But, practically speaking, China will not bear the brunt of Covid-19. The epidemic is already largely over within China itself. On the contrary, it will be Western nations like the USA and Italy that will emerged battered and hammered by this virus, with death tolls likely far surpassing China’s. So China will emerge in a better and stronger position than America when this whole thing is over.
In addition, America will likely enter a severe recession or depression due to this virus, which will leave it all the weaker compared to China.
There will probably be a big push for decoupling the American economy from China’s - a trend that was already happening during the Trump trade war with China, but will now be all the more so given that the world has seen the consequences of putting all its manufacturing eggs in one basket, China.
Thus far the Chinese Communist Party seem to have turned it to their advantage. They have claimed to contain the virus, kept Taiwan out of the World Health Organisation, lured Serbia into denouncing Europe and joining with China to “fight the virus”, and they’re going to weaken their rivals in the West.
Slight tangent; but while information was suppressed and more should have been earlier, it’s also true that China took extreme measures pretty early on; measures that other countries even now can’t contemplate.
So within the blame game, bear in mind we’re not saying What if China handled this like we would in the West? because the situation would arguably be even worse than it is now.
“The epidemic is already largely over within China itself.”
So they say, and I find it not believable.
What I find likely is that the CCP will claim that, therefore it must be true, whether it reflects reality or not. The consequence is that information about the presence of the virus among the population will be suppressed (does this begin to sound familiar) setting up the stage for future outbreaks of SARS 2, at least until a vaccine is developed.
As for the future, their propaganda efforts are clear, wanting to portray China and it’s political system as superior to Western systems; whether they’ll get away with doing that or not is to be seen, but from the discussions I’ve had here in the past few days the prognosis is grim.
I’m a Brit living in China, and I have a job that involves meeting managers and doctors at various hospitals and health clinics.
And IMO, either the official counts are broadly accurate, or China is now large-scale deploying the best holographic projector technology seen outside of scooby doo.
As for “they say it, therefore it must be true”, I’ve seen a lot of the opposite phenomenon recently. That to many people China is the guard of the door to Hades who must *always *tell a lie.
Recall a couple of weeks ago the rumor on sites like this was that people were walking along the street and collapsing and dying on the spot. Have those people now realized that just maybe not every CT about China or this virus is accurate? Or are they still holding out for evidence that this has happened even once (a widely shared video was debunked as being from a traffic accident)?
I don’t know what projectors have to do with anything, here in Thailand while the number of cases of CoViD19 stayed suspiciously low for a long time that was matched with a concurrently suspicious high number of nondescript pneumonia cases, you see what I mean?
For what is worth I never believed those videos to be anything more than the usual result of the Social Media Telephone Game (amplified by a general panic) where what reaches the viral stage has long since replaced actual fact with baseless speculation.
Something I think you are overlooking is the possibility of a second outbreak in China. The CCP is now in the mode of sending people back to work asap, and the potential for a second outbreak is not that far fetched. Quite to the contrary, it’s probable. And, unless you think that THIS time things will be different (i.e. this time the CCP won’t suppress news and people trying to warn of it…:dubious:), it could be as bad or even worse in China than the first one.
My WAG is that countries are going to wake up at some point about, at a minimum, being so reliant on China for goods and services, especially medical supplies. I hope the US, at least, has learned this lesson, though I’m not exactly sanguine about that seeing the reaction of many people to this whole mess.
If the US does enter a sever recession over this, that’s going to impact the entire world, China included, so if you were thinking that the US going down would somehow free China and make it the great power folks seem to long for, I’m not seeing it. China’s economy is crippled pretty badly right now…it’s why from Xi on down the CCP is encouraging (in the CCP sense of the word) people to get back to work, you lazy bastards!
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Slight tangent; but while information was suppressed and more should have been earlier, it’s also true that China took extreme measures pretty early on; measures that other countries even now can’t contemplate.
So within the blame game, bear in mind we’re not saying What if China handled this like we would in the West? because the situation would arguably be even worse than it is now.
[/QUOTE]
So, the CCP fucked up and caused this, and after they were no longer able to cover it up they went full draconian mode for a bit, the damage having been done? Well, good for them! That’s just great!
What if China handled this like the west? You mean being open and straightforward and not trying to cover it up and arrest people trying to talk about it? Hm…I’m not sure. I’m thinking it would be less of a cluster fuck. Oh, you mean how the west is handling it AFTER it became a world wide cluster fuck that is out of control?
It was just a joke.
But in terms of your personal experience, I believe you. Do you believe mine?
Life is gradually getting back to normal here in China and since bars, restaurants, museums etc have reopened many people are just waiting for schools and factories to follow suit (alas, I think the level of confidence to do this is still a ways off, but it’s certainly the trajectory we’re following).
Firstly, interesting wording of caused. Did the US *cause *2009 H1N1? Is the US culpable in any way for how dramatically the virus proliferated within the US?
I disagree. Being open from day 1 would definitely have saved lives (although I think some of those timelines where people are implying that China knew all there was to know with certainty from day 1, and the cover up was 100% bloody-mindedness, are fanciful), but had this virus started in the West there would have been more open information…as it spread from country to country.
There is just no way the kind of lockdown that happened in Hubei and in other Chinese cities (to a lesser extent) would have been possible in the West. Especially not prior to the shit hitting the fan.
No-one has lived through that degree of suppression of personal freedom…it has had to spread and be a huge threat for governments to take it seriously.
If anything, China will use the global recession to intensify their acquisition of strategic ports and resources to strengthen the Belt and Roads Initiative. Internal impacts aside, we should be very concerned about how this positions China to further entrench their status as the economic and military superpower and the Eurasian/Micronesian/African sphere.
I don’t doubt that, but I don’t see from where you draw confidence that the Chinese government won’t do the same thing it did before in terms of blocking information.
I’m checking right now and the official number of infections in China has been 81.054 people, out of a population of 1.3 Billion, that represents 0.006% of the population, let’s assume the official figures are correct, let’s over the next few months 0.006% of the population in your area stay home because they caught something that feels like a bad flu, would you notice the difference on the number of people on the streets, even if the number was 10, 100 times larger? 20% for serious cases is 0.001% percent of the population, a 5% death rate is 0.0003%.
Numbers look more manageable then, no?
I think the Availability Heuristic is doing a number in people’s heads regarding this situation. Thousands of deaths are nothing to sneeze at, but in the overall scale of things it’s not the catastrophe that is made out to be even going by the worst predictions of millions of deaths world wide.
However, the issue is not one of numbers necessarily, or of hard nosed pragmatism, in the grand scheme of things, those would shrug the whole thing off with a meh (and frankly that’s they way I’d prefer it); but the perception of reality, people’s expectations and how those are used and manipulated will have a much bigger impact for the future than what the physical effects of the disease will, IMO at least.
It’s like when a couple is teetering on the edge of each other’s nerves, one little, really inconsequential thing causes a minor irritation and watch the fur fly.
I’ve already addressed this gambit you made in another thread, but I’ll do so again. The H1N1 outbreak in the US wasn’t similar wrt culpability from the government. The US didn’t try and cover it up, they didn’t arrest and detain those trying to get the word out, they didn’t deceive either their own population or international agencies as to the severity or level of the danger. In short, there isn’t any comparison. The CCP absolutely caused this cluster fuck. They knew about this in December (the first cases were actually in November, but benefit of the doubt and all) and sat on it, handwaved it, covered it up and generally tried to wish it away until late January. By then, it had not only gotten out to spread throughout China but throughout the world. All because they lied and tried to cover it up.
So, are we done with this silly line of discussion and can move on now or will you bring this up again? My guess is this won’t be the last time.
No. The affected country would have dealt with this when it could be contained. If, say, this had started in the US, you’d have seen a response in December. Even with our fuck up of a president, there would have been a response. The reason this thing is hitting so hard in western countries is because it’s hitting them from all over, not from one initial hot spot. You know, like in China. Even if it had breached containment, something I’m not convinced it would have done in any western nation, it wouldn’t have been covered up on the international scene. Countries could and would have been better prepared. Remember…this thing started in November. It was allowed to build up through December and through most of January. The international community didn’t really start to see what was going on until the CCP finally let this out of the bag and went all draconian dictatorship on it’s people. By then, this thing had something like 6 weeks or more to spread throughout China and, by extension, throughout the world. Pretty much to every place Chinese people travel too (plus, China is a destination as well, so you always have a lot of tourists, people working in China from various countries, etc.).
The thing is, while many haven’t been paying attention to this and seem to not really have followed along, I’m not one of them. Not only do I have family (my son’s partner is from China, and he still has family there) there, which is why my interest is so keen, but I’ve been keeping up with the shifting narrative since early January. I know that the CCP is doing everything it can (and man, can it do a lot) to change the narrative on this, and that they have plenty of folks in the west convinced they are the heroes. I’m not one of those. I know EXACTLY who is at fault at the core of this cluster fuck. The US certainly has fucked up as well and the current administration has plenty to answer for, but the ultimate cause of this crisis is the CCP. End of story.
This is absolutely the only answer to the OP.
All the talk and fantasy-- blaming China for the virus, then pretending that the west will “push for decoupling the American economy from China” —is simply irrelevant:
America is heading for a 1927 style Depression, and China is not.
Chinese political and military power will outpace America for the next 50 years.
America has one advantage: the English language, which will still be a major cultural influence within other countries. The Chinese language will always be impossible to learn.
So other countries will follow America’s lead only when watching Hollywood movies,while the Chinese will control everything else.
The big question is what will happen when a Chinese company (i.e. government agency) buys 51 % of Google on the stock market. The West will sell itself into submission.
China’s new place in the world may be somewhat diminished as supply chains diversify away from sole reliance on China. This was already happening, as China has been facing competition from its neighbours.
As China’s income rises and its people earn more money, it’s losing its comparative advantage in cheap labor. People are also waking up to the immense amount of IP theft China has engaged in. It was tolerated for a long time because China was a third world country and not seen as an economic threat, but as a source of cheap labour. That is changing, and China will have to compete more and more against first world countries where those countries are strong. I don’t think a Communist country can manage that, So either China will have to change, or it will face increasing pressure on its economy.
China is only notionally Communist; they’ve pretty much transitioned to a full on market-driven capitalist economy, albeit one rife with corruption and governed by an authoritarian regime with little information transparency. China is well aware that it’s position as the purveyor of low-cost goods is in transition, and in fact they’ve been very busy building up a strong technological base which is why your cell phone, tablet, computer, and monitor are all mostly or completely manufactured in China. Hopefully this will be a wakeup call for the United States and Europe to diversify their supply chains and move at least some critical manufacturing to domestic sites (though I doubt we’re going to be willing to bear the ecological costs of extracting the quantities of rare earth metals need to manufacture the necessary components), but China has been anticipating this, too, hence the Belt & Roads initiative in which China has ‘financed’ the construction of ports for the distribution of their goods in the same way that shady for-profit colleges offer financial aid to students, e.g. to trap them in a cycle of indebtedness ensuring that they will be beholden to China for the foreseeable future.