I thought you might be amused by this anecdote, from Jamil Anderlini at the Financial Times:
Roger Roth received an email from the Chinese government asking him to sponsor a bill in the Wisconsin state legislature praising China’s response to coronavirus, he thought it must be a hoax. The sender had even appended a pre-written resolution full of Communist party talking points and dubious claims for the Wisconsin senate president to put to a vote.
“I’ve never heard of a foreign government approaching a state legislature and asking them to pass a piece of legislation,†Mr Roth told me last week. “I thought this couldn’t be real.†Then he discovered it was indeed sent by China’s consul-general in Chicago. “I was astonished . . .[and] wrote a letter back: ‘dear consul general, NUTS’.â€Â
It is impossible to see this episode as anything but another disastrous own goal in Beijing’s attempts to boost its global standing in the time of coronavirus.Â
From the deplorable treatment of African citizens in southern China to the export of faulty medical equipment, or the official endorsement of conspiracy theories blaming the US military for the outbreak, most of the Communist party’s efforts to control the international narrative have backfired.
The balance of the article outlines the fight President Xi is waging in China to hold onto power. Everything including your life, mine, and billions of others have been subordinated to that objective. I would not be a bit surprised if, looking back from twenty years in the future, the six months from the middle of December to the middle of June 2020 were seen as the most significant in world history. Maybe we’ll be luckier than that.
I think that Republicans and Democrats alike would be very prudent in distancing themselves from China.
If you will remember, there was some Chinese company that announced it was building a factory or something in Wisconsin that Trump liked to cite. I suspect China thought they had good relations and strong support among some key politicians there. They probably did, but they didnt realize how quickly a politician can turn on them when things go bad. Wait a year or so until things go back to normal, then they can go back to giving money (or something in kind) to Wisconsin politicians again and get support.
Steve
Let’s not engage in mindless xenophobia here.
Foxconn which is the company that is inferred – is Taiwanese. It’s about as bad as confusing Ireland with Northern Ireland.
Any time Steve can take a shot @ the prez, he does so, even if wrong.
CA Gov. Newsom, Democrat, just ordered a billion dollars worth of masks from a company operating out of China, with ties here in LA. Chinese PPE have been returned by other countries because they have been faulty. But, still Newsom proceeds ahead. Also, include Pelosi, Biden, Bloomberg, Gates, all Democrats, in having lots of financial ties to China, which may be why democrats are so reticent in blaming the CCP for originating, spreading and hiding the Coronavirus until the world population became exposed to it. Instead they politically pummel the president, while seemingly giving China a partisan pass.
Ahhh, they all look alike. And they do have 12 factories in China.
Steve
That is an extremely offensive comment.
I can rationalize partisans lamenting how much they dislike the president, who disagree with his policies, or are turned off by his abrasive style. However, to nitpick every move, deride or discredit decisions before they have gone through a full analysis or activation spectrum – especially during such a critical time in our country – gets old and very annoying.
So many of the criticisms slung at Trump, early on, have revealed themselves to be bureaucratic mistakes – CDC contaminating an ingredient in a test kit design, coupled with FDA red tape, both slowing up the accuracy, approval process and distribution of tests. Even the WSJ has written a positive opinion piece about how Trump used deregulation and decentralization in addressing a pandemic crisis. Federalization, something Dems usually don’t support, has been referred to frequently, in the context of it’s constitutional application, granting states the right to manage their own problems. This is not to say the WH didn’t stumble at times, suffer moments of misspeaking, or browbeat some people. But, to itâ€s credit, this administration has cooperatively reached out globally to allies, formed public/private partnerships to address all kinds of medical shortages, has offered or built additional medical facilities incredibly fast, given daily, informative public updates, and generally stayed the course, despite tremendous headwinds of media misinformation, opposition, along with a posturing democrat leadership determined to mock and malign as they stall aid bills so they can pack them with progressive agenda items.
“I can rationalize partisans lamenting how much they dislike the president, who disagree with his policies, or are turned off by his abrasive style. However, to nitpick every move, deride or discredit decisions before they have gone through a full analysis or activation spectrum – especially during such a critical time in our country – gets old and very annoying.”
Heh. I check in over at OTB from time to time just to see what’s going on. SOS Three years running. All day, everyday, on every issue. Trump sucks. Reflexive, mindless, criticism. Talk about a cult. Not just from the zombie commenters, but from Taylor and Joiner. Just shameful. Such small people.
“Even the WSJ has written a positive opinion piece ”
Thats like saying the Huffington Post wrote a positive article about Obama. Its a conservative newspaper.
“CDC contaminating an ingredient in a test kit design, coupled with FDA red tape, both slowing up the accuracy, approval process and distribution of tests”
Once again, who is in charge of the CDC and FDA? Trump. When they didn’t have a functional test in 2 weeks he should have stepped in and told them to use the WHO test. The FDA and CDC stopped private companies and academia from developing tests for weeks. Trump could have, should have stepped in much earlier.
“CA Gov. Newsom, Democrat, just ordered a billion dollars worth of masks from a company operating out of China”
Where else should we get them? Seriously? We are ordering from China also since there really isn’t an alternative.
” But, to itâ€s credit, this administration has cooperatively reached out globally to allies, formed public/private partnerships to address all kinds of medical shortages, has offered or built additional medical facilities incredibly fast”
The Trump admin absolutely wasted the 4-6 week head start we should have had. They lied and still lie about testing. However, since about the middle of March, once they seemed to decide this is serious, they have done a pretty good job.
” given daily, informative public updates” “despite tremendous headwinds of media misinformation”
Do you know what it is like to hear him lie all of the time during his briefings? “lots of test. Anyone who wants one can have one” and i get to hear him say this stuff 2 hours after I made the call to one of my staff telling them they were exposed but we cant test them because we dont have enough tests and they dont meet criteria which were set with overly strict criteria because we just couldn’t obtain them?
“in blaming the CCP for originating, spreading and hiding the Coronavirus until the world population became exposed to it. ”
Hey jan, who said this?
“China has been working very hard to contain the Coronavirus. The United States greatly appreciates their efforts and transparency. It will all work out well. In particular, on behalf of the American People, I want to thank President Xi!”
Or this?
“Just had a long and very good conversation by phone with President Xi of China. He is strong, sharp and powerfully focused on leading the counterattack on the Coronavirus. He feels they are doing very well, even building hospitals in a matter of only days. Nothing is easy, but he will be successful, especially as the weather starts to warm & the virus hopefully becomes weaker, and then gone. Great discipline is taking place in China, as President Xi strongly leads what will be a very successful operation. We are working closely with China to help!”
Or this?
“”Well, you never know. I think they want to put the best face on it. So you know, I mean, if somebody — if you were running it, you’d probably — you wouldn’t want to run out to the world and go crazy and start saying whatever it is because you don’t want to create a panic,” he said. “But, no, I think they’ve handled it professionally and I think they’re extremely capable and I think President Xi is extremely capable and I hope that it’s going to be resolved.”
Steve
I think that’s an exaggeration. It’s a pro-business newspaper. If that is equivalent to conservative, doesn’t that mean that to whatever extent the Democratic Party is a progressive party, it is anti-business? And yet there are vehement denials that Democrats are anti-business. I don’t think you can have it both ways.
More of a pro-wealthy, pro-finance paper and supports the owners of big business.
“If that is equivalent to conservative, doesn’t that mean that to whatever extent the Democratic Party is a progressive party, it is anti-business?”
WSJ supports the owners. Democrats tend to support the workers. For some reason you are only considered pro-business if you support the wealthy owners. (The WSJ has broadly supported over the last 20 years sending so much or ur business overseas. That benefits the investor class, owners and finance sector, but not our workers.)
Steve
In case anyone missed it, this paper from Iceland is roughly what we should be doing. Surveillance testing with some targeted testing. Kudos to them for quarantining everyone who came to Iceland, not just people from countries that were disliked by the political leader’s base.
https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa2006100?query=featured_coronavirus&tk=eo_5574494f-a87e-439a-838b-323969ab93ac_yUb75UTHSvL3anMN2AfXHmtiW6H2cf6lKiCn
So has the Democratic Party. It’s called the “neoliberal consensus”.
I’m skeptical that a plan for a relatively small island with the population of Anaheim will be workable for a country with an area 100 times as large and a population 1,000 times as large. Not only would it have to scale it would have to scale linearly. I don’t believe either of those are true.
I was also going to mention the size aspect of Iceland, when comparing the merits of it’s pandemic approach to that of the US’s. It’s much easier to manage outcomes in a smaller space with far fewer variables to chart and consider. However, on paper and in principle, Iceland had a very reasoned and deliberate method applied in thwarting the virus.
WHO never offered the US their test kits (unlike falsehoods reported by CNN), probably because of the differing protocols dealing with accuracy. The FDA & CDC were operating under bureaucratic policies in place before Trump occupied the WH. It sometimes takes more than a nano second to disrupt consensus thinking and practices, to reverse an embedded way of doing things – much like it is to turn an aircraft carrier around, and expecting it to turn on a dime. Red tape was cut in February, relationships with private enterprise and approvals were expedited. Nobody nodded off or remained dismissive of this pandemic, once attention drifted away from partisan impeachment obsession and got on board with how serious the Coronavirus was – this included other politicians and the braying media.
In the meantime weaknesses created by off-shoring supply chains, along with already depleted medical inventory stockpiles have continued to plague the distribution of protective gear needed. Basically, this country was not prepared. However, it was the large blue states of CA and N.Y., who had dismantled their pandemic units, sold off or not maintained their supplies, who became the public face of these shortages, dominating news cycles, and creating the bedrock of constant Trump criticism.
The billion dollar face masks buys by Newsom, has been questioned by both Dems and republicans, as it was through not only a Chinese sourced company, but one who also manufactured faulty buses.
Trump has made it abundantly clear he seeks Global deals and/or cooperation that will help the US. In doing so, he seems willing to sugar coat many publicly made remarks as a means to an end of achieving his goals or deals with leaders not considered our “friends.†However, looking beyond these shiny comments, are the firm actions taken with these leaders – ones where he has challenged their policies, levied sanctions against them, held the line and changed global attitudes for the good more than any recent president. China has at least been slowed down in it’s quest for world domination. Russia has been sanctioned to death. Some countries are finally distancing themselves from China – the U.K. just cancelled their Huiwai (sp) contracts. NATO is sharing costs more.