West’s incompetent response to pandemic will hasten the power-shift to the east
economist.com
economist.com
Am I reading The Economist or Pravda?
Western governments (edit:those listed in the article such as the US and European powers), on the other hand, have been beset by decades of political parties attacking the legitimacy and foundations of the political system in order to score points against their rivals. This has led to a widespread unease and distrust among their voters, and a subsequent weakening of their governmental controls and regulations.
I don't agree with all the points raised in this piece, and I suspect that this weakness of the West is part of a longer cycle. But, for now, there is some points raised in this article that we should ponder.
Between covering up the fact that their death rate was a few orders of magnitude higher and deciding to intentionally leaving out infected but asymptomatic cases from their infection statistics while boasting that new cases occurred due to infected foreigners entering the country , it's patently obvious that the Chinese regime does not and never had a good grasp on the problem.
And if that does not convince you, let's not forget that the Chinese regime's talking heads tried to pin the blame of their outbreak on Italy.
I think they had a good grasp on the problem, but the problem to them was (as it always is for China’s leadership) firstly about maintaining control, and at best secondarily about dealing with Covid.
Moreover, the only reason why China's covid19 outbreak threatened the Chinese regime's control over the population is because the Chinese regime failed to address the problem in a timely manner after intentionally turning a blind eye to the problem, and afterwards attacking it as a political threat instead of a public health crisis.
People have been saying, for years, that the ‘wet markets’ of exotic animals are breeding grounds for inter-species diseases. The Chinese government did not listen to these complaints for many reasons, including the fact that ‘medicinal remedies’ made from exotic animals are a status symbol for upper-class Chinese.
Yet, somehow, living in one of such "western" governed places, I don't feel that there is less governmental control than before. To give you two examples, I remember a time when digital fingerprinting of civilians was mandated only in a criminal context, but now one has to be fingerprinted just to get an ID (passport). Not long ago one could make easy anonymous calls (think of whistleblowing or whatnot). Not anymore, as the public phones aren't around any more and since not so long ago getting a cell phone number requires revealing one's identity. These may be anecdotal, but still.
Such a thing as jailing whistle-blower happens more easily in autocracies than in democracies, one could assume.
https://www.npr.org/sections/coronavirus-live-updates/2020/0...
At a time where the virus and its lethality is undeniable, and Fauci isn’t even just a random doctor, but probably one of the most decorated doctor in the past few decades.
When the Chinese government "attacks" somebody, that person disappears and often dies.
Just wanting to remind people of the difference.
Therefore: no, it doesn't. It's something people in power will always attempt. That's why "checks and balances" are so important (and I don't know any country where they are so well implemented as in the US).
China responded badly and recovered. West is still in an arrogant denial.
Heck, in the US the President is still engaging in the kind of denialism and lies that we are calling China incompetent for because they engaged in it in the very beginning of the crisis, where the impact was not clear at all.
Ooh, can I do some cherry-picking, too?
How about the incompetent response of the Japanese government, where it's gotten so bad that healthcare workers warned their healthcare system may collapse [0]
Singapore's having their own Covid resurgence [1], related to those underpaid and exploited migrant workers, crammed into dormitories, which they'd like everyone to continue to pretend don't exist (in Singapore the streets clean themselves).
In the Phillipines Duterte has used the pandemic to seize even more power for himself, heading in the direction of becoming a fully-fledged military dictator. [2]
For Western governments, how about the lauded [3] response of New Zealand [4] and, perhaps to a lesser extent, Australia?
This is an article that started with a thesis (China will use its power!), cherry-picks a tiny amount of supporting evidence to tie in with Covid (so topical right now), then wanders off down the well-trodden path of speculating about future Chinese influence (despite the initial mentions of Singapore and South Korea, this is article actually only about China) and the downfall of the West.
[0] https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-52336388
[1] https://www.channelnewsasia.com/news/singapore/covid-19-new-...
[2] https://edition.cnn.com/2020/04/20/opinions/duterte-covid-19...
[3] https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2020/04/jacinda...
[4] Disclosure: I'm a Kiwi, and think our government have done a reasonably good job responding to the pandemic. I also think foreign press lavishes far too much praise our on government and Prime Minister.
Singapore's resurgence is pretty unavoidable, there's simply nowhere else for these foreign workers to go. Despite the case numbers deaths are remarkably low, basically all of these dorms are getting tested leading to resurgence in case numbers, it's tens of thousands of people.
So despite all the socio-political criticisms in your post how about addressing the quoted comment?
They are far lower death rates, it's undeniable. Singapore has had 11 deaths. Malaysia 90. South Korea and Japan ~230.
> So despite all the socio-political criticisms in your post how about addressing the quoted comment?
> They are far lower death rates, it's undeniable. Singapore has had 11 deaths. Malaysia 90. South Korea and Japan ~230.
The deaths lag behind the newly-identified infections. Singapore's resurgence now won't translate into more deaths for a 5-15 days. Japan's probably in the same situation - aging population and all. The article I linked to, warning of a "collapse" in Japan's healthcare system, doesn't inspire a lot of hope for the immediate future.
I didn't say anything about South Korea or Malaysia, seems like they've done a good job so far. I'm not saying all his examples are wrong, just that he's cherry-picking.
Anyway the article has nothing really to do with South Korea or Singapore or Malaysia - Malaysia is not even mentioned! He could have mentioned them, if they're doing well and the article was actually about Asian leadership in the crisis and it's after effects, and not just more speculation about China's possible political intentions.
Australians and New Zealanders can rightly be annoyed that the responses were not excellent - but the responses were basically adequate. They were just enough and a little bit late - compared to europe which was too little too late.
If diverse countries like Taiwan, South Korea, Malaysia and Vietnam were capable of mounting competent responses (during the Taiwanese/South Korean flu season), there is no reason to say that Australia/New Zealand were somehow incapable. It's far more likely that we were "lucky" because our timezone and flight time was too far apart to become part of the conversations that lead to social suicide, so our leaders made basically competent responses.
This article is from 20-Feb-2020:
https://www.dw.com/en/massive-flu-wave-grips-germany/a-52445...
No, we ignored Trump's spin because it's on the nose nonsense and we've got better things to do than turning everything into a tool for political gain.
Nobody's blind regarding China's « help », and we'd rather do without.
Having said that I am fortunate enough to spend a lot of working with democracy activists in the rest of the world and my sense is that there is an ever increasing desire for that, just look at the small pockets of increasing hope in Asia and Africa.
Also, democracy reduces the amount of violence necessary to keep a state going in tough times. While violence itself isn't a problem in strictly pragmatic terms, it does create a sort of moral malaise that leads to a dispirited, cynical and corrupt governmental culture, that ultimately leads to regime instability.
People often forget that autocracy is what democracy replaced - and the autocracies were replaced not just because they were bad in a moral sense, but that they were also badly run, dysfunctional, and uncompetitive.
Best case the West has also wiped out a generation of healthcare and pensions to pay.
The West is also more nationalised than ever with a somewhat unified anti-China stance.
The West has become more powerful relative to the East.
The death rate of people over 65 is still quite low. To say the West has wiped out a generation of healthcare and pensions is just incredible. Most of these retired people are still around.
Wishful thinking.
It's best guessed at being several years.
But 6-24 months is very possible but it's not really relevant to an article claiming the East has beaten the West, 6 months would redefine everything.
> Is there any reason to believe we get can it through 60-80% of our society within 12 months?
It's a good question, let me check the "flatten the curve" graphs that are everywhere that people are using to shift policy.
Jokes aside the Imperial College report put it at ~4 months untouched for instance.
So fully reopen with social distancing measures like masks, then 12 months seems possible.
Exponential growth. Suppose the doubling time is 10 days (it's probably less) and there is one person loose who has it (there are probably more). One year would be 35 doublings (actually, slightly more) which would be enough time for 2^35 = 34 billion people to get it. Since this is well over four times the present world population, it's not unreasonable to suppose 60-80% of the people will have had it by then.
? really? Are you actually proposing that killing off people when they retire is a good thing for society?
They’re no longer paying tax, they’ll free up housing when they go, and probably leave inheritances.
We just can’t talk about it, but there are benefits to cleaning house.
Even on the very narrow definition of some GDP-per-capita-like metric. Assume that one country decides to implement the 65y-killswitch. Everyone who possibly can will move to some other country. You just lost the vast majority of your skilled workers.