Campaign to 'thank' Xi Jinping flatly rejected by Wuhan citizens | Hacker News Reader

Campaign to 'thank' Xi Jinping flatly rejected by Wuhan citizens

asia.nikkei.com

90 pointstomohawk45 comments

Chernobyl was one of the key events that led to Perestroika and Glasnost, which itself led to the collapse of the Soviet Union (alongside the economic hardships brought on partly by an inability to compete with NATO/US military budgets and the flaws of the Soviet command economy and millions of small or minuscule issues). I imagine the CCP is aware of the similarities, and so we will see a further clamping down and maybe even a purge of "disloyal" party members/scapegoats.

They have already been testing the waters with theories in Chinese media that the virus is a US biological weapon.

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/13/world/asia/coronavirus-ch...

That kind of deflection is pretty common sadly for folks who have no interest in the truth:

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/17/business/media/coronaviru...

But this is kind of the opposite of Chernobyl, right?

As you laid out, Chernobyl revealed the weakness of the Soviet Union and played some part in its collapse.

COVID19 has laid bare the superiority of the Chinese model in terms of quick mass mobilization. The entire world saw how quickly and drastically China acted and how slowly the US is acting. And now they're sending masks and respirators to the rest of the developing world.

The Chinese government utterly and completely dropped the ball for the first two whole months of the crisis. They censored and punished doctors trying to raise awareness, and suppressed news of the outbreak allowing mass gatherings to go ahead for political reasons.

After that the severe crackdown came after the virus had been spread internationally, and has precipitated a humanitarian crisis which, again, they are covering up and suppressing.

The Chinese people have been fantastic. They've put up with appalling hardships and suffered greatly for the incompetence and heavy handed ness of their leaders.

The Chinese government didn't just drop the ball. They actively stole the ball, stabbed it with a knife, and stuffed it down their pants. When asked where the ball went, they very angrily yelled "it wasn't me!"

The culture the government promotes results in mid-level party members to total cowards who are so afraid of looking bad, that they hid evidence that anything might possibly be wrong.

WHICH LEAD TO BIGGER PROBLEMS.

The word to describe the situation is "dysfunctional". Which our healthcare system is, also.

That's only half of what happened though. Initially China was pretending nothing was happening and arresting researchers who talked about it. If their initial response had been open, the more extreme measures (that worked really well) might not have been necessary.

If this same outbreak had started somewhere other than under the CCP there is a good chance it would've been squashed within the first month or so. China's continued attemps to put a good face on things rather than admit the disaster that was happening is what caused this to be such a large issue.

It's essentially saying: China is so great for pulling out a knife so quickly. Yes the same knife that they stabbed with just before. You don't get credit for fixing a problem that your ineptitude and philosophy made significantly worse.

Yeah, not that way. That's not quick

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/mar/13/first-covid-19...

hiding info

https://www.voanews.com/science-health/coronavirus-outbreak/...

not like they had a chance when forced to quarantine at gun point

https://twitter.com/stillgray/status/1239100397597253633

and silenced if dared to criticize

https://twitter.com/nathanlawkc/status/1239184465961811970?s...

Is silencing doctors, not sharing info with the global community for weeks, if not months, forcing their people at gun point, sealing their houses, and then attempting to blame the US a superior model?

I fail to see how. Soviet model 100%.

The first cases of what we now call COVID-19 were identified at the end of November 2019. By mid-December, medical professionals in Wuhan were aware of the virus. The government did not begin the massive lockdowns till mid-January. This was partly a result of the regional party's incompetence (as is mentioned in the article), and partly a result of pressure from Beijing to ensure that lunar new year celebrations went on without a hitch. (My personal mental model for China is that the state wishes to portray the country as Disney World while actually running it like an ultra-dysfunctional Jurassic Park.) Dr Li Wenliang was even harassed by police and made to sign a confession for "disrupting the peace" by daring to tell the truth about the illness on the Internet; for his trouble, he himself succumbed to the disease.

The mass mobilization was a show meant to distract the Chinese people and the world from the fact that this crisis was actively covered up and allowed to fester for 40 days for purely political reasons.

So, no, I don't think this proves anything about the "superiority" of the Chinese model. South Korea has a very different model, and they have had a much better response. Even the US response hasn't been too bad. And the US and other countries have been actively harmed by the Chinese cover-ups and censorship of information, along with the concomitant spread of disinformation.

I place the blame for this becoming a pandemic firmly at the hands of the Chinese Communist government at every layer.

> COVID19 has laid bare the superiority of the Chinese model in terms of quick mass mobilization.

Uh what? Define quick - They could have shit it down in December and spared the whole world

>COVID19 has laid bare the superiority of the Chinese model in terms of quick mass mobilization.

If that's what people actually think, all that demonstrates is China terrifying power at spinning information in its favour.

Depends on how the locals feel, if they feel saved, or if they feel oppressed.

But China is not communist and doesn't have a command economy.

My high school book had a very good cartoon comparing Chinese old and new communism:

1. Mao's red communist handkerchief

2. Hu Jintao (previous president of China)'s capitalistic red tie.

Not to mention China doesn't spend anywhere near their % of GDP compared to the Soviet Union.

Isn't that a 'red' herring? The CCP is solidly in command of China, and no other parties are allowed.

That's authoritarianism, not communism.

They can call themselves a "communist" party all they want; it doesn't make it true any more than the "Democratic People's Republic of [North] Korea" is actually democratic.

I seem to recall in the Marxist-Leninist schema that the contradictions of capitalism lead the workers to seize power through violent revolution and create a "dictatorship of the proletariat" that brings about socialism. Socialism itself is supposed to also collapse under its own contradictions and being about communism, a sort of anarcho-syndicalist utopia.

So, in a sense, you're right that "communist" is a misnomer (at least under the Marxist-Leninist scheme, which is clearly what the CCP is trying to emulate). However, it's hard to imagine a more apt description for the CCP and other far-left Marxist parties worldwide than "dictatorship of the proletariat."

What proletariat? High level CCP officials are very rich. Example :- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wen_Jiabao (previous Prime Minister of China)

There is no dictatorship of the proletariat. It is a dictatorship of the CCP. The CCP is not trying to emulate anything resembling Marxist-Leninist, or atleast there is no evidence for anything such.

Here is a fun article connecting the CCP and communism (https://www.nytimes.com/2018/09/28/world/asia/china-maoists-...)

> a "gratitude education campaign," under which Wuhan citizens would be taught to express their thanks to Xi and the party for their efforts in tackling the illness.

Man you're not just expected to thank him, you're going to be "taught" to do so too ... ?

Reminiscent of the Jean Michel-Jarre concerts in China. "Ladies and Gentlemen, the artist has finished. Please applaud."

It's a grand system. As long as you're Xi.

The way you take down a powerful leader is not by criticizing which will bring down his wrath but by excessive and ridiculous praise. Credit him with godly powers and set him up for the fall when things inevitably go bad. During the cultural revolution and before who was leading the cult of personality behind Mao? It was Lin Biao.

Those who want the crown will be the biggest sycophants.

> Sun, a female member of the powerful Politburo, was being shown around a residential area in Wuhan that had been cleaned up before the visit and made to appear as if plenty of food was being delivered to the residents.

If they lie about that what else could they be lying about?

What an article full of generalisations. Is this author really talking for 11 million Wuhan citizens? Over what, social media posts?

I think not only Wuhan. For the last 2 months straight, the internet in China was one big erupting volcano.

I think that it is only now that people in Zhongnanhai understood that by walling off Chinese internet from the rest of the world, they got themselves a pressure cooker.

A single propaganda mistake in a time of crisis is instantly amplified hundredfold because people just don't have anything else to read and be angry about.

We are seeing inter-country information warfare.

I think more everyday people in China would be ready to thank him if he would share just some of that delicious Hunny he keeps all to himself.

No wonder we’re in a bear market.

I thought China was a Tigger economy?

thank you for unleashing a biological weapon on the world.

They're already trying to pin it on the US:

https://www.thedailybeast.com/china-launches-a-fake-news-cam...

But I doubt this will be successful, especially given how bad the epidemic is shaping up to be here. Our economy is now in a recession, and our stock market (which Trump loved to boast of), has cratered, even with the Fed injecting trillions.

This reads like one of those unsubstantiated news from the west. At least some one of the deleted tweets but none. Just a bunch of words.

In a climate of massive semi-automated censorship, it’s hard to document situations like this

Each day people don't take action against the virus costs ~20% more lives.

Wuhan knows this.

Lombardy knows this.

What does that mean?

Multiple Wulan like outbreaks in America unless people take action now [1]

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=29Lk56kYQ9w

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