The rest seems internally inconsistent with where you were initially. I think it's because you might have stretched the kernel of wisdom, "authoritarianism may have some benefit in the kind of disaster which is only mitigated by authoritarianism" a bit further than it goes on its own merits.
They screwed up by doubling down. Your main point would actually be a lot easier to defend if you separated it from the overextended Chinese implementation.
Relax the US took 10 years to apologize to the Japanese people they threw into internment camps. That was a bigger fuck up than the china covid lock downs.
>The rest seems internally inconsistent with where you were initially. I think it's because you might have stretched the kernel of wisdom, "authoritarianism may have some benefit in the kind of disaster which is only mitigated by authoritarianism" a bit further than it goes on its own merits.
Internally inconsistent? No it's not. And you didn't point out where too. Just a vague, "seems inconsistent".
It's also not really a stretch. Part of the speed and efficiency in China's response comes from central control. Part of Americas dying infrastructure comes from lack of centralized control, too many Nimbys, different motives and conflicting opinions.
>They screwed up by doubling down. Your main point would actually be a lot easier to defend if you separated it from the overextended Chinese implementation.
Yeah they screwed up. But my point still stands. Also it's not the biggest fuck up. Not by a long shot. Take a look at the US blowing up the nordstream pipelines. Holy shit a literal act of war/terrorism on an allied country. The US is no stranger to dark shit and huge fuck ups on a scale equivalent if not worse than china.
I wouldn't count on China ever admitting they messed up. That's just not how it's done there. Hands will be waved, stories will be spun and they'll talk like it was a perfect strategy.
"Saving face" is very real in Asian cultures. If you can avoid ever admitting a mistake or fault, you do it. I saw it a lot while living there.
I will agree with you that from my own experience that this does effect the Chinese more than other people in general.
A good example of the differences are apologies by Western governments for past wrongs. Doing so can actually increase social standing among the population. Admitting guilt and wrongdoing can be seen as a redeeming quality.
But I do agree that not admitting fault is a pretty universal human thing. I think "saving face" has more to do with the social pressures around it.
I'm chinese. I understand what you're talking about it, More than you. But you are taking it too far. The concept is exactly the same as the the universal thing about not admitting fault. It is exactly the same.
The main difference is the concept has been crystallized into the language and is more prevalent. It is not anything more than that.
It's likely someone who was natively born in China is trying to explain the concept to you without fully understanding western culture. He likely thinks western culture is some sort of pristine culture with no concept at all of "not wanting to admit fault" and was trying to explain it to you thinking that the concept was completely absent from your background. No, this is wrong.
I'm a creature of both worlds. Deep insight into western culture by virtue of being born in the states and deep insight into east asian culture by virtue of being born of the chinese race, having family who is chinese and also having friends who are all chinese.
The duality of my origins make my insight more calibrated in this regard.
Perhaps you know you're wrong and you're trying to save face?
It's pretty obvious that in countries like China the idea that the government can "never be wrong, never show weakness" is different than the Western approach.
The western government does the same shit. Their reach just isn't as far as the Chinese government in its ability to completely lock down the media. Instead the US government typically does what they call "a cover up".
Both governments launch massive amounts of propaganda, both would take a loong time to admit thier mistakes if given enough pressure. The only difference is, in china no one is allowed to deliver pressure.
Do they apologize for their own past doings or does one US faction throw another faction under the bus through a half-hearted apology?
It seems most of the US population considers an apology worthless at this point, atleast if it's not attached to financial compensation which is the case for the majority of mistakes or crimes. They are just considered political lip service.
Oh, and Nord stream 2 was not the US. At least there's no credible proof or semblance of one.
You have to be really lying to yourself to believe that. Look at the twinkle in bidens eye when he says it: https://youtu.be/OS4O8rGRLf8?t=82
This coupled with: https://seymourhersh.substack.com/p/how-america-took-out-the...
It's unmistakable. The US did it and everybody in Germany and Europe knows it. The US was meanwhile over-concerned with their first major F-35 kill ever: Balloon gate.
> European countries did much better than china regarding covid. US did protlly because of many internal issues which seem to be unadressable.
The US did poorly because of lack of centralized control and abundance of karens and the male counterpart. China had the superior response in terms of infrastructure adaption.
My hypothesis is that China stuck with it so long because: 1) their vaccine wasn't that good and they refused superior mRNA vaccines and 2) their ego was all wrapped up in the "glory of the Chinese way" of dealing with Covid and letting it run rampant was tantamount to admitting their policy was wrong.
China just decided they weren't going to use it. It literally wasn't allowed.
If China had used a mix of mRNA and other vaccines I might see the argument they had a lack of supply.
There were definitely supply problems in the US in the beginning.
And before China opened up millions of doses were being destroyed by countries who bought too much.
China absolutely could have gotten mRNA vaccines. Hell, Hong Kong had them.
So like i said, they could have gotten access to some mRNA vaccines, they choose not to.
Hong Kong has 7 million people… 7 million != 1.3 billion.
I agree that the politically, China didn't want to use Western vaccines.
BioNTech and Fosun Pharma are setting up a 50-50 joint venture to make and sell the COVID mRNA shot in China, with manufacturing capacity to produce up to 1 billion doses a year, Fosun said in a filing (PDF) to the Hong Kong Exchange on Sunday.
https://www.fiercepharma.com/manufacturing/biontech-fosun-ph...
They choose not to use it.
That, coupled with the fact that the Chinese population have resisted getting vaccinated meant that it was never a viable strategy to purchase billions of doses and open up. The only option they had was COVID-0 style strategies.
They didnt.
Instead they used their home grown vaccine which had terrible efficacy.
Supply being one problem and uptake being the other. Meant China never had a proper “opening up” option presented.
And yes HK couldn’t produce or purchase the billions of doses required to vaccinate the mainland. I’m saying that too
They didnt.
I think you don’t really understand the problem.
The fact that it wasn't done is deliberate from both sides.
If the Chinese vaccine manufacturers wanted an FDA review, they can pay a fee and get it.
They also had a low trust society in western medicine, there never got effective uptake of any of the vaccines.
It meant they didn’t have the options that countries like Taiwan and Australia had, where high vaccine uptake allowed lockdowns to be loosened.
It was not clear what omicron was.
Anyway I don't entirely blame them for maintaining the hardline even well past the advent of conflicting evidence. This is actually normal human behavior. People cannot flip their opinions and beliefs in the exact instant they are presented with opposing evidence. Humans just don't work this way. There's no individual or government that will reverse a policy and admit a mistake instantly. Literally not one. It's not right, but I don't expect any other form of behavior from a human or humans running an organization.
>The other conclusions seem off too. Other Asian and South Pacific countries demonstrated their willingness to lock down and turn more authoritarian in the face of an unknown threat. They pivoted though.
Naw not at the scale of China. It's easy for a small island to execute lockdown. It's extremely hard for a landmass as large as china to execute the same thing.