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In Shanghai: ‘We Will Infect The Whole Family!’
I often hesitate to make claims about what is or isn't going on in Mainland China.
At the risk of overstating the case, such claims, when made from the outside looking in, are a bit like speculating on North Korea. Sure, foreign media are allowed in Xi's sprawling kingdom, but they're hardly welcome, and Western tourists, to the extent they're inclined to brave quarantine requirements for overseas travelers, do incur some risk of being kidnapped by the government, particularly in the unlucky ev
The CCP not only controls the Chinese population. The CCP controls not merely perception. As we saw with Covid lockdowns, the CCP believes it can control reality itself. Not unlike their Russian authoritarian cousins, they will fail.
Agree. You nailed it !
This is a damned if you do damned if you don’t situation. I’ve stated this before on this site, but the demographics of China (age and population density), along with obstinate lack of advance in vaccination (rate and type) and treatment made covid 0 a necessity. We’re finding out, anecdotally I suppose, why the party has been so stubborn in their refusal to relent.
The tragedy is not that there are covid deaths- that was inevitable. It is the scale of it- just like in the US, the black mark is not that there were deaths- but they should have been 50% less- that is the tragedy. The Chinese had over a year to prepare for this and had the benefit of learning from others- and did a lousy job after enduring years of draconian measures- in hindsight we can see it was for nothing.
It’d be so interesting to know what has transpired within the CCP. The pivot from zero-Covid to everyone-Covid seems hasty, chaotic, ill-planned, un-prepared. No stockpiling of drugs, no pre-vaccination program, no advance call-up of medical personnel, no organized messaging change to smooth the transition. This is unusual for Xi’s control-focused, centrally-directed government. What did Chinese health, security, economic officials tell Xi? Did anyone “lose their head”? How did Xi make his decisions?
My baseless conspiracy theory is that XI did this to undermine the more liberal voices. As in “Here you go. Take credit for what you unleased on your fellow citizens.” The protest leaders (of course the government knows names) would be the ones likely to lose their heads, after dutifully apologizing to the communist party for their actions.
Then he can swoop back in and reinstate Covid restrictions with little or no opposition.
mind blowing to me that CCP did not wait until Springtime to (publicly) lessen onerous restrictions…that’s a lot of unnecessary human sacrifice…
This complete mismanagement should open everyone’s eyes the same way that Russia’s debacle in Ukraine has. China is nowhere near a competent threat to the US’s global dominance. Authoritarian governments are never able to sustain growth and progress because their leadership will always make tragic mistakes due to their inherent hubris. China arrogantly assumed they could prevent a global pandemic in their country against all available evidence to dispute that. They arrogantly assumed they could create the mRNA vaccines that have proven most effective against Covid-19 without cooperating with western nations. Their arrogance will be their downfall.
This should make everyone who thinks China’s military could squash the US pause and consider what has that military actually ever accomplished? And despite the numbers and equipment, is this leadership capable of leading a strategically sound war effort? Or would Xi arrogantly assume victory before he even began the fight like Putin?
+1
I should have added that they always fail but never go away.
I don’t think it’s too big a stretch to imagine various regimes wouldn’t mind a little population-culling. If it can be blamed on a disease all the better.
Developed countries provide old-age pensions & medical benefits that could be ‘saved’, and non-developed countries that can never possibly meet the population’s needs might imagine a lessening of that burden, if only a few more of the old, tired, poor & hungry would just hurry up and move along…
Reportedly Chinese govt estimates:
– up to 248MM new Covid cases in Dec 1-20
– up to 37MM new cases/day now
Go big or go home!
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-12-23/china-estimates-covid-surge-is-infecting-37-million-people-a-day
Not new news, but official Chinese govt data on Covid infections is total fiction.
Some smaller cities are releasing their estimates, at least until they are silenced by the CCP.
Quingdao population 7MM, 0.50MM new Covid cases/day, which is 7% of pop. Donguan pop 10MM, 0.27MM, 3% of pop.
Astounding for 5% of a city’s population to be infected each day. Nothing like this was ever seen in the US or the other Western countries whose handling of Covid was derided by the CCP. China’s Covid wave(s) look to be faster and bigger.
The pandemic will soon take off in rural China, where healthcare resources are fewer and the population is higher risk (more elderly).
In the US, mortality during the Covid waves was affected by how overwhelmed the healthcare system was and thus what care both Covid and non-Covid patients received. If China’s already-marginal healthcare system is going to be more overwhelmed than in the West, China’s mortality rate is likely to be higher than one would otherwise expect.
A few weeks ago, I looked at Taiwan data and thought China would have up to 1MM deaths in its Covid reopening wave. I now think it is likely to be 2X, or more, higher.
https://www.scmp.com/news/china/science/article/3204489/covid-china-cities-offer-bleak-estimates-daily-infections
The Chinese experts who are talking to media seem to be expecting the vast majority of the population to be infected by the end of January, when the current virus wave is expected to peak.
In the US, the peaks and troughs of the Covid waves had some investment significance, as I recall. Likely so in China as well.
The effects of Covid on the US workforce has had some investment significance as well. It would be interesting to estimate the possible effect on the Chinese workforce, from Covid deaths plus disabling long Covid.