China as world leader?
This is an opinion piece that seems to have hit the nail on the head re structural problems that led to the pandemic. And one of the structural issues is that China feels free to crush Hong Kong. And continue the repression of religion and identity in Tibet.
And the response is literally prioritizing thousands of rich old white people over millions of poor minorities. As an old white man in the US, this is not typically my stance, but I think that the political decision making has been disgusting ON BOTH SIDES!
Not China, but the only reason North Korea exists is because of China, so we can talk about them here. Looks like there are problems at the top, and that means that there are worries at the bottom. Panic buying. So maybe Most Noble Sister #1 will be the next Dear Leader of NK? Who knows?! Apparently NK leaders don’t have emergency succession plans.
Also not China, but Chinese wumao are angry again (it’s a new day so of course they are) because a Malaysian rapper seems to have supported protesters in Hong Kong. Chinese little pinks couldn’t deal with Thailand’s furious netizens, doubt they’ll fair much better with the Malaysians.
From the “who knows if this is true” file is the story of leaked documents from the Wuhan lab, the Gates Foundation, and the WHO regarding the modification and intentional release of CV by Chinese scientists.
It seems that VOA has been, again, broadcasting commie-style information—repeating discredited CCP talking points. Not surprising given its history (detailed in the link)—even lamented by HRC. It would be no shock though, if the VOA, like it’s domestic counterpart NPR swung ideologically left.
Gov of CA has spent $1bil on masks from BYD in Shenzhen. Yes that BYD, the carmaker that has already failed on it’s two major orders in the US (electric busses for LA and for New Mexico). And BYD doesn’t even make masks. From my own personal research notes in Shenzhen in 2018:
One other thing that Tony shared with me is that BYD, the car company that is so popular in Shenzhen, is only popular because of the investment from the city government of Shenzhen. The Shenzhen city government invested quite a bit of money into the company and into their acquisition with Tesla. And the result of that is that there are a lot of these cars on the streets because of tax deals and special incentives, especially in Shenzhen. But you don't see these cars in other cities around the country. It's not a very good car. One of the things that he mentioned was that even though electric cars are quite popular, the best-performing and most expensive BYD car is not nearly as good as the least expensive Tesla battery-operated car. They're both technically running on much of the same software and physical frames and platforms but they are not the same quality car. 2019 note: This is been bore out with a huge drop in sales of electric vehicles with the end of govt incentives.
This article by Matt Schrader should really lead this edition of news, it’s that good. Friends and Enemies: A framework for understanding Chinese political interference in Democratic countries.
I’ve stated before that I don’t believe that CV was a bioweapon, but I also won’t rule out that it was accidentally released—especially since the lab in question in Wuhan had security issues as recently as 2018. While the author of this article praises her own research diligence in putting this together—it’s basically a list of Chinese new links that claim to be authoritative on the origin issue. How comforting. Axios is usually better than this (and not nearly as self-congratulatory).
Two in one—James Palmer’s China Brief is the second best newsletter on China that I know of, the first being Bill Bishop’s. This China Brief has details about the new quarantine in Harbin and the Pew research numbers showing that Americans don’t like China (almost 3-1) and don’t trust Chairman Xi to do the right thing (about the same 3-1 margin). If the link doesn’t work go to Foreign Policy’s home page and link to it there (sorry). In addition to new outbreaks China, people that had previously “recovered” are still testing positive.
Concerning this whole CV thing and the associated reaction and national PR campaigns, Taiwan seems to have nailed it. From containment to appropriate reaction, to dealing with China, to helping the world and doing it all politely and friendly. Can we just stop the Taiwan-is-part-of-China charade already?
If you don’t think that much of your pro-China social media is a coordinate effort, you’re just not thinking. China doesn’t have a system that is replicable or desirable for most of the world. So what to do? Change the message—lie about others. If others are comparably worse, then China doesn’t look so bad. To do this China has spent decades and millions of dollars to retrain journalists to like and promote and support China as their default (as opposed to not trusting an autocratic communist police state). This apparently has worked well in Central and South America. There should be no surprise that China, Iran, and Russia are all using the same playbook—take advantage of the freedoms of their enemies.
The WP has a decent piece on the price of doing business with China, but since they don’t offer free articles or access even through universities, I won’t link to them.
It’s becoming trite to repeat the concept of not letting a crisis go to waste in regards to China’s actions, but here we are again. China is taking over struggling businesses AND making aggressive moves in the SCS while other countries are dealing with the fallout from the China-originated CV. Additionally, China is threatening Taiwan and cracking down on HK again. China is also pushing ahead with 5G deployment in conjunction with trying to contain CV (no, this is not a link to a theory that CV is caused by 5G, sorry James Wood).
China isn’t safe. Not for foreigners or any public figure with any semblance of dignity or an opinion. Stories about Chinese getting their public comeuppance for not toeing the Party line.
And to no one’s surprise, CV started out MUCH earlier than officially reported in China—Looks like at least the end of September. I spent the month of October last year in BKK completing research for my dissertation. I flew home on Nov 9th and about two weeks later had a flu-like nothing I’ve ever experienced before. I was so completely exhausted that I thought I had some strange disease and when to get blood tests around Thanksgiving time. They said my blood was clean but that I looked to have “a flu of some type.” I don’t know if it was CV, but of course, now I’m not ruling it out. It took me more than two weeks to recover.
There is so much disease and pollution and illness with poor medical care in China, there is no way that China could ever be expected to correctly count the exact number of CV deaths—hell, NY can’t even do it.
I can honestly say that I had no clue about the Chinese situation in Oz until I read Clive Hamilton’s book, Silent Invasion. But it was a great read and I’ve followed a number of great Australian China watchers since. Clive is now saying that Canada is in the same boat—they have been both ignorant of China’s intentions as well as too accommodating and unwilling to push back against the CCP.
Globally, China is now person anon gratis—activities in the SCS are offending neighbors. Pressure in EU is becoming a political issue for former China supporters. And in Canada and the US, there seems to be a greater recognition that China is indeed more of a real threat than was considered before. The destruction of the US economy notwithstanding. And while it’s small, there are already tide changes for leaders that previously supported China (over Taiwan). And Gothenburg in SW is not only ending their sister-city relationship with Shanghai but the country is closing all Confucian institutes.
I really can’t believe that Capitalism is being blamed for the post CV problems. Sure there is corruption in capitalist systems, but communism is THE cause of the CV in the first place, specifically top-down control with no watch-dog press and a command and control economy. Yes, capitalism is the worst system, but it’s better than all the rest.
Glad to see that the FCC looks to be gearing up to revoke the licenses of 4 Chinese telecoms.
And more people are realizing that the reformation of the PLA isn’t a peaceful addition to the global community.
The Missouri lawsuit is going to be interesting to watch. Here’s some background and opening analysis.
In other news, the environment is still threatened by the world's largest emitter of pollution—China. Expect more, not less, coal plants from China moving forward. Using the BRI as an excuse, China is building more coal plants for other countries too.
More on the environment, Chinese dams are devastating the Mekong. China has, for years, told the states of the Mekong that the waters in China are theirs. Period. This is a great example of how China will lead.