Coronavirus and ugly Chinese nationalism

It's not just Donald Trump acting like an idiotic, petulant barbarian over COVID-19.

Flying under the radar of many Americans, both Trumpian and other wingnuts on the right, and liberals and leftists on the left encouraging Merika to not be racist about Chinese restaurants, etc., not to mention so-called leftists like the People's Republic of Humboldt Bay or the alleged outside the box stenos in left-liberal and leftist media who claim the West is lying about Hong Kong protests, Uyghur detention camps and more ....

Chinese president Xi Jinping and the Chinese Communist Party are actually engaging in ugly nationalism.

Let's start with the main point, and that is that China, for more than 10 days now, per Foreign Policy, has been blaming the US for the virus. Yep, the man and the party who have been bloodily squelching Hong Kong protests that originated outside of Western control, and who have put Uyghurs in re-education camps (given the history of Communist China, that is the best phrase for it!), and may be putting them to forced labor now ...

Is blaming the US for the coronavirus.

Beijing has also — shades of wingers only, on this one — been pushing various conspiracy theories over the virus. And, promoting other angles of ugly nationalism. Per that link, Beijing has been open about wanting to fund an alternative to the World Health Organization. WHO has halfway kowtowed to Beijing on COVID stats, but not fully, and less so as time went on. But, that hasn't been enough for Xi and the CCP.

Also per the second link, the first piece in the previous paragraph, and contra some US health experts praising China? South Korea, the country most hit outside of China, has used largely voluntary methods, with largely very good results, to contain viral spread. So, if an Anthony Fauci or anybody else says we should imitate China? Fuck 'em.

Actually, Fauci has gone BEYOND that. He's said he's OK with a national 14-day lockdown if needed. Even China didn't do anything like a full lockdown outside Hubei province.

Related to that? Speaking of China vs South Korea? Many of the new controls on social media use, internet use, and general societal control, are likely to stay in place, at least in modified form, after the coronavirus threat is gone.

Next? The world of economic reality, Beijing style Chinese provincial officials have apparently been the key drivers behind reopening factories, and running largely zombie machines with just a minimum of workers to oversee them, to fake the appearance of a return to near-normalcy.

Now, the People's Republic of Humboldt Bay (that comes from someone I followed on Twitter last year, who lives there, and given stereotypes about it, is almost certainly a student at Humboldt State, wasting parental tuition assistance) and the OTB stenos, will say "But this is all from Foreign Policy."

Well, Americans of the bipartisan foreign policy establishment who claim American foreign policy is almost always right? They're really not much worse than or different from the Humboldt Bay stanners or the anti-nationalism left who claim America is almost always wrong and are willing to promote Chinese propaganda as part of that.

Beyond that, Nautilus, which covers science and philosophy issues, notes that Chinese doctors lied to the government from the early days of the virus. Also per that piece, as more Chinese have more money, you're going to see urban-wildland interface crowding far beyond, say, California.

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Update: Per a Facebook discussion which I just exited, this is part of why it's not totally fair to compare "the West" to "Asia." The person is, for now, still a FB friend but he's been moved to "acquaintances."

As far as Asian countries controlling it well? China's been lying since the start and I wouldn't trust its numbers. Singapore and Hong Kong are city states, one still semi-authoritarian and the other under the thumb of Beijing. South Korea is, it seems, doing a good job, but it's the size of Indiana with 50 million people. Taiwan is the size of Maryland. So, that alone isn't fair. (Said person also ignored the Chinese lies; this blog post was put as a link in one of my comments.)

Nor is looking at only the US and Italy and saying that's "the West." As I told said person before exiting the conversation, that ignores countries like Germany that are handling it well.

And, an additional note to this person. In the past, with less in the way of any country being proactive? As the "Spanish" American flu of a century ago shows, it's often pure dumb luck in part on death rates.

So, if you really believe the above is a bunch of lies?

Go fuck yourselves with a boatload of Xi Jinping Thought.

Newer updates: Xi lies are squaring off against Trump lies. Does this portend a new Cold War?

And, the ugly nationalism now has spread to China attacking Taiwan, including with fake Twitter bot statements, it seems.