1. China’s early failures were quickly remedied. They enacted a massively costly economic shutdown early, and bought the west weeks or months. What did we do with that bought time? We wasted it by denying the threat, failing to stockpile, and ultimately doing the exact same thing China did (trying to suppress news of it from the top). At least in the US a select few Republicans were able to profit off this, so I guess they can thank China for their generosity. 2) China built two hospitals in a week, and nearly instantaneously shifted a significant portion of their industry to making medical supplies. Thousands of Americans will die because the US President won’t invoke the defense production act. US does adapt, but it does so too slowly to solve the problem.

China has proven themselves massively resilient. Right now, they’re worried about reimporting cases from Europe and have covid largely under control. It would have been better to not get out of hand in the first place, but they’re the only country that’s demonstrated an ability to work themselves back out of the crisis once it’s unfolded.

Already, colleagues in China are returning to work, and I’ll be out of the office likely until May. China gave us weeks if not months of warning that we ignored, so it’s a little frustrating to see Americans and Europeans finger point when ultimately we’re responsible for our own shit.

If you look at China’s trajectory over the past ~15 years, it is obvious that the 21st century is theirs for the taking, as the 20th was for the US.

I sincerely doubt "buying time for the west" was even remotely in the minds of any Communist Party officials in charge of the lockdown. They committed to the lockdown so their own medical systems wouldn't get overwhelmed and cause even more economic damage, just like everyone else.

US adaptation will take the form of putting systems in place to prevent a re-occurrence. Of course we move too slow in the initial crisis, we always have. Any democracy moves slower than an authoritarian dictatorship in the moment, that's one of the trade-offs. It's frustrating, but a natural feature of the system, and pays dividends in the long-term.

China's trajectory over the past 15 years has been providing cheap labor to be the world's workshop. But that labor is no longer as cheap, automation continues to advance, and companies were already relocating their supply chains due to political/economic/IP theft concerns, Samsung being the most notable example. Now this? There will be a surge.

That and the Chinese's government's bottomless-loans-as-political-favor policy can't last forever. And thanks to the one child policy they're facing a major age and gender demographic crisis. China is also dependent on imports for food and energy.

They exist in their modern form at at the pleasure of the rest of the world. The foundation for their economic miracle was the west opening them up to world trade to distance them from the Soviets, and later cheap labor. It was never anything intrinsic to China or Chinese power. The moment they try to force their will on the world they'll find their ability to do so is short-lived.