What are you more afraid of? Racism, no TP, Covid-19?
Here is my take on news of the last week.
1. It's still bad, Covid-19-wise, though trending better in China, but not really anywhere else. Though the #s in the US seem to suggest that it's not quite as deadly as was originally thought. Unis and school districts where I live are discussing shutting down at Spring Break--online only from March/April through the end of May. No decisions yet. Yea! I get to spend 2 months 24/7 with my kids!!
2. The Chinese economy is in worse shape than anyone thought and people are maybe 50% back to work. This, I think will be the real story. No way that the Chinese GDP only drops 1 point, right?
3. The Chinese media cover-up of both the virus and the economic woes is maybe even worse than the economy too. Meaning, you can’t trust numbers out of China and the spin, “China attempted to save the world by buying it time that was subsequently wasted” is cheap BS only to be believed by the most callus of authoritarian shills. Read another way, “Yes, the cost of authoritarian action is very high in human terms, but look how efficient dictators are!” Let's just say this, if you're a Not-Trump fan you'd better not be praising dictators in other countries for being more efficient in violating HR in the name of the public good.
A couple of other news issues are worth talking about. It’s really been tragically interesting to see how SK, Taiwan, countries in SEA and Japan have differed in their responses to China and Covid-19. Other than Taiwan and VN, many countries were initially worried about offending China and the results were not good (HK and SK and Japan) all erred on the side of trusting and being polite to China. All three have been devastated since. Taiwan has done well from the beginning and SK and Japan seem to have received from their poor initial reactions. Others, the Philippines and Indonesia, it seems, have decided to just stick their collective heads in the sand and ride out the epidemic. Thailand, my home away from home, is, of course, both preparing for Songran and another coup d’etat.
Here is a linguistic article about how to read (or not read) Chinese It came up again in China twitter and quickly became a meme.
How many Chinese students are not coming back to global universities this year? 90% in some cases. I know that my uni is banking on the Chinese market for one of its unique finance degrees. A couple of other schools are closing their Confucian institutes this semester as well. Good riddance. (Of course, the UofU still has theirs, with no plans to terminate it. One more legitimate reason to hate the UofU.)
This piece about online censorship is interesting for a couple of reasons, first, it highlights the fact that while the CCP "controls" everything, it is still just a massive collection of uncommunicative silos, like most bureaucracies around the world. Second, as more and more classes move online where the censorship is digital, there will be more and more instances like this one. 30 kids in a room getting a couple of things that are inappropriate is bad, but manageable. 3000 or more with the ability to share instantly that same inappropriate info is unacceptable.
Interesting story on Biking through China during a quarantine.
Great Video of China in quarantine from space.
After 9 Days in China, here are the WHO’s main findings (via Reddit).
This is a great parody! “just white people things” and “where the hell’s the rice?” LOL! This is how we need to be treating and talking to each other. That people are arguing about the name of the Wuhan virus when there are scores of other diseases named after places/people/events says a couple of things. People like be angry at someone else (makes them feel better about themselves?). Priorities are wrong when perceived racism takes precedence over actual health. Finally, this argument is literally the active and consciously-constructed CCP disinformation campaign to wipe out the history of early whistleblowers and remove any CCP responsibility for anything.
My personal experience in China, 10+ years, lived with my Chinese family in a Chinese community (no other foreigners in my complex) is that the Chinese people I met and worked with are overwhelmingly polite. They were also openly racist towards blacks and when drunk are not nearly as polite to me. In my decade-plus there, I’ve been told to get out of the country (when watching the Olympic torch run), that I shouldn’t have been allowed to marry a Chinese woman (multiple times), that my ½ Chinese kids weren’t welcome at public schools, among other things. Though I was told that mixed-race kids were smarter and more beautiful. Anyway...
THIS IS ONLY MY OWN PERSONAL EXPERIENCE. I’m not saying that all Chinese people are anything!! But the comments of this online draft are not surprising. The Chinese internet is likely more like Twitter than real life—it’s biased and populated with people that want to be heard.
What does Joe, I don’t remember my own name, Biden think about China and Taiwan? Who knows?! But here’s a piece that at least points out what he’s thought in the past.
NNT says that panic is the correct response—it’s not rational to be rational (normal) in an epidemic or any event that we’ve never seen before (Black Swans). His book about Black Swans is not an easy read (non-stats background) but very interesting; he has a trio of books, actually. I’ve read two so far—changes the way that I consider things. I would encourage you to read them if you have not (in general, read hard things).
US Senate is taking aim at more individual Chinese companies, or at least aps, in this case (TikTok). Samm Sacks has some great commentary on the hearings, including the appropriateness of the discussion around banning TikTok but also the problematic nature of trying to control data and tech and promote US (vs China) global policy via legislation.
The difficulty, rightly pointed out, is NOT that these Chinese companies are Chinese, but that they are part of the Chinese political system. The CCP has weaponized Chineseness (professionals, businesses, students, etc.) against capitalism, the neoliberal global community, and other countries. That’s the problem that isn’t going away no matter what ByteDance does.
And in a related case Senators are trying to block BYD and CRRC from building buses and railcars for Chicago, LA, Philly, NYC, Boston, and DC. BYD already screwed up busses for Albuquerque and LA and the fear now is that their tech is both compromisable by hackers (remotely controlling the vehicles) and the CCP (tracking citizen movements and comms).
Just put this article in the “If you think that the “China Model” is good for anyone other than dictators and China, you’re wrong, Part 345,673,288,467. From the article:
Crises bring out the best and worst of individuals and organizations. The COVID-19 outbreak highlights what some would say is a strength of the Chinese political system: the ability to make quick and bold policy adjustments, such as shutting down travel between large Chinese cities and enforcing restrictions on banned public activity.
But the health crisis also reminds us of an unpleasant truth about the Chinese Communist Party: For all the talk from Chinese officials and state-approved commentators about how the rise of China is good for the world, the overwhelming and driving objective of the CCP is its own survival.
The world increasingly understands that the Chinese government is bent on controlling the discussion of China-related issues not only within but also outside of China.
I’m not sure how to handle both the unavoidable global nature of economics today and at the same time manage national security. My suggestion in the past is that companies and individuals with ties to the CCP (membership, PLA partnerships, etc.) ought to be banned from universities and contracts (especially govt contracts) in the US.
Surprise surprise surprise (bonus points if you read it in Gomer Pile voice), China’s worst-performing provincial economies have structural issues, namely SOE’s and poor business climates, that are a drag on their economies and inhibit growth. This article is good for pointing out systemic problems in the business environment in ChinaChina—namely, the preferred positions and influence of SOEs and the difficulties doing business (legally and efficiently) in China are not just problems in the North.
The Poison in China’s System. Enough said—just read it.
In another shocker, even countries that are “friendly” with China, Pakistan and Myanmar in these cases, are finding that BRI isn’t all that they were sold. A road to no where. BRI may be a bust. “The investments were only an incentive.” China’s ultimate objective, she says, “is not to build connectivity but to increase Beijing's political and strategic influence.”
China & Japan & Covid-19The cynic in me says, Yea, but masks are worthless and many places actually advise NOT using them as they instill a false sense of health security in the wearer. But still, better relations between Japan and China will not hurt anyone.