From what I understand, the lockdown concept has a long history in China's public health approach. It's designed to protect the healthy. It's not necessarily misanthropic, although the applications obviously can be dreadful. They do it because contagion is terrifying in a densely populated place, and there's a big constituency for it. Pragmatism only goes so far and no leader, no matter how powerful and popular, can wholly defy deeply held convictions.
Thanks, I wasn't aware of that particular historical dimension. Alex of Reportify did mention in another part of the discussion on The Duran mentioned above that people there seem mostly OK with the ongoing internal restrictions (testing regimens et al).
China has struggled to cope with numerous things like that, e.g. the medical use of bear bile, which requires dead bears. It also works. Happily, there are synthetics now. I take one, but I'm not steeped in tradition.
Glad to hear the synthetic bear bile is working for you! I would be very surprised if the workings of many of those traditional Chinese medicines are duplicated in synthetics; at least the animal-based ones.
The synthetics may indeed be missing things that would be helpful. It's hard to tell without huge trials, which entails many dead bears and other critters...
If some meds could be harvested from e.g. fish or chickens, well... that seems a lot more reasonable than killing rhinos or bears. The ethics get tricky. What's a life worth? The sages have struggled with that one.
I admire China's efforts to reduce harm to endangered creatures. The synthetics work well enough (assuming good faith manufacturing) to add quality of life and years that would otherwise not be available.
China persists for a number of reasons: the history of malfeasance of empire bioweapons against China for one, then the concern over its population health 2. I know to us it sounds extreme given we get fascism with lockdown, there however, people who mismanaged it and abused it are punished and removed from office, people who instead have used the tool properly limiting people's and working people's stress levels and so on are treasured, as they benefitted a numbers of issues..... not only above listed ones. So there has to be layering in looking at it..... just as we do in the West.
Thanks for commenting, all good points. I'm sure that in due time more clarity and nuance regarding the situation there will emerge. That said, at the end of the day, quarantining the healthy just seems like a bad idea, wherever it is done. Surely we all realize that by now?
After three years of Covid, 90% of Americans and Chinese have not been locked down.
US GDP has grow 3.4%, with 1,000,000 Covid deaths and 3,000,000 Long Covid invalids
China's GDP has grown 13.8%, with 7,000 deaths and 38,000 Long Covids.
Then there's this from Naomi Wu: abandoning Zero-COVID means losing more able-bodied workers per day to death and Long-COVID disability then can be replaced by new workers entering the labor pool. From an engineering standpoint, it is inherently unsustainable. The burn-through rate is easily quantifiable, so MTBF is a question of interventions - rescinding labor protections, prison labor, migrant "guest workers" etc, – to try and push back the date of system failure- but eventually, you just run out of people.
"Long covid" is a factor I haven't seen much discussion of. Very interesting indeed! I wonder whether long covid is as much an issue with the milder Omicron as it was with earlier variants...
from what I gather as a former affected person, and having read studies, long covid is when spike protein from either virus or mRNA injections is still in the system..... once it is cleansed all is back on track.
in the West 0 covid = full blast Naz*sm on par with Hitlerites..... so we need to be careful on equating each measure with the system it operates in, instead of wishing it was equal all the while unrealistic everywhere.
"The reason the State enjoys a formidable legitimacy in the eyes of the Chinese has nothing to do with democracy but can be found in the relationship between the State and Chinese civilization.
"The State is seen as the embodiment, guardian and defender of Chinese civilization. Maintaining the unity, cohesion and integrity of the Chinese civilization-state is perceived as the highest political priority, the sacrosanct task of the Chinese State.
"Unlike in the West, where the State is viewed with varying degrees of suspicion, even hostility and regarded, as a consequence, as an outsider, in China the state is seen as an intimate, as part of the family, indeed as the head of the family". When China Rules the World.
That's a wonderful quote from Martin Jacques. I've heard very similar things from the small but very active Chinese community (incl those living in China and ex-pats) and China-watchers on the Russian social media site Vkontacte. They point out over and over again that the Chinese have a much different relationship to/attitude about central government, it is not the adversarial contradiction that it is here in the West. They also say very much the same things that you do about state censorship, that it is transparent and reasonable.
I think of it in part as the psychology of previous investment. Having embarked on this path, the Party can't not. Also, I have no doubt Xi feels an immense sense of power, controlling so many to thoroughly, as do communists generally. I think that was a lot of the issue in the West too, the raw exertion of power. See how I can get so many to use useless masks, while shaming other for not? Same with vaccines that don't work for respiratory illness, see how powerful I am, getting so many people to take a shot they don't need and may prove more dangerous than the virus?
Governments never give away their power or lessen it willingly, they always reach for more if not constrained. Never in modern history has there proved such an opportunity for government to gain more power over it's people. Covid is just a pretense for increased technocratic control and surveillance, with a side of controlled depopulation of "useless eaters." Notice how silent governments everywhere are, about dropping fertility rates and increased excess mortality continuing.
Simple success adequately explains the policy and its supporters: After three years of Covid, 90% of Americans and Chinese have not been locked down, and
US GDP has grown 3.4%, with 1,000,000 Covid deaths, and 3,000,000 Long Covid invalids
China's GDP has grown 13.8%, with 7,000 deaths, and 38,000 Long Covids.
Stupid article. China does not need to open up. It has not closed down. It has just carried out the simple and easy to do measures to prevent pandemic, which cause no great hardship or economic dislocation when they are just done properly. In almost all western countries, quarantine and other control measures are deliberately mismanaged in order to discredit them. There is a plan to spread the disease, for population control purposes.
From what I understand, the lockdown concept has a long history in China's public health approach. It's designed to protect the healthy. It's not necessarily misanthropic, although the applications obviously can be dreadful. They do it because contagion is terrifying in a densely populated place, and there's a big constituency for it. Pragmatism only goes so far and no leader, no matter how powerful and popular, can wholly defy deeply held convictions.
Thanks, I wasn't aware of that particular historical dimension. Alex of Reportify did mention in another part of the discussion on The Duran mentioned above that people there seem mostly OK with the ongoing internal restrictions (testing regimens et al).
China has struggled to cope with numerous things like that, e.g. the medical use of bear bile, which requires dead bears. It also works. Happily, there are synthetics now. I take one, but I'm not steeped in tradition.
Glad to hear the synthetic bear bile is working for you! I would be very surprised if the workings of many of those traditional Chinese medicines are duplicated in synthetics; at least the animal-based ones.
The synthetics may indeed be missing things that would be helpful. It's hard to tell without huge trials, which entails many dead bears and other critters...
If some meds could be harvested from e.g. fish or chickens, well... that seems a lot more reasonable than killing rhinos or bears. The ethics get tricky. What's a life worth? The sages have struggled with that one.
I admire China's efforts to reduce harm to endangered creatures. The synthetics work well enough (assuming good faith manufacturing) to add quality of life and years that would otherwise not be available.
China persists for a number of reasons: the history of malfeasance of empire bioweapons against China for one, then the concern over its population health 2. I know to us it sounds extreme given we get fascism with lockdown, there however, people who mismanaged it and abused it are punished and removed from office, people who instead have used the tool properly limiting people's and working people's stress levels and so on are treasured, as they benefitted a numbers of issues..... not only above listed ones. So there has to be layering in looking at it..... just as we do in the West.
Thanks for commenting, all good points. I'm sure that in due time more clarity and nuance regarding the situation there will emerge. That said, at the end of the day, quarantining the healthy just seems like a bad idea, wherever it is done. Surely we all realize that by now?
they do not quarantine the healthy, that is a misconception coming from bad Western propaganda..... several people have confirmed me that.
Could this explain China's strategy?
After three years of Covid, 90% of Americans and Chinese have not been locked down.
US GDP has grow 3.4%, with 1,000,000 Covid deaths and 3,000,000 Long Covid invalids
China's GDP has grown 13.8%, with 7,000 deaths and 38,000 Long Covids.
Then there's this from Naomi Wu: abandoning Zero-COVID means losing more able-bodied workers per day to death and Long-COVID disability then can be replaced by new workers entering the labor pool. From an engineering standpoint, it is inherently unsustainable. The burn-through rate is easily quantifiable, so MTBF is a question of interventions - rescinding labor protections, prison labor, migrant "guest workers" etc, – to try and push back the date of system failure- but eventually, you just run out of people.
"Long covid" is a factor I haven't seen much discussion of. Very interesting indeed! I wonder whether long covid is as much an issue with the milder Omicron as it was with earlier variants...
from what I gather as a former affected person, and having read studies, long covid is when spike protein from either virus or mRNA injections is still in the system..... once it is cleansed all is back on track.
How long can they ignore it? It's already impacting the labor force.
in the West 0 covid = full blast Naz*sm on par with Hitlerites..... so we need to be careful on equating each measure with the system it operates in, instead of wishing it was equal all the while unrealistic everywhere.
Quite so. M. Jacques nailed that:
"The reason the State enjoys a formidable legitimacy in the eyes of the Chinese has nothing to do with democracy but can be found in the relationship between the State and Chinese civilization.
"The State is seen as the embodiment, guardian and defender of Chinese civilization. Maintaining the unity, cohesion and integrity of the Chinese civilization-state is perceived as the highest political priority, the sacrosanct task of the Chinese State.
"Unlike in the West, where the State is viewed with varying degrees of suspicion, even hostility and regarded, as a consequence, as an outsider, in China the state is seen as an intimate, as part of the family, indeed as the head of the family". When China Rules the World.
That's a wonderful quote from Martin Jacques. I've heard very similar things from the small but very active Chinese community (incl those living in China and ex-pats) and China-watchers on the Russian social media site Vkontacte. They point out over and over again that the Chinese have a much different relationship to/attitude about central government, it is not the adversarial contradiction that it is here in the West. They also say very much the same things that you do about state censorship, that it is transparent and reasonable.
where may I find the full citation..... or paper? that would be helpful....
Sorry!
Martin Jacques, When China Rules the World
https://www.amazon.com/When-China-Rules-World-Western/dp/0143118005
I haven't read the book yet, but I've listened to many interviews with him on YT; invaluable.
Baba Beijing knows that the variants being spread in China are bioweapons. They are on a war footing.
Are they doing it everywhere? If not, maybe it's just a trial. China does seem to be ahead of us in implementing a technocracy.
I think of it in part as the psychology of previous investment. Having embarked on this path, the Party can't not. Also, I have no doubt Xi feels an immense sense of power, controlling so many to thoroughly, as do communists generally. I think that was a lot of the issue in the West too, the raw exertion of power. See how I can get so many to use useless masks, while shaming other for not? Same with vaccines that don't work for respiratory illness, see how powerful I am, getting so many people to take a shot they don't need and may prove more dangerous than the virus?
Governments never give away their power or lessen it willingly, they always reach for more if not constrained. Never in modern history has there proved such an opportunity for government to gain more power over it's people. Covid is just a pretense for increased technocratic control and surveillance, with a side of controlled depopulation of "useless eaters." Notice how silent governments everywhere are, about dropping fertility rates and increased excess mortality continuing.
Yes, path dependency may be one factor.
Simple success adequately explains the policy and its supporters: After three years of Covid, 90% of Americans and Chinese have not been locked down, and
US GDP has grown 3.4%, with 1,000,000 Covid deaths, and 3,000,000 Long Covid invalids
China's GDP has grown 13.8%, with 7,000 deaths, and 38,000 Long Covids.
No more need be said.
Stupid article. China does not need to open up. It has not closed down. It has just carried out the simple and easy to do measures to prevent pandemic, which cause no great hardship or economic dislocation when they are just done properly. In almost all western countries, quarantine and other control measures are deliberately mismanaged in order to discredit them. There is a plan to spread the disease, for population control purposes.
Just to let you know Colin, this post went to my junk folder.
Thanks for the heads-up. Overly aggressive spam filters are a total nuisance.