Ugly Chinese nationalism over coronavirus, part 3

Following on part 1 and part 2, of course.

The German government says Chinese diplomats tried to get it to spin-doctor Beijing's handling of the coronavirus.

Meanwhile, in part in an attempt to cover its own country's coronavirus failures, Chinese social media — which must, of course, be considered semi-official, is having fun attacking the U.S. over its own COVID problems. This only illustrates again what I said in Round 1 — Xi Jinping and Donald Trump play Brer Rabbit and Tar Baby to each other. Or, per some unofficial Chinese social media, and kicking both Xi and Trump pretty good, that might be Pooh and Eeyore.

In our reality, not the Disney cartoon world, the Pooh of Beijing is strangling, not hugging, the Eeyore of Washington, D.C.

Between parts 1 and 2 of this series, I had a supplement that first looked at the Trumpian response to all this.

It's not just Trump, and not just Americans, though. Sub-Saharan African states were already aware of anti-black racism from Chinese. But, as long as the countries were getting money for Belt and Road projects, and leaders were getting palms greased as needed, it was ignored. But as more and more of it, as part of general (and historic) Chinese xenophobia, pops up, it can't be ignored.

Per that link, it's facing backlash among countries that can do something. The Japanese government is raising money for any companies who want to re-homeland their manufacturing. Problem? Japan, with an aging population, doesn't have the workforce for this. The U.S. does, but likes the cheap Chinese labor and is too shortsided to give full attention to Chinese industrial technology extortion and sometimes outright theft. American greed and Chinese xenophobia are their own Brer Rabbit and Tar Baby: what do American companies do when top management, from the U.S., face that xenophobia when visiting their Chinese plants?

That xenophobia is not reflected by reality. The Guardian, in a piece similar to the above, notes China has the lowest immigration rate in the world. As in lower than Japan's. OTOH, that said, minuscule immigration rates, to reverse the Guardian, are often reflections of already-existing xenophobia. As in Japan.

To riff on Samuel Johnson: Nationalism, even more than patriotism, can often be the last refuge of a scoundrel.

Finally, let's not forget that China's continued bigfooting of Taiwan at WHO, trying to minimize even its observer status, is also problematic. Historical note: At times, the Ming Dynasty had a loose quasi-protectorate relationship to the island. The Qing were the first Chinese mainland dynasty to actually possess the island.

Sidebar: Chinese political leadership is no more meritocratic than in "the west."

Sidebar 2: Despite the self-allegedly outside-the-box left-liberal political pundit stenos (Ames, Levine, Maté, Taibbi, Blumenthal etc.) Han Chinese repression of minorities is not that new, either.