHan outbreak): wise scientific hands in China will want to review the information and authority structure that fed international WHO the information that “there is little evidence of human to human transmission”. Was this a scientific claim or a CCP claim?
This relates to #1,#2 and #5 but is an update of my response last week regarding how successful the CCP messaging has been to inspire confidence in the Chinese system in the context of virus crisis.
It's not just my mother-in-law in Sichuan who seems to share Bill's mother-in-law's view that Americans are not safe because our system is not prepared to handle a crisis like this. A friend from Beijing who lives in Baltimore and whose husband, also from Beijing, is a neurosurgery resident at Hopkins Hospital, told my wife this week that she wants to flee the United States and return to China, where in her view, the government has the capability to keep people safe. These are people in their 30's who have committed to settling in the United States for good. They are cosmopolitan people, but like many Chinese of their generation, even after settling abroad, they continue to be informed by Chinese commercial and social media sources.
And the Chinese diaspora social media community here is in complete panic mode. The panic is basically a panic that Americans aren't panicking. There've been some news reports to this effect -- Business Insider wrote of a Bay Area guy in shock about lack of response after returning to San Francisco from China.
If this spreads, and the fatality rate drops sharply, and it just becomes an endemic coronavirus that is not terribly deadly -- as some on this thread are joining Trump in suggesting -- then the whole conversation is moot, although it could definitely hurt China.
But if this has a fatality rate in the 2% to 4% range, this is a failure of our system on par with the 2008 financial crisis or the Iraq War -- in terms of the narrative that Chinese people will be 100% convinced by.
I hopped off a plane from Beijing in late January, had symptoms (shortness of breath coughing and cold) at about day 12, called the health department and they had no way to screen or track me. I wanted to be tested but they said I wasn't eligible.
According to at least one report I heard earlier this week or last week, South Korea was testing 10's of thousands of people and we were testing hundreds... (I just heard a California congressional representative say on television that there is no one and no way to know how many tests are being done and he couldn't answer the question of whether they have the tests needed to test people on a newly quarantined cruise ship.)
That's more than a month of time to prepare and we are just responding on the screening/testing side now. The government should have been scrambling to fix this problem in late January when people like me were asking to be tested.
Like most, at the outset, I thought this posed huge risks for Xi and the CCP. But now I think that in most scenarios of how this might shake out it's either a win or a massive win for the CCP -- in terms of messaging directed at local Chinese and the Chinese diaspora. It's exacerbated by the election and a perception that Trump can't risk damage to the economy during an election year. On par with 2008 financial crisis in terms of discrediting out system.
"like many Chinese of their generation, even after settling abroad, they continue to be informed by Chinese commercial and social media sources"
What really amazes me is that many of these people have been here long enough to read in English. However, probably due to mental inertia, they still absorb formation mostly, if not exclusively, from WeChat and other chinese media.
Any one has idea how to deal with this kind of mental inertia? I know people who are willing to pay $ for a good strategy.
'these people' behave as any other immigrant/ex pat group in any country would, including those in China. What exactly are you amazed by and suggesting to be done about it? Education Camps?
Not really like any other ex pat. Speaking of my own experience, I have been in the US for over 20 years and I can still sense the impact of the "brain washing" education I had in China.
In addition to brain washing is the fear instilled by regime. Imagine a person from Oceania (1984), even she/he was lucky enough to move out of there, she/he will still have a tough time to feel safe to speak out.
The US medical industry is totally fragmented like all industries so not set up to respond until you get to extreme catastrophic conditions. Then It will be too late. Our son came back from Beijing on the last UA flight out of Beijing on Feb. 4, he was given an info sheet but the attitude was very casual. The US is depending on luck on this one. God bless.
No. 5 (CCP handling of the emergence of COVID-19) My feeling - there will be an intense “within CCP” debate. It has been a public health disaster because of initial secrecy. President Xi’s “secret speech” on 7 Jan. to contain the virus is a contradiction in terms.
The longer term problem with this virus outbreak is the trust factor between countries are breaking down, so maybe we are going back towards the early 1900s which was certainly an awesome time
as for 4, who the F knows, if I'm advising them I'd try to aim for whatever is actually most likely to win which may or may not have to do with China and/or have to carry through
Re question 2, I think that China will succeed in sowing confusion and skepticism about the disease's origins among Chinese citizens. It will not succeed globally.
On Q7, for one thing US should make sure WeChat never gains access to the banking system and prevent the payment function from becoming the killer app it is in China. For myself, I have two mobile phones, one for the rest of the world and one for China on which I load WeChat and other China apps, as some Chinese who live in the US and UK do. Without WeChat you simply cannot maintain professional or personal relations with people in China.
Has anyone seen this report (https://protect-eu.mimecast.com/s/jJd6CxnMjipjKkH4H1Np?domain=r20.rs6.net) on China's Global Energy Finance showing a dramatic decline in global investments in the last two years? This is surprising to me and I can’t quite figure out how to explain this trend based on my other reading up to this point. How do you make sense of this?
Re question 5, who are the credible competitors for power with Xi? Given that they probably won't self-identify, does anyone see possible contenders who could successfully leverage covid-19?
About question 5: In view of the relaxed attitude in foreign countries about corona, if these allow a full outbreak (out of incompetence of else) and suffer proportionally much less economic damage than China, I think the uppermost Don Quixote leading the people's fight against the common cold will have something to explain.
On question 2: In view of the geographic concentration on Wuhan, it is difficult, if not impossible, to put the blame on foreign countries. However, not that China is the cheapest place for DNA testing, and uncounted people have been sending their spit to China for analysis. But then, the virus should have spread from Shenzhen, which it didn't.
To question 1: China absolutely needs foreign press, because otherwise it will be victimised by its own propaganda, result of which the world has seen before. The approach to expel Chinese "journalists" is correct. Standing up for foreign journalists has never been a strength of any country concerned. Every major foreign journalist in China has at least 5 minders and one guiding officer (whom they may never meet), who botch interviews and intimidate contacts, on the milder end of the spectrum. These practises clearly have to stop. Reciprocity may help may help to achieve that and it is wrong not to challenge China on that.
Godfree Roberts was an American expat in Thailand who started a "business" to swindle retirees out of their money promising to help them retire in Thailand. At the same time he was writing and self-publishing books about faith healing and how things like yoga and meditation can heal serious medical issues. It's all charlatanism, obviously. A few years ago he made a name for himself pumping out blog posts about how everything the CCP does or ever did is great and any sort of criticism can be hand waved away because the U.S. is behind some sort of conspiracy. My favorite quote of his, that you can find on his Quora page, is "China is the most democratic country in the world." He also makes sure to let his mind be known on not just the Sinocism threads, but on just about every China-related blog space you can find Roberts trying to explain away any sort of criticism by copy/pasting some quote from this or that public figure or writing a tirade about how the U.S./globalists/whoever are behind the world's ills. In his most recent diatribe about COVID-19 he makes the assertion that the virus was introduced by U.S. soldiers that went to Wuhan to compete in the World Military Games. I don't even think he's ever been to China.
I had seen his stuff on Quora and could see he was a totally dedicated CCP apologist, but couldn’t fathom his motivation. Good to know more background, but still no idea why he does it, if not for money.
Many have accused him of being paid by the CCP or someone close, but I've never seen solid proof of this. Worth noting, SCMP published an article (linked below) not long ago that quotes the head of the United Front Work Department saying that "that working with online influencers was now a key department priority." He's one of the many CCP-apologists that started popping up on the web ~5 years ago that seems to coalesce around the website Quora.com. There are dozens of these guys and they more or less say the same thing.
And it doesn't really matter if people believe him or not. His writings resonate with the people who it needs to. It solidifies the opinions of the anti-US/pro-CCP folks and sews the seeds of doubt in more neutral people. This was a common tactic used by the Russians to meddle in the U.S. elections; saturate the online discussion with paranoid and cynical conspiracy theories and let the audience absorb it until they can't tell what's real or not, leading them to decide to give up and cease participating in politics all together. It's simple, it's effective, and it's diabolical.
You can prove him wrong by actually making a well-balanced post that illustrates the shortcomings and the advantages of the Chinese government, as well as the good and bad sides of Xi Jinping. I don't think a single person here thinks the US is perfect or that Trump is (the latter especially). My inability to take anyone who posts as Sasha TT described seriously is that there is 0 nuance to what those sorts of people say. It's just "all hail the glorious CCP and our perfect Emperor Xi." I don't even talk about my favorite soccer team that way, let alone a government filled with... career politicians.
I’ve heard that he is an American who lives in Thailand, so clearly he doesn’t think China is all that great. He reminds me of “intellectuals“ who always stood up for the Soviet union in the 1930s at the height of the Stalinist terror.
So you live in another country that REALLY dislikes China, i.e. Vietnam? Man, some of us have long-standing experience in China. I know several high-ranking government officials very well. I call both of them shushu, if you even know what that means. They are far less blindly optimistic than you are behind closed doors (yep, they can be quite forthright so long as I am willing joke about/criticize the US a bit, which I very much am). And most of the people there were NOT PLEASED that Xi Jinping removed the term limits for himself. Or about Li Wenliang. But they are subjected to a constant barrage of state media that reminds them of all the great things the CCP is doing for them, which will make anyone forget the bad quickly enough, especially if there's no safe venue to voice anything but support. The stats we work with AS EVERYONE KNOWS, are the ones given those organizations by the banks/government. They are not always verified by independent firms, and even if they are, those independent firms are ones operating within China subject to Chinese rules. Do you think EY will post the real numbers if their resident CCP supervisor tells them "don't"?
Then you will be bankrupt. Unless some INCREDIBLE magic happens in the next 8 months, most of my young friends in Beijing won't have that home. And old-age care is going to get tough. Everyone in China knows about 4-2-1. But you keep believing, buddy. Clearly something happened in your past that makes you bitter towards the US (my adopted nation... I was born in Germany). And I'm sure you're completely innocent in the matter. Heck... maybe you are. But unless you actually live in China, I have to say I won't take you that seriously. I paid 8,500 RMB per month for my Lincuiqiao apartment in Beijing. It didn't even have a real shower. Just a drain with a wooden border running across the middle. And 7 minutes of hot water to shower with... they have awesome high-speed trains and great infrastructure, and god do I love the food... but there is MUCH that isn't rosy (especially when the very air you breathe is anything but).
Several folks have responded very cogently to points 1-3 in ways I agree with, so I'm going to skip to 4:
4. The provocations that lead to Trump's response are valid, in that China's entry into the WTO has absolutely poisoned the global trading regime in a way that is difficult to assess and repair. Nonetheless, his cowboy/go-it-alone approach is not the way to rectify this. The US needs to work in lockstep with allies who have similar concerns, most especially Germany, France, Japan, South Korea, and Canada, to constrain China's trade policies.
Tariffs may well be a part of this strategy, but only a part, and one which must be implemented alongside other major markets for Chinese goods. More important, by far, will be to bake in the rules for global trade as much as possible as soon as possible, and that means engagement with other major exporters or potential exporters on investment and trade agreements among large trade blocs that specify standards which prevent China from "cheating" to maintain a competitive edge.
In short, get into the TPP and replicate it elsewhere, while pushing with other high-value-added economies to constrain Chinese technological theft and purchases and end discriminatory treatment of foreign firms in China. China can alienate the US if it peels off the EU, Japan, and South Korea to the sidelines, but it can't afford to alienate all of them, at all.
The flip side is that, as I've seen others say, if the US is running this race it needs to run. We desperately need to repair our educational system, invest in top-notch physical infrastructure, and publicly fund R&D for hard sciences at home. Abroad, rather than whining endlessly about Chinese "debt trap diplomacy", we need to be prepared to offer a credible alternative on development.
5. It seems that the CCP still has sufficient control over economic policy-making and enough slack in revenues to get the economy back up and running in the aftermath of this, once the virus has burnt itself out. It will be damaging, but not fatal, to both their credibility and the economy.
China's economic health won't come roaring back after this, but I expect that enough of the manufacturing sector will survive, and enough pent-up demand will be waiting for it, for most SMEs to survive if the Party can provide some accommodation and support. Many people are overstating the extent to which the Party is ignoring the plight of the SME sector; if they've proven one thing, it's that they're extremely sensitive to employment disruptions.
From the CCP's perspective, the US response to the coronavirus has been an absolute godsend; Trump's unending ability to stick his head in the sand and prevent an effective federal response makes their initial response seem less bad, and their actions afterwards look decisive following that slow start.
The problem is that there are slow-burning factors that are invisibly undermining the PRC's economy, most especially total factor productivity growth (or the lack thereof) and credit allocation, but there's quite a bit of time before things begin to seize up as a result.
6. With a lot of family in Hubei, I can say with some certainty that the level of trust in government-sponsored or controlled information sources is now obscenely low. That's not going to go away quickly and it will make it hard to avoid revealing the "mailed fist inside the velvet glove" when it comes to maintaining stability. Information control is half the battle and the Party has lost it, arguably for the first time ever.
The "independent journalists" and other media outlets are not well-placed to fill the gap even if they were permitted, for lack of expertise and funding or due to simple ideological bias. The entire Sinosphere media environment increasingly resembles an endless propaganda war between a bunch of nutjobs...
7. I would think that China's "data localization" laws would be an ironic framework if they can be tweaked.
Basically, force WeChat, TikTok, and the others to spin off genuinely independent subsidiaries for US and EU operations, with absolute control and independence with regards to complying with local laws on content, both freedom and removal thereof. All data must be stored in-country, and only business-relevant metadata can be shared with Chinese parent companies or Chinese authorities.
If this independence is violated in anyway, by anyone, nationalize the subsidiaries and all in-country assets from the parent company (maybe with compensation?), then place new management in charge.
China has very little room to complain credibly about such a requirement because it's a near mirror-image of their own data laws. They will anyway, but at this point there's nothing short of baring our belly that could actually mollify China's so-called "diplomats".
(About the point 6 in your post) The level of trust in government-controlled news sources is indeed low across China and the Chinese diaspora, but I would say that it's much lower in Hubei than in the rest of China and the diaspora. Hubei, of course, has suffered immensely (and still is), so many there have a very different take on it.
Except that surely Hubei residents would never blame themselves? It s human to blame others, especially a government like chicom. But com'on, someone needs to tell them to look in the mirror...chicom has been too indulgent of certain traditional freedoms if anything.
Point taken, though I also have friends in Beijing, Xi'an, Yunnan, Nanjing, Hebei, and here in the US who are similarly skeptical. Nonscientific, but since no statistically representative sample exists, that's what we're left with, impressions and anecdotes. My impression is that Party credibility has taken a huge hit everywhere, though much larger in Hubei.
The Diaspora is a whole different ballgame. The only professional news outlets that seem to exist are Taiwanese, and the American and Canadian diaspora media organizations are almost all rabidly anti-CCP, except for the ones sponsored directly by the CCP. Hence my description above; it's a propaganda war, pure and simple.
Truth is the first casualty of war indeed. And at the risk of being non PC, there is a special talent for making things up in sinomedia, chicom or non chicom. It s simply appalling.
I agree with you that the Party credibility has indeed taken a hit, though that magnitude may differ a lot in different demographics. My impression talking to family in China is that the belief in the Party among the older generation is still intact, whereas the credibility has taken a huge hit among many of the younger generations.
Excellent analysis. The one thing I would say about the USG management of the Sino-US political relationship or trade and investment, it is very limited in capacity and unity. Therefore tariffs are the easy go to solution.
A new administration should partner with China in leading global renewable energy and carbon sequestration in biomass efforts.This is essential tool for global ecological economic growth and in mutual and global interest.
1. China will not respond more harshly by expelling more foreign journalists. The U.S. action was a shot across the bow, not a declaration of war on Chinese journalists.
2. At some point the science will pinpoint the origin - and I would recommend listening to scientists from international organizations and not connected to any political institution.
3. Yes - China will start to selectively ban U.S. travelers, but short term only. The travel industry is a critical part of China showing they have this under control, so short term response to show they care about the spread of COVID in China, and then a quick relaxation to get the travel industry back on its feet.
4. That's it's own thread
5. They will certainly try to spin it - their use of the tracking technology will not stop once the virus crisis has ended. that is here to stay.
6. long term this will reduce employment - many companies now realizing that they may not need as many employees (they can't fire people now but watch for 12 months from now), and commercial real estate will suffer as remote work becomes more accepted. the on line education market has received a HUGE boost.
7. WeChat - would be perfectly within rights to say if our social media companies can't operate within China, WeChat can't operate within our borders, or have to follow the same draconian reporting rules they follow in China. However, the likely outcome is much wringing of hands and absolutely nothing happens.
The people indulging conspiracy theories at this stage are horrible individuals. To think that either the US or China's larger government (which is nothing if not rational and risk-averse) would unleash a disease with epidemic potential in a globalized economy... it insults every rational fiber of my being. Say what you will about the CCP... it is a self-interested government even more so than the US. It won't play with fire. Neither would the US, in this era of flagging international credibility. This is my belief. And even if you disagree, I find anyone who is willing to spread possibly World War igniting conspiracy theories (if true) without real proof to be highly irresponsible.
It is vaguely plausible that the central authorities held off in publicly announcing and responding to the outbreak once they got to the bottom of what was going on, in the hopes that it would spread abroad and make their early response failures stand out less.
At that point they would have known they'd delayed too long and that another week or so wouldn't make a huge difference in the public mind, but might give them a propaganda edge. That would have cost a lot of lives, but that rarely enters into the CCP's political calculus.
Even that's a stretch, in my opinion, because it's very likely that the first thought in the mind of their senior leadership would have been to slam down the gauntlet as quickly as possible.
The notion that the CCP deliberately released a bioweapon is just beyond ludicrous. There's simply no reason to do it, at all, regardless of what certain individuals are saying in this thread. No goal which it might further, no political gain. In fact, it's deeply counterproductive for many of their goals.
I would even go so far as to say "producing" something like this in whatever Level 4 biolab or whatnot is in Wuhan is also extremely unlikely. Deployment and containment of such a weapon is simply an extremely difficult business. The risk of discovery in making and using such a weapon is very high. And the response by the US upon facing some level of certain doom or another, having discovered a likely aggressor, would be swift and lethal. As such, I find the "loss of control of the bioweapon" theory equally unfeasible.
I'm a lawyer, not a scientist. So my argument is based on how logical it is to mess with inherently unpredictable and volatile weaponry. Especially by a people as culturally risk-averse and terrified of the slightest scratch - whereupon they run to the nearest hospital (long story, having to do with owning a cat that definitely has never had rabies) - as the average Chinese person.
'By a people as risk averse' - are there any ethnicity of people who ARE NOT risk averse? From what I know about evolutionary psychology, risk aversion is a human quality.
To David Lougherty, just because I provide consistent point of view asking for valid refutations does not mean Im a troll.
I - as mentioned in previous posts - just want people to overcome their cognitive dissonance and provide balanced arguments
Benign research into viruses does sometimes involve engineering them to be more dangerous. It's vaguely possible that this slipped out of a lab somewhere that was doing that sort of research. Nonetheless, it's not the most plausible explanation, because it's genuinely not that dangerous and has already possibly mutated to be less so.
The entire "bioweapon" line of questioning is really just complete BS put out to muddy the waters.
I don't know how you can believe your first paragraph and come to the conclusion in the second.
The line is so thin from 'we are just engineering this *because we have to* ' to 'its a bioweapon, with malicious intention'...how can u prove one over the other? You cant
i think that the whole idea of using bioweapons is terrible. I would not speculate on anything. If you want to get insight, better study the past: who used bioweapons before, when and why, what was the outcome? There are plenty of examples in the past. What can we learn from it? And with that insight, help to think in terms of what can be said or done to advise against it to help prevent it.
Please don't call people 'horrible individuals' - it is an ad homein attack that is the antithesis of the ground rules Bill Bishop set up regarding respectful speech for this thread.
Challenge your thinking. How could a bio weapon not targeted OVERTLY to any country and was "accidentally" released (escaped or w/e term to use) be 'World War igniting' ?
The CCP throughout history has sacrificed its citizens lives in various era's in pursuit of its goals for harmony or progress or whatever - why would it stop now?
Moreover, if the CCP doesnt care about its own citizens (even ones who are Han majority) - what makes you think it would care about you / your country?
An ad hominem attack, by its most common definition, is an attack on a specific person you are arguing with, not something as vague as "people," which would just imply some human, somewhere. I think you probably know that, though. If Bill Bishop takes umbrage with what I said, I will stand corrected.
I am no fan of the CCP and its methods, as you can see by searching my name and checking my other comments made within this very thread. I find it disgusting that they are implicitly encouraging these conspiracy theories within their own cyberspace, for example. But that doesn't mean I think (a) we should fall to that level, or (b) it is right to respond in kind.
Well said. Often people dont seem to realise that being anti-chicom doesnt give you a free pass to indulge in despicable behaviours and ideologies. This blindness seems to affect particularly anti-chicom Chinese and anti-chicom Americans, based on unscientific sampling.
My fundamental question has never been answered nor is it despicable behavior to engage in this type of inquiry..its why we are here right?...its just inquiry at the end of the day
I welcome inquiry, as should any man of a scholarly disposition. And I do not know why you are acting like I put you on trial. If you can accuse the Chinese government of doing this with solid, peer-reviewed/scientific method-based evidence, I'll be indescribably sad that the CCP has sunk even lower than before, but I will acknowledge what is presented to me. Short of such proof, I was merely calling out the tinfoil crackpots who spew this kind of thing around with barely any proof. And for the record, this behavior seems more prevalent in China than the US, and I have said similar things on my WeChat moments, i.e. "if you're a contact of mine and believe the US started the virus based on spurious evidence, please let me know so we can break contact."
I have failed to understand the overwhelming evidence indicating that this IS NOT a bio weapon in some form. Maybe it is a bioweapon released before its scheduled time, but I have failed to meet an interlocutor who gives me a response to my fundamental question.
If we act *as if* this is a bio weapon released with purpose, then what is China's benefit? I see several benefits and Im sure some have yet to materialize. For an evil empire that has a command economy and thinks in terms of 5 years and 10 year plans, how can you understand their point of view? You cant empathize and *be in their shoes* - so stop pretending.
Also, even "experts" can be wrong. Read the work of Phillip Tetlock and Daniel Kahneman.
There is simply not convincing evidence on either side about intention/ origin. Its disheartening that the arguments among those who are 'educated' / 'hooked in' (those of is in here) are one side when the evidence is not overwhelming or one sided.
Like I said in another post / thread, we are all idiots to think we have full knowledge. The CIA has talked about this as a bioweapon release behind closed doors - why cant we? Because of insidious cognitive dissonance that limits us all.
BTW- Pascal, I do not feel like I have been put on trial. To the contrary, you seem like an interesting person to have a one on one with / beer with (if US based)
Question 3: Xi and the CCP know they lost the battle and catalylized a pandemic. I don't think they will ban foreign travelers because foreign travelers are great scapegoats for the line that says , " look we controlled and solved the problem at home and now we have become the victim of others, who by the way really started it to begin with."
I have written, and continue to believe that President Xi and the CCP will use their/his expert management of the outbreak (after initial missteps) to emerge stronger. And this is likely to be compared and contrasted with, not just by the Chinese, but by our media and Democratic candidates (e.g. Biden, Sanders), the US' current policies/management of the COVID-19 epidemic. Interestingly, President Xi has not publicly commented upon or praised President Trump's handling of the epidemic. The other interesting thing to speculate about is how the Chinese view a potential Biden presidency. During 2008-2016, the relationship was better than now, and even long-time observers such as Henry Kissinger (in a 2016 interview) gave President Obama a B+ for his management of relations with China. So this merits watching as the US 2020 election kicks into high gear. Lastly, will Xi use his novel, potentially strengthened position to emphasize increased cooperation with the US and multipolar institutions (e.g. WHO) w/r to pandemic preparedness, scientific research, etc.? See AMB Jo Detrani's excellent article (https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2020/feb/17/coronavirus-emergency-should-renew-us-china-diplom/) for a discussion of such possibilities. Thanks Bill for this forum.
Had China been transparent early in the outbreak containment may have been an option. Unfortunately, the Chinese system for containment only went into effect once infection levels had risen to the point of no longer being able to suppress its existence. Had there been a free flow of information in the China other countries could have put into place similar containment strategies (i.e. restrict ALL travel to/from China) much earlier. This is the only way the disease could have been contained in China.
We are now at a point where the disease has spread beyond any reasonable way to contain it. The saving grace for developed countries is public health systems that can identify and treat patients along with the free flow of information that will help inform the public and officials.
To praise China's management of this incident is like praising the unibomber for protecting himself from mail bombs.
China banned Facebook, Twitter, and most social media from their internet years ago. And they've been following up bringing it ever closer to a 100% ban in the years since. For example, Pinterest and Reddit were the big casualties of 2018.
1.. History of these actions is not particularly instructive. On the one hand one wants to show willingness to go negative if pushed by the other side to do so, i.e. have the courage of one's convictions, but at the same time the point of the pressure is to push toward more constructive pathways, so one wants an exit ramp that leads to something useful. Punishment or retribution just to demonstrate political will is pretty limited and ultimately likely to be counterproductive unless paired with tactics and strategy to advance. (Note: sometimes it is just necessary for a purpose such as counterintelligence to take a stand-alone negative action;that is different, and justified on its own terms.)
2. Too little too late, and doesn't matter now. The reputation that China should care about is with global health care professionals such as CDC in US and the WHO. If China wants a reputation for responsible leadership, along the lines of its international role on climate change, it needs to find a way to manage the Party's inability to be transparent with sensitive health-related data. China isn't alone in failing to solve this problem, but if you go back to SARS it was the same; HK got hit "first" in the sense that Guangdong covered it up.
3. It shouldn't; America shouldn't be banning travelers now that there is community spread; it is a waste of time and resources to screen borders once a country has domestic community spread.
4. Show willingness to adjust to new reality of a stronger, more resilient China that is pushing against US (e.g. intellectual property, cyber), but do so in a thoughtful, explicit framework for a balance of competition and cooperation. Give up the grandstanding and lying, don't use tariffs that are self-defeating, and do lay out a plan for US leadership in the global economy and as a regional economic and trading power in Asia, including by reviving TPP.
5. HK thought it had SARS under control then it roared back when a superspreader infected a new 40,000 person apartment complex. The Party's reputation could suffer if what looks like a winding down in China is reversed. But my guess would be the Party and people Xi identifies in the Party would take the fall if that were to happen, not Xi, not Xi's allies. Overall I'd say Xi will get credit for managing something that hit the world, not just China, and he'll be able to stir nationalist or populist feeling to protect himself from any serious political fallout. The caveat? How bad is the economic blow and upon whom does it fall? Someday China will suffer severe recession/economic depression, and that is the vulnerability the Party and Xi can least defend.
6. Don't know, but my guess would be the lack of transparency and accountability in the health care system spreading to the political system.
7. So-called "western" countries should use their strengths, namely civil society, to show China and other authoritarians that our political systems can better manage the stress and challenge of health or other crises due to their transparency, accountability, and ability to maneuver, change more easily as events demand. We should avoid the worst of what Trump has done to politicize, obfuscate, lie, cheat, and otherwise make democracy look like a thin veneer that is so superficial as to just hide an authoritarian instinct beneath. In short, we should tap into our traditional, long-established constitutional system and eschew Trumpian rhetoric and resort to what are truly "un-American" tactics redolent of the McCarthy era. We are at our best when we own up to our mistakes and throw ourselves into a collective, united future; at our worst when our leaders seek to divide us and isolate the American people into discrete, manipulable factions--that is more of a CCP tactic.
And looking beyond the presidential election? We should
have a strategy for US-China relations and US leadership in Asia on political, economic, social, and cultural fronts;
that strategy should be tied to a first two years legislative agenda for strengthening the foundation at home for our foreign policy abroad;
that strategy should be implemented according to a tactical set of plans that have buy-in from our national security, economic and trade, and political and civil society leadership in the cabinet;
we should have designated leaders for implementation of the strategy aimed at sustaining a productive relationship with China that balances competition and cooperation. We need some productive channels to help manage our respective roles in the global economy and on global issues such as cyber; we also need to protect our vital national interests and not shrink from confrontation if needed. It is not inevitable that the relationship evolve toward a myopic, cold-war-like approach that has us solely confronting and not cooperating. It is also not feasible for us to ignore or undercut our own national interests in the sustainment of a rules based international order.
And one reminder; just because it didn't become a flaming hot confrontation last year doesn't mean Taiwan will not blow up this year or next; it remains the fundamental issue in the relationship and can at any time completely derail all other efforts to manage a rapidly evolving and strategically critical set of economic, political, and social ties.
My two cents, anyway. Thanks for the opportunity to comment. Best, Jim Keith
It is not only about using trade as the carrot and stick. I have been working in the advertising business and the leading mantra is "Perception is reality". You want to give offers that people want. If as a leader promised your people to regain pride and both opponents have promised "Make (my country) great again". it must no be on behalf of the other party's perception of e.g rejuvenation or financial improvements in a country. The compromises must be on a human level and you both have to perceive that you have made progress through giving up something and still have the ability to reach the dream you promised AND THE PEOPLE PERCEIVE AS REALITY.
Reading these comments shows a concerning trend towards militarism. Cut it off they say. Break ties with China. Stop funding of student groups by foreign governments. Throw out all the journo-spies. Throw out the baby with the bath water!
These are all signs of more acceptance of Authoritarian measures than in previous years. Really, what happened? For shame, for shame! US Congress does not fund such important programs such as the Fulbright program to send students and scholars overseas merely to cut ties with other countries!
Here are my two cents:
1. US should reiterate the concept of freedom of speech and that news media are not official outlets of the government propaganda machine. However, they should also note that individuals and NGOs may have their own propaganda because of those very own views and opinions. So, US issues this statement, or, they can provide educational material for the journalist visa process and/or waiver that acknowledges this concept. US should not respond tit for tat.
2. Roll some dice and there is your answer.
3. They might, however as others mentioned it will be problematic with large numbers of China nationals in US. It could have a side effect that all foreigners are unwelcome that could continue after the conclusion (hopefully) of the pandemic.
4. Stop poking the bear and work on identifying common issues they can work on together. Focus on intercultural exchange, that is always safe, as well as working out some solution to the trade war (and the larger issue of copyright infringement).
5. They can point to Xi and accuse him of the initial coverup that caused significant damage to the trust of the government by the people. That will take a long time to repair, and, it did happen on his watch which they will blame him for.
6. History repeats itself. Also, there could be a trend that people will now be more suspicious of their neighbors and you may see a rise in false accusations of virus symptoms (of any kind). This could cause instability due to fear and fake news...
7. Windows 10 Pro now has a sandbox mode for Edge as well as virtual system where browser data vanishes when the (virtual machine) sandbox is closed. There could be a push to app developers to create virtual sandboxes for mobile devices to wrap problematic apps around (that could limit snooping). Or, if there was a way to enable EFF Privacy Badger device-wide that would also help with snooping by Facebook, Instagram, etc., but I think by far the biggest issue would be informing the general public that WeChat isn't safe. Most will see it as an attack on China...
7. This is for people who are suggesting we "block" wechat or force them to have servers in US or treat them like how China treated Google or Facebook: STOP and THINK!
In order for us to do that,
#1 We have to pull the apps out of the Appstore, whereas Android doesn't really matter since APK's are in the wild web.
#2 We need to build a firewall service like the Firewall of China. Meaning the government has to control different levels of the stack, from the ISP to the app store level.
THAT IS NOT acceptable because we would literally turn into China.
I would not want the government to have that level of control, in the process of going against Chian we have given up our values and became what we didn't want to be.
In order to have Apple play ball, we are going to have to deal with the 1st amendment and a bunch of legal issues. This wouldn't even survive local court let alone Supreme.
Only a very minor chunk of Tencent's revenue comes from the US, we would have no leverage to force Tencent to do anything.
Yes, but removing WeChat from Google Play and Apple App store will be an effective nudge that discourages people from using it. No need to block it entirely.
I'm actually Canadian, but I do see WeChat / Whats App, youku / youutbe as more of a trade issue than a censorship issue. I wrote somewhere above that the way to address disinformation is through education. A functional democracy needs an educated population, and these days that is especially true for media literacy.
I do not see it as censorship to remove WeChat or Youku. The people are free to express their opinions on other services, Facebook Youtube, etc. Until China unblocks Google and Youtube, the US should block equivalent Chinese services in the US. I would not suggest the Canadian government block these things. Of course, I'm Canadian, so I leave it to the people in your country to decide.
I don't think at this point the US and Canada or Europe generally have fundamental value conflicts. The openness of communication is a key factor in Democracy. If we kill that we might as well just have a totalitarian government (ie China).
Also, don't get your argument anymore.
Are you saying we should block Wechat and Youku in the US since CCP blocked FB & Such in China and say "Tencent you can't make USD anymore! Caz CCP doesn't allow FB+Goog to make RMB?"
If that is the case I don't think Tencent really cares and people would find a way around this so they can keep using Wechat.
Also, are you saying the people who use wechat in the US are not educated enough and don't have enough media literacy? Or people in China?
Also, why should the US block it and cause inconvenience for its citizens while Canada shouldn't? To balance trade? Lastly, if yes, this goes against your original statement of just removing from the store and not blocking service.
Right, we are on the same team. Let me clarify my points.
First, in the last ten years there has been an increasing amount of disinformation and misinformation both in mainstream media and especially on social media. The critical thinking and media literacy required to parse through all of this is missing in much of the population worldwide. My proposed solution is not censorship, it is education. We need to teach people to understand media better and how to think critically about the media they are consuming. This goes for any democracy.
As for blocking WeChat: I believe if there is any government with grounds to block WeChat it would be the US, and only as a trade issue, and perhaps as an anti-espionage measure. You are also right that there will be people that go out of their way to access WeChat, just as there are many people in China that use VPNs. Though the gov could introduce laws barring public employees from using WeChat, Huawei, and other Chinese produces or services. I'm not about to get into an in depth feasibility study. Just want to point out that the US could block WeChat, but not for censorship.
I don't think it is an education problem but a filter bubble issue. Not gonna change as more of us get connected together. US whole issue one Child Pornography is a perfect example.
I actually don't really believe in this East vs West Bullshit.
The US is already blocking Huawei and such, could get worse or better. It really doesn't matter.
Chinese proverb perfectly describes this current happenstance: If you are together for a long time you will separate and you separate for a long time you will come together.
Or some stuff along those lines. All part of a cycle.
Dimitri Alperovitch, founder of security firm Crowdstrike, gave a talk at the RSA security conference saying that DOJ indictments against Chinese state-sponsored hackers caused serious disruptions to their operations and that much of their attack infrastructure would disappear after indictments. He said the same is not true for Russian or Iranian hacking groups. My question is do we agree with this assessment and if so, what’s the reason PRC is more affected by name and shame than other nations?
Can we have a serious discussion about how China released this Corona Virus with intention from its laboratories? I feel everyone has pushed this thought aside without acknowledging that the CPC is NOT ABOVE this type behavior.
Mao once said the same about sacrificing his population to nuclear war because the other half that survived would repopulate China. I can not find the quote right now. We all know China thinks long term in strategic planning.
XJP would benefit by flex muscles on the world stage (新华 article 'Be Bold') and have an legitimate argument for being leader for life (look how well I handled the crisis) and strengthening the panopticon (argument is we need more surveillance to detect these things)
Please overcome your cognitive dissonance, what other reasons did China manufacture this? How do they benefit?
Occam's razor; the simplest explanation is more likely to be the correct one. I favour incompetence over conspiracy any day. Here is a likely scenario. There are two elements to it.
A P4 lab is an incredibly dangerous and, for that reason, incredibly secure facility with very rigid procedures that are supposed to ensure that nothing gets out. In this case they were researching coronaviruses and were actively collecting as many as they could. Their purpose was very unlikely to have been malign. They were working on vaccines for various kinds of flu virus and this was one that they came across, or maybe created by moving the SARS virus across animal species to see what emerged, knowing that this is the route for most new variants. Having found or created this, they probably had it there on the backburner waiting in line to be further researched.
The other element is sloppiness. If you have worked in a Chinese outfit of any sort you will know what I mean. People don't follow procedures unless someone holds a big stick over them. Their entire system is built around strict supervision and hierarchy, not self-discipline and personal responsibility. So things that are a pain in the arse do not get done when people are not being watched. So someone went home with this on their clothing, or contracted it, then went to the market a few hundred metres from the lab to buy a few things on the way home and spread it around. End of story - or in this case, the beginning.
I’d like to insert a possible theory by listing a chain or events.
1.ccp raises tariffs on US farm goods
2. A hog disease wipes out 90% of the chinese hog population, China’s main source of protein
3. Prices at chinese food markets rise by at least 35%
4. Illegal animal sales In Wuhun may very well be the culprit of Black Sabbath(virus).
What is the likelihood that an inflation of food prices drove vendors to sell an increasing amount of unchecked animals as a means to keep food at reasonable prices?
No, because there is a very long tradition of eating all sorts of weird crap in the BS belief that it will increase your libido or perform some other metabolic miracle. The more exotic the animal, the more amazing the results, but more importantly for your question (and if think it is a fair question) , the higher the price.
A. Or is it likely that the 'sloppiness' you mention is a REALLY good (if you are CPC) excuse for a release. How else would you 'release' a bio-weapon?
B. Or is it possible that they were working on this as per what Newman said above INSTEAD they did have malicious purposes and didnt want to get it out now.
To me, I understand the Occam's Razor and arguments for how this is an accident, but I believe there needs to be an honest comprehensive / discussion AS IF it was not an accident. That it was a planned attack.
XJP is already willing to sacrifice the lives of Xinjiang Muslims and militarize reefs in the SCS etc, - why not release this bioweapon?
A virus is a terribly poor weapon, unless you have the antidote. And if you wanted a bio weapon why would you use a pathogen with a 2.5% mortality rate. It makes no sense at all, unless you were trying to bump off your own old people. Now there’s a theory that one could make a very strong case for when you are facing a demographic disaster of your own making!
Thanks for the response! I feel everyone is ignoring this thread...
Im only asking because we should think through 1. How this was 'released' and 2. Why now? To what benefit? 3. What does it mean long term?
We are all fools if we dont realize that this same conversation has occurred at the CIA with the red cell group. (Internal group charged with presenting persuasive counter arguments to different section)
Twitter suspends accounts for raising the possibility that China's biowarfare labs could have been involved with the release of this coronavirus. What is the evidence that refutes any accidental release? China's secure labs have had accidents releasing foot-and-mouth disease, so it's likely other labs might have poor procedures too.
A. Or is it likely that the 'sloppiness' you mention is a REALLY good (if you are CPC) excuse for a release. How else would you 'release' a bio-weapon?
B. Or is it possible that they were working on this as per what Newman said above INSTEAD they did have malicious purposes and didnt want to get it out now.
To me, I understand the Occam's Razor and arguments for how this is an accident, but I believe there needs to be an honest comprehensive / discussion AS IF it was not an accident. That it was a planned attack.
XJP is already willing to sacrifice the lives of Xinjiang Muslims and militarize reefs in the SCS etc, - why not release this bioweapon?
1. Tit for tat is fine as long as we don’t actually do what ccp does and restrict their freedom. If we get to the point where our only options would be to restrict those freedoms just expand from journalists to media in general and start hitting them in Hollywood. People who say it compromises our values sound a lot like victims of the China fallacy. Free lunch is over. Time for them to chew on the tough stuff for a while.
2. I think they could only be successful in China with that awful lie. But who knows they will probably get a good amount of help from the PC crowds in Europe and North America in deflecting from any criticism for spreading said lies.
3. Some say they won’t because it will hurt their economy further and they will need all the help they can get. At most they will do so but without any real teeth just to make a show of it. I would lean toward the latter. When in doubt about ccp, choose the Most cynical Option
4. I think they will focus more on workers and jobs area instead of trade deficits and soften military posture unfortunately
5. It’s all dependent on the economy. If it performs better than expected then he will gain power, of worse he will face some push back
6. The economics in general will recover there much more slowly. Parents will raise hell about school or gaokao being affected. More information or rumors about mishandling. And tourists will take a long time to return to pre virus levels
7. Enforce our laws and/or treat them like huawei. Probably the latter because hitting them for purely free speech issues might impact twitter and others negatively. Label them as an extension of the ccp and disallow them to curtail freedoms based on that rather than just that. Differentiate them from the other platforms and then strike
I'm going to bet that Zhongkao and Gaokao dates get pushed back later into the summer. Too many high schools haven't even announced start dates yet for the spring semester. And yes, this year is going to see a bumper crop of angry parents.
7. Cut it off from SZ HQ. If they want to operate in other countries, make it operate within the laws of that country, on servers within those countries, so in the US case, no access from SZ servers as far as content. This is essentially what China tells Google and Twitter, etc. Payments should be fine. But they should separate that. It's already a monopoly anyway far greater than FB or GG or TT.
#4--So far, rarely discussed is the influence of Trumpism on recent or not-so-recent immigrants from China to the US. Even Steve Bannon has appeared on Mandarin-language YouTube news sites but moderates and progressives never reach out. Many in the PRC-immigrant community view Drumph as "tough on China," and they like him for that. Democrats and progressives should not ignore this 1,700,000 - strong connection to China.
6. Depends on how pissed off people are there. From what we saw with the heckling today, people are pretty fed up with being sacrificed. My immediate neighbor is stuck there. Several teammates from my soccer/football team are as well. Hard to get a read on their thinking over Wechat though so would have to wait until they return. Also so many people from there and from outside have poured so much energy into helping contain things, what will happen with that energy once they're done?
As for travelers ban, probably? as long as there's any sort of reasonable level of outbreak, it would actually be more interesting to see what the US reaction would be especially if there's countries beyond China who does it, I doubt the Trump administration particularly care
More on the US domestic side, what is the risk of corona infection directly impacting the US presidential campaigns and election?
Three remaining presidential candidates are all older men attending big public events and shaking hands with hundreds of people every day... at some level of risk, could Secret Service intervene to protect POTUS from infection risk at campaign events?
Also uf virus is not contained by or reemerges with cooler temperatures in the fall, could it meaningfully impact voter turnout?
On Question #5:
I currently live in Beijing and seeing the way in which the Party has mobilized so many community members to take part in the "epidemic prevention measures" is very telling when looking at this question. Through all of the posters, news articles, and power given to the "community health volunteers", it is apparent that the propaganda is working on the surface. In my neighborhood surrounding Guozijian hutong there were so many community volunteers that they had to create extra roles for everyone to fill. Through empowering so many communities to lead their own neighborhood response, it also shifts blame to local bureaucrats if and when there is a continued spread of the coronavirus. This has led to many communities creating rules that are even stricter than those issued by the city government. Furthermore, most locals are praising the increased restrictions and stating that China is the country most adequately poised to keep its citizens safe due to their ability to quickly enforce new regulations.
The only way I could foresee a breakdown of this trust and celebration of Party efforts to combat the virus is if there is a widespread movement of people from Wuhan criticizing the treatment of coronavirus patients or the lockdown of the city.
After the situation has resolved, I foresee unemployment and youth underemployment as the biggest obstacle for the stability of the Party. A stable economy is the current "mandate of heaven" that ensures the Party's longevity. It is apparent that the government is already nervous about what a destabilized economy with high unemployment rates will do as they announced: "a string of measures to ensure job creation, facilitate employment of migrant workers and college graduates, and solve difficulties for businesses to stabilize employment amid the novel coronavirus outbreak" (Xinhua, March 9). While college graduates this year may have increased opportunities in the public sector as the central government tries to manage the excess labor supply, many young graduates will struggle to find work within their intended field which could create tension.
1. I think Pompeo was smart to couch this response in terms of reciprocity. China’s arrogant response (in particular Hua Chunying’s smug “let’s play” tweet, which displayed the relative maturity level of a teenage Xbox gamer) was a missed opportunity to save face. Trump’s got no love for most of these Western media outlets, I doubt he cares if they end up as collateral damage in his effort to castigate China.
2. Successful inside China (at least to the point of muddying the waters), no effect on prevailing narrative outside China.
3. I don’t think they will ban Americans. They were badly stung by their failure to prevent the early US travel ban and they will find it useful to have the moral high ground, at least for now. In practical terms the number of non-ethnic Chinese American travelers entering China is probably so low right now as to make it a non-issue.
4. Keep it all, add additional punitive measures as needed. Keep saying nice things about Xi as that paradoxically robs him of the victim status he needs to benefit personally from US measures and actually creates a subtle dissonance between his relationship with Trump and how Chinese people see their relationship with America. In other words, “Why is this Xi guy so buddy buddy with the American President when they are constantly doing things to harm China?”
5. This one is just hard to predict until it happens. The CCP will eventually fall in a spectacular fashion as the Qing and the KMT did, but until it happens it’s continued survival will continue to serve as evidence of its infallibility.
6. Hubei is the new Henan/Dongbei. Those people will face lots of internal discrimination as dirty/unclean. The local government has basically been purged so patronage networks are going to be messy for a while, so it will be hard to get things done. It will be a tough decade (even relative to the rest of China).
7. Wechat should be blocked in all countries outside China. Aside from the national security issues of having a service like this operating in a foreign country, it’s a hub of China centered criminal human trafficking networks, visa fraud, and illegal commerce such as unlicensed cab and bus operations. If you can’t ban it then pass local data storage laws, require a domestic joint venture with a suitable partner, or use whatever other provision on a reciprocal basis (all of these laws already exist within China re: foreign social media) to get your hooks in it.
In response to number 7. I'm Canadian, but I believe this response goes for the US and other countries as well: a well functioning democracy requires a well educated population. We need to boost education quality, especially in media literacy and critical thinking.
When everyone is well educated and capable of scrutinizing information on their own, we won't have people falling for conspiracy theories. Well, at least the numbers of these people will be much smaller, and there will be more educated people around to convince the conspiracy nuts they are in the wrong.
For the US, they could block WeChat for trade reasons. How much have the big American tech firms lost out on? WeChat and perhaps others could be blocked until China lifts their ban on Facebook, Twitter, Google, etc.
But blocking WeChat to stop the spread of disinformation will not work. (They use Facebook already) The only solution for that is education starting from a young age.
I'm a college counselor in Xi'an. I'm just going to point out that as I predicted in the last thread, most schools across China have not resumed beyond online classes. Many universities are only starting online classes this week. Personally, in Shaanxi, it feels like we are waiting for a goddamned proverbial Godot. No one at our school or in the edu bureau here can make any kind of educated guess about when schools will resume. First it was announced as March 2, then it was pushed back to "later in March" and now it is anybody's best guess.
Here in Xi'an, there are more cars on the road and people walking around than before, but the reality is most businesses are still shut. The ones that are open are mostly in malls that have almost no foot traffic (excepting supermarkets). The public spaces that I have seen return to normal is in the parks: lots of elderly people without masks. If it were me, I would probably be sick of the idea of spending my last days cooped up at home. Divorce offices also reopened, and apparently are booked up with appointments through the end of the month. I guess those folks couldn't hack it together. For some foreigners who don't know Chinese, getting around here in Xi'an is a pain in the ass, because you need to register in a city-wide system (Chinese language only) that requires scanning a personal QR code to enter malls, etc. It is like Xinjiang in that way that they ask for your personal and passport info to enter public spaces, but higher tech. If you made it this far, thanks for reading my frustrated rant. It sucks to not be able to do my job properly lol.
HOW PANDEMICS CHANGE HISTORY - The New Yorker March 3. Interview with Frank Snowden (History of Medicine, Yale). Worth reading. His comments on China's handling of the virus are more humane and fair-minded / objective than most of what I've read. -- Moss Roberts
Whether Biden or Sanders to get the nomination, I would like to see an honest debate with Trump on China. The assumptions the U.S media (including Bill) made about China, her leadership, her governing system, her world view (for example BRI) and her attitude towards the corona virus are seriously twisted. China and Xi appear far more self-confident than the U.S. media postulated, it worries me that the people of the U.S. are being led (by media? By right wing think tank? Or by an anti-China cult?) to a cliff without realizing it. China may not be doing everything right but she is doing and doing for the benefit of her people far more than what American government is doing for her people. Corona Virus is just another example.
4. Reignite Trade conversations With relevant partners and pass TPP in the first 120 days; keep the Trump policies of market reciprocity in place.
Q4. I hope Bernie will investigate the collusion between Wall street and the CCP mafia. There will be many 1MDB scale dirt to be uncovered.
I don't think Biden will do anything beyond talking, and he will significantly slow down the momentum built up by the Trump team.
5. As I told my colleagues, there must be a much much severe societal crisis to overturn the CCP than a mere pandemic. The CCP's downfall comes from chaos, and the shutdown of the economy is more a sign of control. What I do think is that when the dust settles there may be increased bargaining space for reformers to press some changes in the top-down, bureaucratic governance of the CCP to allow the system to become more flexible in responding to sudden and new crises. More channels for whistleblowers to report to relevant bodies without having to go through the chain of command is one potential innovation, though this will obviously be weighed against the need for control of agenda. While the general population in China appears satisfied that the government responded forcefully once the cat was out of the bag, the intelligentsia and factions in the CCP will likely keep in mind that Xi was absent for a long while and how the system failed to respond swiftly, which in turn forced such a heavy cost on the economy to stop the spread. How that will play out in two years is interesting, but I'm sure Xi will have lots of time and allies to help devise a plan to at least stay in power, if not in a different way than currently.
For us crossing our fingers for a return to more devolved leadership at the top, I'm at least happy Li Keqiang, obviously the high-profile fall guy, managed to run a relatively tight ship, even if the boss swooped in and took credit in the end. Li lives to die another day, most likely 2022.
7. This is a tricky question. Countries which claim to uphold freedom of speech and of the press can't exactly shut down WeChat outright, as China has done with almost all foreign social media platforms. Getting WeChat censors to take down content that violates foreign laws in real time could take a Herculean effort, too. What seems obvious to me as a first step, though, is for countries outside of China to step up their monitoring of what's being shared on the app. And when foreign leaders find illegal or subversive content on WeChat, they should start talking about it more too, and include pictures and videos of the content in their messages. This will help make people see the problem as something a lot more real than if all they heard were some vague references to an app that they'd never heard which uses a foreign language they can't read anyway. And who knows? Publicizing the CCP's attempts to subvert the media and even politics in foreign countries could even help to dampen their influence by encouraging WeChat users to take what they see on it just that much less literally.
Re 4: i d say carrot and sticks work. Divide and conquer work. All sticks and all out demonisation of the entire Chinese government/system/civilisation (especially when against obvious facts) dont work. World history everywhere and throughout shows real successful change happens when the ruling elite itself split into pro and anti change factions. Under Trump and his ragtag army of charlatans and amatuers, the opposite has been taking place.
1. Engaging in international tit-for-tats is risky and destructive in any case, but this time I think it's going to be China that pulls the stops first. It seems like they have a lot more to lose if their journalists lose access to the US than Americans would lose if most US journalists are barred from China. Chinese media can't as easily lean on reporting from other countries' journalists, and the immense restrictions on foreign journalists in China makes it very difficult for them to do the kind of reporting from the ground that they wouldn't be able to do remotely anyway.
6. It's going to be really tough to prevent a wave of unemployment, and unemployment is by its nature a source of instability which could potentially spread across the country. While the government's certainly had its eye on containing this possibility through adjusting policies, the already lengthy duration of the crisis control measures and high likelihood of further lengthening them mean that circumstances are already pretty serious. My anecdotal evidence says that lots of people have already left their jobs or been abandoned as their small-scale employers simply ceased to exist, and much larger numbers have been stilted on their wages for January and February. It's impossible to fully predict now, but the damage in the service sector is going to be very extensive.
5. This isn't a question for me. I'm no Party-watcher or specialist on semiology in the Sovietologist tradition. But as a layman, it sticks out to me that most Chinese right now are not altogether satisfied with the government's response to the crisis.
4. I'd urge him to stay on course! Trump hasn't exactly set a great precedent for this, what with pulling out of the TPP being virtually his first act in office, but it's vital that Americans present a united face to the Chinese government in a period of tension like this. The CCP brass see the continuity and long-term consistency of their government as one of its central advantages over democratic political systems. Whether this is true or not is up for debate, but it's certain that they'll jump at the chance to exploit perceived inconsistency on the American side. Why bother making making meaningful concessions on a deal when you can just make halfhearted ones with one guy and renege without consequences when a new guy who has all new priorities replaces him?
3. A day ago I would have said that a travel ban on Americans into China due to the virus is impossible. Today, after the announced quarantine restrictions on travelers from Japan, South Korea, and Italy, I'm less certain. Still, I doubt that travel will be banned altogether even if there is a surge of cases in the US. The number of Chinese stateside at any given time is huge, and many of them have ties to the elites. A mandatory quarantine, on the other hand, seems very likely.
2. It looks like it's gaining some steam on the mainland. My gut feeling is that conspiracy theories are really hard to extinguish, especially in the Chinese context where WeChat and the media environment give a higher prevalence to irregular sources of information as compared to the West. Even if all figures at all levels of the government were to turn around tomorrow and denounce this as a rootless conspiracy theory, I think the idea that the virus was spread unintentionally into China from foreign countries (or else that it was an American plot) will stick around for years to come as a kind of "received wisdom" about this crisis.
RE: #4, I'd tell them to consider the macro - a) "Face" is everything with China. You embarrass them, constructive negotiations become almost impossible & b) their government needs to keep 1.4B people just-happy-enough not to revolt. Best way to do that is bring more people into the middle class. Consider how we can help them there while also protecting American principles, security, and IP.
#7 - the harsh control mechanisms inside China coupled with the pernicious influence campaigns externally should be taken very seriously by all free nations and free people. One of the pillar concepts of Chinese history, the Mandate of Heaven, recognizes China's leaders' power comes from a divine source, but it is contingent upon capable and benevolent rule. This concept helped develop China into one of the few enduring civilizations on this planet. How does China today measure on the Mandate of Heaven scale? I'm no historian, so I'd like to hear how some of you educated in Chinese history would compare Xi's CCP to different rulers in Chinese dynasties through the ages. Does anyone out there feel China today is determined to be on the other side of the Opium Wars saga (i.e. fentanyl, social media influence war, land grabs)?
The second point to consider in 5. (CCP and the WuHan outbreak): wise scientific hands in China will want to review the information and authority structure that fed international WHO the information that “there is little evidence of human to human transmission”. Was this a scientific claim or a CCP claim?
This relates to #1,#2 and #5 but is an update of my response last week regarding how successful the CCP messaging has been to inspire confidence in the Chinese system in the context of virus crisis.
It's not just my mother-in-law in Sichuan who seems to share Bill's mother-in-law's view that Americans are not safe because our system is not prepared to handle a crisis like this. A friend from Beijing who lives in Baltimore and whose husband, also from Beijing, is a neurosurgery resident at Hopkins Hospital, told my wife this week that she wants to flee the United States and return to China, where in her view, the government has the capability to keep people safe. These are people in their 30's who have committed to settling in the United States for good. They are cosmopolitan people, but like many Chinese of their generation, even after settling abroad, they continue to be informed by Chinese commercial and social media sources.
And the Chinese diaspora social media community here is in complete panic mode. The panic is basically a panic that Americans aren't panicking. There've been some news reports to this effect -- Business Insider wrote of a Bay Area guy in shock about lack of response after returning to San Francisco from China.
If this spreads, and the fatality rate drops sharply, and it just becomes an endemic coronavirus that is not terribly deadly -- as some on this thread are joining Trump in suggesting -- then the whole conversation is moot, although it could definitely hurt China.
But if this has a fatality rate in the 2% to 4% range, this is a failure of our system on par with the 2008 financial crisis or the Iraq War -- in terms of the narrative that Chinese people will be 100% convinced by.
I hopped off a plane from Beijing in late January, had symptoms (shortness of breath coughing and cold) at about day 12, called the health department and they had no way to screen or track me. I wanted to be tested but they said I wasn't eligible.
According to at least one report I heard earlier this week or last week, South Korea was testing 10's of thousands of people and we were testing hundreds... (I just heard a California congressional representative say on television that there is no one and no way to know how many tests are being done and he couldn't answer the question of whether they have the tests needed to test people on a newly quarantined cruise ship.)
That's more than a month of time to prepare and we are just responding on the screening/testing side now. The government should have been scrambling to fix this problem in late January when people like me were asking to be tested.
Like most, at the outset, I thought this posed huge risks for Xi and the CCP. But now I think that in most scenarios of how this might shake out it's either a win or a massive win for the CCP -- in terms of messaging directed at local Chinese and the Chinese diaspora. It's exacerbated by the election and a perception that Trump can't risk damage to the economy during an election year. On par with 2008 financial crisis in terms of discrediting out system.
"like many Chinese of their generation, even after settling abroad, they continue to be informed by Chinese commercial and social media sources"
What really amazes me is that many of these people have been here long enough to read in English. However, probably due to mental inertia, they still absorb formation mostly, if not exclusively, from WeChat and other chinese media.
Any one has idea how to deal with this kind of mental inertia? I know people who are willing to pay $ for a good strategy.
'these people' behave as any other immigrant/ex pat group in any country would, including those in China. What exactly are you amazed by and suggesting to be done about it? Education Camps?
Not really like any other ex pat. Speaking of my own experience, I have been in the US for over 20 years and I can still sense the impact of the "brain washing" education I had in China.
In addition to brain washing is the fear instilled by regime. Imagine a person from Oceania (1984), even she/he was lucky enough to move out of there, she/he will still have a tough time to feel safe to speak out.
The US medical industry is totally fragmented like all industries so not set up to respond until you get to extreme catastrophic conditions. Then It will be too late. Our son came back from Beijing on the last UA flight out of Beijing on Feb. 4, he was given an info sheet but the attitude was very casual. The US is depending on luck on this one. God bless.
No. 5 (CCP handling of the emergence of COVID-19) My feeling - there will be an intense “within CCP” debate. It has been a public health disaster because of initial secrecy. President Xi’s “secret speech” on 7 Jan. to contain the virus is a contradiction in terms.
The longer term problem with this virus outbreak is the trust factor between countries are breaking down, so maybe we are going back towards the early 1900s which was certainly an awesome time
as for 4, who the F knows, if I'm advising them I'd try to aim for whatever is actually most likely to win which may or may not have to do with China and/or have to carry through
Re question 2, I think that China will succeed in sowing confusion and skepticism about the disease's origins among Chinese citizens. It will not succeed globally.
On Q7, for one thing US should make sure WeChat never gains access to the banking system and prevent the payment function from becoming the killer app it is in China. For myself, I have two mobile phones, one for the rest of the world and one for China on which I load WeChat and other China apps, as some Chinese who live in the US and UK do. Without WeChat you simply cannot maintain professional or personal relations with people in China.
Has anyone seen this report (https://protect-eu.mimecast.com/s/jJd6CxnMjipjKkH4H1Np?domain=r20.rs6.net) on China's Global Energy Finance showing a dramatic decline in global investments in the last two years? This is surprising to me and I can’t quite figure out how to explain this trend based on my other reading up to this point. How do you make sense of this?
Re question 5, who are the credible competitors for power with Xi? Given that they probably won't self-identify, does anyone see possible contenders who could successfully leverage covid-19?
About question 5: In view of the relaxed attitude in foreign countries about corona, if these allow a full outbreak (out of incompetence of else) and suffer proportionally much less economic damage than China, I think the uppermost Don Quixote leading the people's fight against the common cold will have something to explain.
On question 2: In view of the geographic concentration on Wuhan, it is difficult, if not impossible, to put the blame on foreign countries. However, not that China is the cheapest place for DNA testing, and uncounted people have been sending their spit to China for analysis. But then, the virus should have spread from Shenzhen, which it didn't.
However, note that....
To question 1: China absolutely needs foreign press, because otherwise it will be victimised by its own propaganda, result of which the world has seen before. The approach to expel Chinese "journalists" is correct. Standing up for foreign journalists has never been a strength of any country concerned. Every major foreign journalist in China has at least 5 minders and one guiding officer (whom they may never meet), who botch interviews and intimidate contacts, on the milder end of the spectrum. These practises clearly have to stop. Reciprocity may help may help to achieve that and it is wrong not to challenge China on that.
Can someone give me a little objective info on Godfree Roberts David
Godfree Roberts was an American expat in Thailand who started a "business" to swindle retirees out of their money promising to help them retire in Thailand. At the same time he was writing and self-publishing books about faith healing and how things like yoga and meditation can heal serious medical issues. It's all charlatanism, obviously. A few years ago he made a name for himself pumping out blog posts about how everything the CCP does or ever did is great and any sort of criticism can be hand waved away because the U.S. is behind some sort of conspiracy. My favorite quote of his, that you can find on his Quora page, is "China is the most democratic country in the world." He also makes sure to let his mind be known on not just the Sinocism threads, but on just about every China-related blog space you can find Roberts trying to explain away any sort of criticism by copy/pasting some quote from this or that public figure or writing a tirade about how the U.S./globalists/whoever are behind the world's ills. In his most recent diatribe about COVID-19 he makes the assertion that the virus was introduced by U.S. soldiers that went to Wuhan to compete in the World Military Games. I don't even think he's ever been to China.
I had seen his stuff on Quora and could see he was a totally dedicated CCP apologist, but couldn’t fathom his motivation. Good to know more background, but still no idea why he does it, if not for money.
I wonder why he does it? I can’t imagine the Chinese will pay him that much. Besides, nobody believes him.
Many have accused him of being paid by the CCP or someone close, but I've never seen solid proof of this. Worth noting, SCMP published an article (linked below) not long ago that quotes the head of the United Front Work Department saying that "that working with online influencers was now a key department priority." He's one of the many CCP-apologists that started popping up on the web ~5 years ago that seems to coalesce around the website Quora.com. There are dozens of these guys and they more or less say the same thing.
And it doesn't really matter if people believe him or not. His writings resonate with the people who it needs to. It solidifies the opinions of the anti-US/pro-CCP folks and sews the seeds of doubt in more neutral people. This was a common tactic used by the Russians to meddle in the U.S. elections; saturate the online discussion with paranoid and cynical conspiracy theories and let the audience absorb it until they can't tell what's real or not, leading them to decide to give up and cease participating in politics all together. It's simple, it's effective, and it's diabolical.
https://www.scmp.com/news/china/politics/article/3039828/china-looks-online-influencers-spread-communist-party-message
You can prove him wrong by actually making a well-balanced post that illustrates the shortcomings and the advantages of the Chinese government, as well as the good and bad sides of Xi Jinping. I don't think a single person here thinks the US is perfect or that Trump is (the latter especially). My inability to take anyone who posts as Sasha TT described seriously is that there is 0 nuance to what those sorts of people say. It's just "all hail the glorious CCP and our perfect Emperor Xi." I don't even talk about my favorite soccer team that way, let alone a government filled with... career politicians.
I’ve heard that he is an American who lives in Thailand, so clearly he doesn’t think China is all that great. He reminds me of “intellectuals“ who always stood up for the Soviet union in the 1930s at the height of the Stalinist terror.
So you live in another country that REALLY dislikes China, i.e. Vietnam? Man, some of us have long-standing experience in China. I know several high-ranking government officials very well. I call both of them shushu, if you even know what that means. They are far less blindly optimistic than you are behind closed doors (yep, they can be quite forthright so long as I am willing joke about/criticize the US a bit, which I very much am). And most of the people there were NOT PLEASED that Xi Jinping removed the term limits for himself. Or about Li Wenliang. But they are subjected to a constant barrage of state media that reminds them of all the great things the CCP is doing for them, which will make anyone forget the bad quickly enough, especially if there's no safe venue to voice anything but support. The stats we work with AS EVERYONE KNOWS, are the ones given those organizations by the banks/government. They are not always verified by independent firms, and even if they are, those independent firms are ones operating within China subject to Chinese rules. Do you think EY will post the real numbers if their resident CCP supervisor tells them "don't"?
Then you will be bankrupt. Unless some INCREDIBLE magic happens in the next 8 months, most of my young friends in Beijing won't have that home. And old-age care is going to get tough. Everyone in China knows about 4-2-1. But you keep believing, buddy. Clearly something happened in your past that makes you bitter towards the US (my adopted nation... I was born in Germany). And I'm sure you're completely innocent in the matter. Heck... maybe you are. But unless you actually live in China, I have to say I won't take you that seriously. I paid 8,500 RMB per month for my Lincuiqiao apartment in Beijing. It didn't even have a real shower. Just a drain with a wooden border running across the middle. And 7 minutes of hot water to shower with... they have awesome high-speed trains and great infrastructure, and god do I love the food... but there is MUCH that isn't rosy (especially when the very air you breathe is anything but).
Several folks have responded very cogently to points 1-3 in ways I agree with, so I'm going to skip to 4:
4. The provocations that lead to Trump's response are valid, in that China's entry into the WTO has absolutely poisoned the global trading regime in a way that is difficult to assess and repair. Nonetheless, his cowboy/go-it-alone approach is not the way to rectify this. The US needs to work in lockstep with allies who have similar concerns, most especially Germany, France, Japan, South Korea, and Canada, to constrain China's trade policies.
Tariffs may well be a part of this strategy, but only a part, and one which must be implemented alongside other major markets for Chinese goods. More important, by far, will be to bake in the rules for global trade as much as possible as soon as possible, and that means engagement with other major exporters or potential exporters on investment and trade agreements among large trade blocs that specify standards which prevent China from "cheating" to maintain a competitive edge.
In short, get into the TPP and replicate it elsewhere, while pushing with other high-value-added economies to constrain Chinese technological theft and purchases and end discriminatory treatment of foreign firms in China. China can alienate the US if it peels off the EU, Japan, and South Korea to the sidelines, but it can't afford to alienate all of them, at all.
The flip side is that, as I've seen others say, if the US is running this race it needs to run. We desperately need to repair our educational system, invest in top-notch physical infrastructure, and publicly fund R&D for hard sciences at home. Abroad, rather than whining endlessly about Chinese "debt trap diplomacy", we need to be prepared to offer a credible alternative on development.
5. It seems that the CCP still has sufficient control over economic policy-making and enough slack in revenues to get the economy back up and running in the aftermath of this, once the virus has burnt itself out. It will be damaging, but not fatal, to both their credibility and the economy.
China's economic health won't come roaring back after this, but I expect that enough of the manufacturing sector will survive, and enough pent-up demand will be waiting for it, for most SMEs to survive if the Party can provide some accommodation and support. Many people are overstating the extent to which the Party is ignoring the plight of the SME sector; if they've proven one thing, it's that they're extremely sensitive to employment disruptions.
From the CCP's perspective, the US response to the coronavirus has been an absolute godsend; Trump's unending ability to stick his head in the sand and prevent an effective federal response makes their initial response seem less bad, and their actions afterwards look decisive following that slow start.
The problem is that there are slow-burning factors that are invisibly undermining the PRC's economy, most especially total factor productivity growth (or the lack thereof) and credit allocation, but there's quite a bit of time before things begin to seize up as a result.
6. With a lot of family in Hubei, I can say with some certainty that the level of trust in government-sponsored or controlled information sources is now obscenely low. That's not going to go away quickly and it will make it hard to avoid revealing the "mailed fist inside the velvet glove" when it comes to maintaining stability. Information control is half the battle and the Party has lost it, arguably for the first time ever.
The "independent journalists" and other media outlets are not well-placed to fill the gap even if they were permitted, for lack of expertise and funding or due to simple ideological bias. The entire Sinosphere media environment increasingly resembles an endless propaganda war between a bunch of nutjobs...
7. I would think that China's "data localization" laws would be an ironic framework if they can be tweaked.
Basically, force WeChat, TikTok, and the others to spin off genuinely independent subsidiaries for US and EU operations, with absolute control and independence with regards to complying with local laws on content, both freedom and removal thereof. All data must be stored in-country, and only business-relevant metadata can be shared with Chinese parent companies or Chinese authorities.
If this independence is violated in anyway, by anyone, nationalize the subsidiaries and all in-country assets from the parent company (maybe with compensation?), then place new management in charge.
China has very little room to complain credibly about such a requirement because it's a near mirror-image of their own data laws. They will anyway, but at this point there's nothing short of baring our belly that could actually mollify China's so-called "diplomats".
The entire Sinosphere media environment increasingly resembles an endless propaganda war between a bunch of nutjobs... Priceless!
At least Caixin does try it's best.
(About the point 6 in your post) The level of trust in government-controlled news sources is indeed low across China and the Chinese diaspora, but I would say that it's much lower in Hubei than in the rest of China and the diaspora. Hubei, of course, has suffered immensely (and still is), so many there have a very different take on it.
Except that surely Hubei residents would never blame themselves? It s human to blame others, especially a government like chicom. But com'on, someone needs to tell them to look in the mirror...chicom has been too indulgent of certain traditional freedoms if anything.
Point taken, though I also have friends in Beijing, Xi'an, Yunnan, Nanjing, Hebei, and here in the US who are similarly skeptical. Nonscientific, but since no statistically representative sample exists, that's what we're left with, impressions and anecdotes. My impression is that Party credibility has taken a huge hit everywhere, though much larger in Hubei.
The Diaspora is a whole different ballgame. The only professional news outlets that seem to exist are Taiwanese, and the American and Canadian diaspora media organizations are almost all rabidly anti-CCP, except for the ones sponsored directly by the CCP. Hence my description above; it's a propaganda war, pure and simple.
Truth is the first casualty of war indeed. And at the risk of being non PC, there is a special talent for making things up in sinomedia, chicom or non chicom. It s simply appalling.
I agree with you that the Party credibility has indeed taken a hit, though that magnitude may differ a lot in different demographics. My impression talking to family in China is that the belief in the Party among the older generation is still intact, whereas the credibility has taken a huge hit among many of the younger generations.
Excellent analysis. The one thing I would say about the USG management of the Sino-US political relationship or trade and investment, it is very limited in capacity and unity. Therefore tariffs are the easy go to solution.
A new administration should partner with China in leading global renewable energy and carbon sequestration in biomass efforts.This is essential tool for global ecological economic growth and in mutual and global interest.
The US should welcome Chinese journalists for reasons that appear to obvious to anyone that has read the US constitution.
As the results of the trade war and Coronavirus, China will become a wounded giant and will remain for a long time
1. China will not respond more harshly by expelling more foreign journalists. The U.S. action was a shot across the bow, not a declaration of war on Chinese journalists.
2. At some point the science will pinpoint the origin - and I would recommend listening to scientists from international organizations and not connected to any political institution.
3. Yes - China will start to selectively ban U.S. travelers, but short term only. The travel industry is a critical part of China showing they have this under control, so short term response to show they care about the spread of COVID in China, and then a quick relaxation to get the travel industry back on its feet.
4. That's it's own thread
5. They will certainly try to spin it - their use of the tracking technology will not stop once the virus crisis has ended. that is here to stay.
6. long term this will reduce employment - many companies now realizing that they may not need as many employees (they can't fire people now but watch for 12 months from now), and commercial real estate will suffer as remote work becomes more accepted. the on line education market has received a HUGE boost.
7. WeChat - would be perfectly within rights to say if our social media companies can't operate within China, WeChat can't operate within our borders, or have to follow the same draconian reporting rules they follow in China. However, the likely outcome is much wringing of hands and absolutely nothing happens.
Hello Bill,
I'm curious about what the origins of the newsletter title "Sinocism" are. I think I understand it, but I'd like to hear your story. Thanks.
A mix of 'sinology' and 'cynicism', I remember seeing him write that somewhere.
The people indulging conspiracy theories at this stage are horrible individuals. To think that either the US or China's larger government (which is nothing if not rational and risk-averse) would unleash a disease with epidemic potential in a globalized economy... it insults every rational fiber of my being. Say what you will about the CCP... it is a self-interested government even more so than the US. It won't play with fire. Neither would the US, in this era of flagging international credibility. This is my belief. And even if you disagree, I find anyone who is willing to spread possibly World War igniting conspiracy theories (if true) without real proof to be highly irresponsible.
It is vaguely plausible that the central authorities held off in publicly announcing and responding to the outbreak once they got to the bottom of what was going on, in the hopes that it would spread abroad and make their early response failures stand out less.
At that point they would have known they'd delayed too long and that another week or so wouldn't make a huge difference in the public mind, but might give them a propaganda edge. That would have cost a lot of lives, but that rarely enters into the CCP's political calculus.
Even that's a stretch, in my opinion, because it's very likely that the first thought in the mind of their senior leadership would have been to slam down the gauntlet as quickly as possible.
The notion that the CCP deliberately released a bioweapon is just beyond ludicrous. There's simply no reason to do it, at all, regardless of what certain individuals are saying in this thread. No goal which it might further, no political gain. In fact, it's deeply counterproductive for many of their goals.
I would even go so far as to say "producing" something like this in whatever Level 4 biolab or whatnot is in Wuhan is also extremely unlikely. Deployment and containment of such a weapon is simply an extremely difficult business. The risk of discovery in making and using such a weapon is very high. And the response by the US upon facing some level of certain doom or another, having discovered a likely aggressor, would be swift and lethal. As such, I find the "loss of control of the bioweapon" theory equally unfeasible.
Is it unlikely? I have never worked with creating / containing a bioweapon so I dont know
Also, didnt a Harvard Professor from the 1000 Talents program help China establish the lab or share research related to Corona viris?
I'm a lawyer, not a scientist. So my argument is based on how logical it is to mess with inherently unpredictable and volatile weaponry. Especially by a people as culturally risk-averse and terrified of the slightest scratch - whereupon they run to the nearest hospital (long story, having to do with owning a cat that definitely has never had rabies) - as the average Chinese person.
'By a people as risk averse' - are there any ethnicity of people who ARE NOT risk averse? From what I know about evolutionary psychology, risk aversion is a human quality.
To David Lougherty, just because I provide consistent point of view asking for valid refutations does not mean Im a troll.
I - as mentioned in previous posts - just want people to overcome their cognitive dissonance and provide balanced arguments
At this point, if this were Reddit, I would go with "don't feed the trolls."
Benign research into viruses does sometimes involve engineering them to be more dangerous. It's vaguely possible that this slipped out of a lab somewhere that was doing that sort of research. Nonetheless, it's not the most plausible explanation, because it's genuinely not that dangerous and has already possibly mutated to be less so.
The entire "bioweapon" line of questioning is really just complete BS put out to muddy the waters.
I don't know how you can believe your first paragraph and come to the conclusion in the second.
The line is so thin from 'we are just engineering this *because we have to* ' to 'its a bioweapon, with malicious intention'...how can u prove one over the other? You cant
i think that the whole idea of using bioweapons is terrible. I would not speculate on anything. If you want to get insight, better study the past: who used bioweapons before, when and why, what was the outcome? There are plenty of examples in the past. What can we learn from it? And with that insight, help to think in terms of what can be said or done to advise against it to help prevent it.
Please don't call people 'horrible individuals' - it is an ad homein attack that is the antithesis of the ground rules Bill Bishop set up regarding respectful speech for this thread.
Challenge your thinking. How could a bio weapon not targeted OVERTLY to any country and was "accidentally" released (escaped or w/e term to use) be 'World War igniting' ?
The CCP throughout history has sacrificed its citizens lives in various era's in pursuit of its goals for harmony or progress or whatever - why would it stop now?
Moreover, if the CCP doesnt care about its own citizens (even ones who are Han majority) - what makes you think it would care about you / your country?
An ad hominem attack, by its most common definition, is an attack on a specific person you are arguing with, not something as vague as "people," which would just imply some human, somewhere. I think you probably know that, though. If Bill Bishop takes umbrage with what I said, I will stand corrected.
I am no fan of the CCP and its methods, as you can see by searching my name and checking my other comments made within this very thread. I find it disgusting that they are implicitly encouraging these conspiracy theories within their own cyberspace, for example. But that doesn't mean I think (a) we should fall to that level, or (b) it is right to respond in kind.
Well said. Often people dont seem to realise that being anti-chicom doesnt give you a free pass to indulge in despicable behaviours and ideologies. This blindness seems to affect particularly anti-chicom Chinese and anti-chicom Americans, based on unscientific sampling.
My fundamental question has never been answered nor is it despicable behavior to engage in this type of inquiry..its why we are here right?...its just inquiry at the end of the day
I welcome inquiry, as should any man of a scholarly disposition. And I do not know why you are acting like I put you on trial. If you can accuse the Chinese government of doing this with solid, peer-reviewed/scientific method-based evidence, I'll be indescribably sad that the CCP has sunk even lower than before, but I will acknowledge what is presented to me. Short of such proof, I was merely calling out the tinfoil crackpots who spew this kind of thing around with barely any proof. And for the record, this behavior seems more prevalent in China than the US, and I have said similar things on my WeChat moments, i.e. "if you're a contact of mine and believe the US started the virus based on spurious evidence, please let me know so we can break contact."
I have failed to understand the overwhelming evidence indicating that this IS NOT a bio weapon in some form. Maybe it is a bioweapon released before its scheduled time, but I have failed to meet an interlocutor who gives me a response to my fundamental question.
If we act *as if* this is a bio weapon released with purpose, then what is China's benefit? I see several benefits and Im sure some have yet to materialize. For an evil empire that has a command economy and thinks in terms of 5 years and 10 year plans, how can you understand their point of view? You cant empathize and *be in their shoes* - so stop pretending.
Also, even "experts" can be wrong. Read the work of Phillip Tetlock and Daniel Kahneman.
There is simply not convincing evidence on either side about intention/ origin. Its disheartening that the arguments among those who are 'educated' / 'hooked in' (those of is in here) are one side when the evidence is not overwhelming or one sided.
Like I said in another post / thread, we are all idiots to think we have full knowledge. The CIA has talked about this as a bioweapon release behind closed doors - why cant we? Because of insidious cognitive dissonance that limits us all.
BTW- Pascal, I do not feel like I have been put on trial. To the contrary, you seem like an interesting person to have a one on one with / beer with (if US based)
Well said.
Question 3: Xi and the CCP know they lost the battle and catalylized a pandemic. I don't think they will ban foreign travelers because foreign travelers are great scapegoats for the line that says , " look we controlled and solved the problem at home and now we have become the victim of others, who by the way really started it to begin with."
I have written, and continue to believe that President Xi and the CCP will use their/his expert management of the outbreak (after initial missteps) to emerge stronger. And this is likely to be compared and contrasted with, not just by the Chinese, but by our media and Democratic candidates (e.g. Biden, Sanders), the US' current policies/management of the COVID-19 epidemic. Interestingly, President Xi has not publicly commented upon or praised President Trump's handling of the epidemic. The other interesting thing to speculate about is how the Chinese view a potential Biden presidency. During 2008-2016, the relationship was better than now, and even long-time observers such as Henry Kissinger (in a 2016 interview) gave President Obama a B+ for his management of relations with China. So this merits watching as the US 2020 election kicks into high gear. Lastly, will Xi use his novel, potentially strengthened position to emphasize increased cooperation with the US and multipolar institutions (e.g. WHO) w/r to pandemic preparedness, scientific research, etc.? See AMB Jo Detrani's excellent article (https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2020/feb/17/coronavirus-emergency-should-renew-us-china-diplom/) for a discussion of such possibilities. Thanks Bill for this forum.
Had China been transparent early in the outbreak containment may have been an option. Unfortunately, the Chinese system for containment only went into effect once infection levels had risen to the point of no longer being able to suppress its existence. Had there been a free flow of information in the China other countries could have put into place similar containment strategies (i.e. restrict ALL travel to/from China) much earlier. This is the only way the disease could have been contained in China.
We are now at a point where the disease has spread beyond any reasonable way to contain it. The saving grace for developed countries is public health systems that can identify and treat patients along with the free flow of information that will help inform the public and officials.
To praise China's management of this incident is like praising the unibomber for protecting himself from mail bombs.
Reciprocity is the correct way to go. If China bans fb and twitters, then the US should ban WeChat etc.
China banned Facebook, Twitter, and most social media from their internet years ago. And they've been following up bringing it ever closer to a 100% ban in the years since. For example, Pinterest and Reddit were the big casualties of 2018.
James Keith <jimkeith1978@gmail.com>
9:32 AM (6 minutes ago)
to Bill
1.. History of these actions is not particularly instructive. On the one hand one wants to show willingness to go negative if pushed by the other side to do so, i.e. have the courage of one's convictions, but at the same time the point of the pressure is to push toward more constructive pathways, so one wants an exit ramp that leads to something useful. Punishment or retribution just to demonstrate political will is pretty limited and ultimately likely to be counterproductive unless paired with tactics and strategy to advance. (Note: sometimes it is just necessary for a purpose such as counterintelligence to take a stand-alone negative action;that is different, and justified on its own terms.)
2. Too little too late, and doesn't matter now. The reputation that China should care about is with global health care professionals such as CDC in US and the WHO. If China wants a reputation for responsible leadership, along the lines of its international role on climate change, it needs to find a way to manage the Party's inability to be transparent with sensitive health-related data. China isn't alone in failing to solve this problem, but if you go back to SARS it was the same; HK got hit "first" in the sense that Guangdong covered it up.
3. It shouldn't; America shouldn't be banning travelers now that there is community spread; it is a waste of time and resources to screen borders once a country has domestic community spread.
4. Show willingness to adjust to new reality of a stronger, more resilient China that is pushing against US (e.g. intellectual property, cyber), but do so in a thoughtful, explicit framework for a balance of competition and cooperation. Give up the grandstanding and lying, don't use tariffs that are self-defeating, and do lay out a plan for US leadership in the global economy and as a regional economic and trading power in Asia, including by reviving TPP.
5. HK thought it had SARS under control then it roared back when a superspreader infected a new 40,000 person apartment complex. The Party's reputation could suffer if what looks like a winding down in China is reversed. But my guess would be the Party and people Xi identifies in the Party would take the fall if that were to happen, not Xi, not Xi's allies. Overall I'd say Xi will get credit for managing something that hit the world, not just China, and he'll be able to stir nationalist or populist feeling to protect himself from any serious political fallout. The caveat? How bad is the economic blow and upon whom does it fall? Someday China will suffer severe recession/economic depression, and that is the vulnerability the Party and Xi can least defend.
6. Don't know, but my guess would be the lack of transparency and accountability in the health care system spreading to the political system.
7. So-called "western" countries should use their strengths, namely civil society, to show China and other authoritarians that our political systems can better manage the stress and challenge of health or other crises due to their transparency, accountability, and ability to maneuver, change more easily as events demand. We should avoid the worst of what Trump has done to politicize, obfuscate, lie, cheat, and otherwise make democracy look like a thin veneer that is so superficial as to just hide an authoritarian instinct beneath. In short, we should tap into our traditional, long-established constitutional system and eschew Trumpian rhetoric and resort to what are truly "un-American" tactics redolent of the McCarthy era. We are at our best when we own up to our mistakes and throw ourselves into a collective, united future; at our worst when our leaders seek to divide us and isolate the American people into discrete, manipulable factions--that is more of a CCP tactic.
And looking beyond the presidential election? We should
have a strategy for US-China relations and US leadership in Asia on political, economic, social, and cultural fronts;
that strategy should be tied to a first two years legislative agenda for strengthening the foundation at home for our foreign policy abroad;
that strategy should be implemented according to a tactical set of plans that have buy-in from our national security, economic and trade, and political and civil society leadership in the cabinet;
we should have designated leaders for implementation of the strategy aimed at sustaining a productive relationship with China that balances competition and cooperation. We need some productive channels to help manage our respective roles in the global economy and on global issues such as cyber; we also need to protect our vital national interests and not shrink from confrontation if needed. It is not inevitable that the relationship evolve toward a myopic, cold-war-like approach that has us solely confronting and not cooperating. It is also not feasible for us to ignore or undercut our own national interests in the sustainment of a rules based international order.
And one reminder; just because it didn't become a flaming hot confrontation last year doesn't mean Taiwan will not blow up this year or next; it remains the fundamental issue in the relationship and can at any time completely derail all other efforts to manage a rapidly evolving and strategically critical set of economic, political, and social ties.
My two cents, anyway. Thanks for the opportunity to comment. Best, Jim Keith
Very well expressed. Humiliating a country again that experienced this before is not the right way to make progress.
Good point. But what is the right way to make progress?
It is not only about using trade as the carrot and stick. I have been working in the advertising business and the leading mantra is "Perception is reality". You want to give offers that people want. If as a leader promised your people to regain pride and both opponents have promised "Make (my country) great again". it must no be on behalf of the other party's perception of e.g rejuvenation or financial improvements in a country. The compromises must be on a human level and you both have to perceive that you have made progress through giving up something and still have the ability to reach the dream you promised AND THE PEOPLE PERCEIVE AS REALITY.
To what degree is China propping up its stock market and at what point will the interventions tail off?
Reading these comments shows a concerning trend towards militarism. Cut it off they say. Break ties with China. Stop funding of student groups by foreign governments. Throw out all the journo-spies. Throw out the baby with the bath water!
These are all signs of more acceptance of Authoritarian measures than in previous years. Really, what happened? For shame, for shame! US Congress does not fund such important programs such as the Fulbright program to send students and scholars overseas merely to cut ties with other countries!
Here are my two cents:
1. US should reiterate the concept of freedom of speech and that news media are not official outlets of the government propaganda machine. However, they should also note that individuals and NGOs may have their own propaganda because of those very own views and opinions. So, US issues this statement, or, they can provide educational material for the journalist visa process and/or waiver that acknowledges this concept. US should not respond tit for tat.
2. Roll some dice and there is your answer.
3. They might, however as others mentioned it will be problematic with large numbers of China nationals in US. It could have a side effect that all foreigners are unwelcome that could continue after the conclusion (hopefully) of the pandemic.
4. Stop poking the bear and work on identifying common issues they can work on together. Focus on intercultural exchange, that is always safe, as well as working out some solution to the trade war (and the larger issue of copyright infringement).
5. They can point to Xi and accuse him of the initial coverup that caused significant damage to the trust of the government by the people. That will take a long time to repair, and, it did happen on his watch which they will blame him for.
6. History repeats itself. Also, there could be a trend that people will now be more suspicious of their neighbors and you may see a rise in false accusations of virus symptoms (of any kind). This could cause instability due to fear and fake news...
7. Windows 10 Pro now has a sandbox mode for Edge as well as virtual system where browser data vanishes when the (virtual machine) sandbox is closed. There could be a push to app developers to create virtual sandboxes for mobile devices to wrap problematic apps around (that could limit snooping). Or, if there was a way to enable EFF Privacy Badger device-wide that would also help with snooping by Facebook, Instagram, etc., but I think by far the biggest issue would be informing the general public that WeChat isn't safe. Most will see it as an attack on China...
7. This is for people who are suggesting we "block" wechat or force them to have servers in US or treat them like how China treated Google or Facebook: STOP and THINK!
In order for us to do that,
#1 We have to pull the apps out of the Appstore, whereas Android doesn't really matter since APK's are in the wild web.
#2 We need to build a firewall service like the Firewall of China. Meaning the government has to control different levels of the stack, from the ISP to the app store level.
THAT IS NOT acceptable because we would literally turn into China.
I would not want the government to have that level of control, in the process of going against Chian we have given up our values and became what we didn't want to be.
In order to have Apple play ball, we are going to have to deal with the 1st amendment and a bunch of legal issues. This wouldn't even survive local court let alone Supreme.
Only a very minor chunk of Tencent's revenue comes from the US, we would have no leverage to force Tencent to do anything.
Yes, but removing WeChat from Google Play and Apple App store will be an effective nudge that discourages people from using it. No need to block it entirely.
Philosophically we would be going against our fundamental values. Not something we should seek unless there is a major reason.
I'm actually Canadian, but I do see WeChat / Whats App, youku / youutbe as more of a trade issue than a censorship issue. I wrote somewhere above that the way to address disinformation is through education. A functional democracy needs an educated population, and these days that is especially true for media literacy.
I do not see it as censorship to remove WeChat or Youku. The people are free to express their opinions on other services, Facebook Youtube, etc. Until China unblocks Google and Youtube, the US should block equivalent Chinese services in the US. I would not suggest the Canadian government block these things. Of course, I'm Canadian, so I leave it to the people in your country to decide.
I don't think at this point the US and Canada or Europe generally have fundamental value conflicts. The openness of communication is a key factor in Democracy. If we kill that we might as well just have a totalitarian government (ie China).
Also, don't get your argument anymore.
Are you saying we should block Wechat and Youku in the US since CCP blocked FB & Such in China and say "Tencent you can't make USD anymore! Caz CCP doesn't allow FB+Goog to make RMB?"
If that is the case I don't think Tencent really cares and people would find a way around this so they can keep using Wechat.
Also, are you saying the people who use wechat in the US are not educated enough and don't have enough media literacy? Or people in China?
Also, why should the US block it and cause inconvenience for its citizens while Canada shouldn't? To balance trade? Lastly, if yes, this goes against your original statement of just removing from the store and not blocking service.
Right, we are on the same team. Let me clarify my points.
First, in the last ten years there has been an increasing amount of disinformation and misinformation both in mainstream media and especially on social media. The critical thinking and media literacy required to parse through all of this is missing in much of the population worldwide. My proposed solution is not censorship, it is education. We need to teach people to understand media better and how to think critically about the media they are consuming. This goes for any democracy.
As for blocking WeChat: I believe if there is any government with grounds to block WeChat it would be the US, and only as a trade issue, and perhaps as an anti-espionage measure. You are also right that there will be people that go out of their way to access WeChat, just as there are many people in China that use VPNs. Though the gov could introduce laws barring public employees from using WeChat, Huawei, and other Chinese produces or services. I'm not about to get into an in depth feasibility study. Just want to point out that the US could block WeChat, but not for censorship.
I don't think it is an education problem but a filter bubble issue. Not gonna change as more of us get connected together. US whole issue one Child Pornography is a perfect example.
I actually don't really believe in this East vs West Bullshit.
The US is already blocking Huawei and such, could get worse or better. It really doesn't matter.
Chinese proverb perfectly describes this current happenstance: If you are together for a long time you will separate and you separate for a long time you will come together.
Or some stuff along those lines. All part of a cycle.
Hello everyone,
Dimitri Alperovitch, founder of security firm Crowdstrike, gave a talk at the RSA security conference saying that DOJ indictments against Chinese state-sponsored hackers caused serious disruptions to their operations and that much of their attack infrastructure would disappear after indictments. He said the same is not true for Russian or Iranian hacking groups. My question is do we agree with this assessment and if so, what’s the reason PRC is more affected by name and shame than other nations?
Can we have a serious discussion about how China released this Corona Virus with intention from its laboratories? I feel everyone has pushed this thought aside without acknowledging that the CPC is NOT ABOVE this type behavior.
Mao once said the same about sacrificing his population to nuclear war because the other half that survived would repopulate China. I can not find the quote right now. We all know China thinks long term in strategic planning.
XJP would benefit by flex muscles on the world stage (新华 article 'Be Bold') and have an legitimate argument for being leader for life (look how well I handled the crisis) and strengthening the panopticon (argument is we need more surveillance to detect these things)
Please overcome your cognitive dissonance, what other reasons did China manufacture this? How do they benefit?
Occam's razor; the simplest explanation is more likely to be the correct one. I favour incompetence over conspiracy any day. Here is a likely scenario. There are two elements to it.
A P4 lab is an incredibly dangerous and, for that reason, incredibly secure facility with very rigid procedures that are supposed to ensure that nothing gets out. In this case they were researching coronaviruses and were actively collecting as many as they could. Their purpose was very unlikely to have been malign. They were working on vaccines for various kinds of flu virus and this was one that they came across, or maybe created by moving the SARS virus across animal species to see what emerged, knowing that this is the route for most new variants. Having found or created this, they probably had it there on the backburner waiting in line to be further researched.
The other element is sloppiness. If you have worked in a Chinese outfit of any sort you will know what I mean. People don't follow procedures unless someone holds a big stick over them. Their entire system is built around strict supervision and hierarchy, not self-discipline and personal responsibility. So things that are a pain in the arse do not get done when people are not being watched. So someone went home with this on their clothing, or contracted it, then went to the market a few hundred metres from the lab to buy a few things on the way home and spread it around. End of story - or in this case, the beginning.
I’d like to insert a possible theory by listing a chain or events.
1.ccp raises tariffs on US farm goods
2. A hog disease wipes out 90% of the chinese hog population, China’s main source of protein
3. Prices at chinese food markets rise by at least 35%
4. Illegal animal sales In Wuhun may very well be the culprit of Black Sabbath(virus).
What is the likelihood that an inflation of food prices drove vendors to sell an increasing amount of unchecked animals as a means to keep food at reasonable prices?
No, because there is a very long tradition of eating all sorts of weird crap in the BS belief that it will increase your libido or perform some other metabolic miracle. The more exotic the animal, the more amazing the results, but more importantly for your question (and if think it is a fair question) , the higher the price.
(Sorry, posted this in the wrong order)
A. Or is it likely that the 'sloppiness' you mention is a REALLY good (if you are CPC) excuse for a release. How else would you 'release' a bio-weapon?
B. Or is it possible that they were working on this as per what Newman said above INSTEAD they did have malicious purposes and didnt want to get it out now.
To me, I understand the Occam's Razor and arguments for how this is an accident, but I believe there needs to be an honest comprehensive / discussion AS IF it was not an accident. That it was a planned attack.
XJP is already willing to sacrifice the lives of Xinjiang Muslims and militarize reefs in the SCS etc, - why not release this bioweapon?
A virus is a terribly poor weapon, unless you have the antidote. And if you wanted a bio weapon why would you use a pathogen with a 2.5% mortality rate. It makes no sense at all, unless you were trying to bump off your own old people. Now there’s a theory that one could make a very strong case for when you are facing a demographic disaster of your own making!
I think Europe has gone down that line given how it s handling the spread.
Thanks for the response! I feel everyone is ignoring this thread...
Im only asking because we should think through 1. How this was 'released' and 2. Why now? To what benefit? 3. What does it mean long term?
We are all fools if we dont realize that this same conversation has occurred at the CIA with the red cell group. (Internal group charged with presenting persuasive counter arguments to different section)
Twitter suspends accounts for raising the possibility that China's biowarfare labs could have been involved with the release of this coronavirus. What is the evidence that refutes any accidental release? China's secure labs have had accidents releasing foot-and-mouth disease, so it's likely other labs might have poor procedures too.
Forgive me for being ignorant.
Can you please explain why the 'Twitter suspends accounts for raising that...coronavirus' means anything...
To me it seems that Some uneducated / semi-educated people who are concerned with their business (and not freedoms of inquiry) means anything ?
Exactly.
A. Or is it likely that the 'sloppiness' you mention is a REALLY good (if you are CPC) excuse for a release. How else would you 'release' a bio-weapon?
B. Or is it possible that they were working on this as per what Newman said above INSTEAD they did have malicious purposes and didnt want to get it out now.
To me, I understand the Occam's Razor and arguments for how this is an accident, but I believe there needs to be an honest comprehensive / discussion AS IF it was not an accident. That it was a planned attack.
XJP is already willing to sacrifice the lives of Xinjiang Muslims and militarize reefs in the SCS etc, - why not release this bioweapon?
Q1 is easy. China will run out of American reports to kick out first.
LOL Good one!
1. Tit for tat is fine as long as we don’t actually do what ccp does and restrict their freedom. If we get to the point where our only options would be to restrict those freedoms just expand from journalists to media in general and start hitting them in Hollywood. People who say it compromises our values sound a lot like victims of the China fallacy. Free lunch is over. Time for them to chew on the tough stuff for a while.
2. I think they could only be successful in China with that awful lie. But who knows they will probably get a good amount of help from the PC crowds in Europe and North America in deflecting from any criticism for spreading said lies.
3. Some say they won’t because it will hurt their economy further and they will need all the help they can get. At most they will do so but without any real teeth just to make a show of it. I would lean toward the latter. When in doubt about ccp, choose the Most cynical Option
4. I think they will focus more on workers and jobs area instead of trade deficits and soften military posture unfortunately
5. It’s all dependent on the economy. If it performs better than expected then he will gain power, of worse he will face some push back
6. The economics in general will recover there much more slowly. Parents will raise hell about school or gaokao being affected. More information or rumors about mishandling. And tourists will take a long time to return to pre virus levels
7. Enforce our laws and/or treat them like huawei. Probably the latter because hitting them for purely free speech issues might impact twitter and others negatively. Label them as an extension of the ccp and disallow them to curtail freedoms based on that rather than just that. Differentiate them from the other platforms and then strike
I'm going to bet that Zhongkao and Gaokao dates get pushed back later into the summer. Too many high schools haven't even announced start dates yet for the spring semester. And yes, this year is going to see a bumper crop of angry parents.
7. Cut it off from SZ HQ. If they want to operate in other countries, make it operate within the laws of that country, on servers within those countries, so in the US case, no access from SZ servers as far as content. This is essentially what China tells Google and Twitter, etc. Payments should be fine. But they should separate that. It's already a monopoly anyway far greater than FB or GG or TT.
#4--So far, rarely discussed is the influence of Trumpism on recent or not-so-recent immigrants from China to the US. Even Steve Bannon has appeared on Mandarin-language YouTube news sites but moderates and progressives never reach out. Many in the PRC-immigrant community view Drumph as "tough on China," and they like him for that. Democrats and progressives should not ignore this 1,700,000 - strong connection to China.
6. Depends on how pissed off people are there. From what we saw with the heckling today, people are pretty fed up with being sacrificed. My immediate neighbor is stuck there. Several teammates from my soccer/football team are as well. Hard to get a read on their thinking over Wechat though so would have to wait until they return. Also so many people from there and from outside have poured so much energy into helping contain things, what will happen with that energy once they're done?
As for travelers ban, probably? as long as there's any sort of reasonable level of outbreak, it would actually be more interesting to see what the US reaction would be especially if there's countries beyond China who does it, I doubt the Trump administration particularly care
More on the US domestic side, what is the risk of corona infection directly impacting the US presidential campaigns and election?
Three remaining presidential candidates are all older men attending big public events and shaking hands with hundreds of people every day... at some level of risk, could Secret Service intervene to protect POTUS from infection risk at campaign events?
Also uf virus is not contained by or reemerges with cooler temperatures in the fall, could it meaningfully impact voter turnout?