China state CCTV avoids crowd close ups at the World Cup • Hacker News Board

Re: China state CCTV avoids crowd close ups at the World Cup

#261

Post by soneil » Mon, Nov 28, 2022, 3:00 PM UTC

wongarsu wrote: post #200

throwoutway wrote: post #168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

“Wants an early end”? That must be propaganda because it should be obvious to a lay person that it started in late 2019. China government has been trying for 3 years to “have an early end”

That could just be due to a failing strategy. China always tried to completely contain and destroy the virus, and had good success with that early on. Many other countries instead went with "let it spread at a rate our health care system can handle". China's approach had a better chance at bringing it to a fast end early on, but with greater risk if it doesn't end quickly. Now that it is a multi-year affair, they hav…

That's my theory - "zero covid" had good success, but has resulted in very little herd immunity. And by all reports their homegrown vaccine program hasn't had fantastic results.

I think if & when they end "zero covid" they're in for a world of shock. Without a good plan, a good vaccine, and a good vaccination program - it's going to be opening the floodgates.

I don't think they're sticking with "zero covid" out of choice, but because they're not ready for what comes next. It's going to reveal that total lockdowns weren't a stop-gap measure, they were the primary measure - and there's no good plan to follow.

Re: China state CCTV avoids crowd close ups at the World Cup

#262

Post by smcl » Mon, Nov 28, 2022, 3:00 PM UTC

ohbtvz wrote: post #203

smcl wrote: post #164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know if it's correct to call China a "dictatorship" but I'll humour you for a moment. The idea that dictatorships have everything under control and can conduct themselves however they please is true ... until the point that it isn't. So while a dictator technically doesn't necessarily need to justify themselves or to have a reasonable, fair plan for some given situation that pleases their subjects - they prob…

> I don't know if it's correct to call China a "dictatorship" but I'll humour you for a moment. Seriously? What's your definition of "dictatorship"? Let's take Wikipedia's one for example: > A dictatorship is a form of government which is characterized by a leader or a group of leaders which holds governmental powers with few to no limitations on them. Can you sincerely say that it doesn't apply?

China is a lot of things, it's nominally communist but that doesn't quite capture the whole situation on its own, it's technically a "dictatorship" by that definition (probably more so recently with Xi Jinping consolidating power) but that also doesn't quite capture it all either. I don't want to debate terminology because it's tedious and detracts from the actual point I was making - that just because the CCP has a lot of power, doesn't mean they don't believe they need a face-saving way out of zero-Covid.

Re: China state CCTV avoids crowd close ups at the World Cup

#263

Post by smcl » Mon, Nov 28, 2022, 3:01 PM UTC

sidewndr46 wrote: post #227

smcl wrote: post #164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know if it's correct to call China a "dictatorship" but I'll humour you for a moment. The idea that dictatorships have everything under control and can conduct themselves however they please is true ... until the point that it isn't. So while a dictator technically doesn't necessarily need to justify themselves or to have a reasonable, fair plan for some given situation that pleases their subjects - they prob…

I am reasonably certain that a country well known for sending in the troops to crush rebellion would count as a dictatorship.

Ok so you're going to have to resist all-caps replying "WHATABOUTISM!" but you realise by that definition both the USA and the UK could be "dictatorship" for sending in troops to crush both rebellion (the UK did in Northern Ireland) and protests (like USA did in Kent State)?

I said in another comment that I don’t wanna get into a debate on the subtleties of what is/isn’t a dictatorship, but THIS is an odd place to draw the line.

Re: China state CCTV avoids crowd close ups at the World Cup

#264

Post by DriftRegion » Mon, Nov 28, 2022, 3:02 PM UTC

leereeves wrote: post #251

DriftRegion wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Here's a recent commentary from a WeChat group (translated via deepl): > The current situation is that Western water forces, through insidious and poisonous means such as the Internet, have created a very dangerous atmosphere of public opinion and incited the people to rebellion. If we are deceived and held hostage by these rumors, what China will end up with will only be a disaster. We have to believe that the count…

What does "Western water forces" mean? Is that a Chinese idiom?

Yeah, "水军". Let me Baidu/deepl that for you:

https://baike.baidu.com/item/%E7%BD%91%E7%BB%9C%E6%B0%B4%E5%...

Online water scouts are hired online writers who publish specific information about specific content in the Internet. They are usually active in e-commerce websites, forums, microblogs and other social networking platforms. They influence normal users by disguising themselves as ordinary Internet users or consumers and by posting, replying and spreading blog posts.

Re: China state CCTV avoids crowd close ups at the World Cup

#265

Post by sidlls » Mon, Nov 28, 2022, 3:02 PM UTC

apostacy wrote: post #247

boringg wrote: post #234

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sorry - you so far off base here. There has been ample reporting about China in the western media and none of your conspiracy related thought process is translating to anything that's happening in the West. If anything its promoting the narrative that the Western response to the pandemic was highly successful.

What I said stands. I never said that our media does not criticize China. Of course they do. But they tiptoe around criticizing China in a way which could expose our own hypocracy. Western media has been pushing the narrative that any level of force by the government is justified, because the pandemic is such an existential threat. They are reluctant to report that the Chinese government is then using excessive force…

It's more likely that they're just not interested in "hard hitting" news of that sort. It's more profitable to push a narrative that keeps things simmering for the news cycles. Our media aren't controlled centrally: that's just not how propaganda dissemination through the media works in the West (it exists, it's just different).

Re: China state CCTV avoids crowd close ups at the World Cup

#266

Post by cma » Mon, Nov 28, 2022, 3:03 PM UTC

411111111111111 wrote: post #222

usrusr wrote: post #216

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From my uninformed outside perspective the explanation is so much simpler: decisionmaking structures of the organization in charge are failing to facilitate an overdue strategy switch. They had the best possible approach back when vaccines were a few months out and the strains in circulation were still easy to contain (much easier than the current ones), but now they keep trying to repeat that triumph, and because qu…

> "best possible approach" Hahahaha, that's a good one. Yeah, welding shut apartment buildings with COVID positive inhabitants was the perfect approach to dealing with a strong lung infection for sure!

Was there ever a case where they were fully welded in back then? Bad for fire safety, but it was only the back door to ease monitoring by having all go through the front in the ones I looked into. This may not be the case with what they are doing now.

Re: China state CCTV avoids crowd close ups at the World Cup

#267

Post by bee_rider » Mon, Nov 28, 2022, 3:05 PM UTC

mumblemumble wrote: post #219

bee_rider wrote: post #186

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's to mitigate war with the United States. Apparently the Geneva convention has a clause against going to war with a nation stricken by a pandemic. It is a sort of funny conclusion to end up at — the US wants to have a war with China, but is stopped by the Geneva convention. I thought they didn’t have as effective vaccines as we’ve got in the west (on top of the general, uh, hands-off approach western counties te…

I would guess the real reason the US won't ever willingly go to war with China, not even under the most fantastic of hypothetical scenarios, has a lot more to do with a combination of the anticipated importance of tech in a modern war between major powers, and the USA's near-complete lack of domestic electronics manufacturing infrastructure.

Also, while they didn’t engage in the US/USSR mass nuke building competition, they have enough to at least ruin our weekend.

Re: China state CCTV avoids crowd close ups at the World Cup

#268

Post by leokennis » Mon, Nov 28, 2022, 3:07 PM UTC

saint_fiasco wrote: post #116

agumonkey wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm stumped they didn't consider buying other vaccines. Maybe they don't want to be reliant on the west. They're indeed doing a mistake keep the lock strategy...

They have enough vaccines, they just can't persuade their vulnerable population to take it. Old people in particular don't trust modern medicine and don't trust the government. You know how some old people believe all sorts of conspiracy theories about the government? Because their government was actually evil during their lifetime, it becomes much harder for them to believe that this one time the government really d…

What I find hard to believe here is that the Chinese government seems very capable of locking down people (i.e. more or less forcing them to stay inside, with patrols and mandatory tests etc.) but somehow they are unable to force those same people to get vaccinated?

Re: China state CCTV avoids crowd close ups at the World Cup

#269

Post by dahart » Mon, Nov 28, 2022, 3:07 PM UTC

whb07 wrote: post #163

agumonkey wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm stumped they didn't consider buying other vaccines. Maybe they don't want to be reliant on the west. They're indeed doing a mistake keep the lock strategy...

Quoted post unavailable.

> Perhaps they know the risks of COVID and correctly weighed them to the risk of the shot

Are you implying you think the known risks today of taking the Pfizer vaccine are equal or higher than that of catching COVID?

Re: China state CCTV avoids crowd close ups at the World Cup

#270

Post by adamsmith143 » Mon, Nov 28, 2022, 3:08 PM UTC

hanoz wrote: post #19

What is going on with China's continuing zero-covid policy? Either it's the most expensive face saving exercise the world has ever seen, or they know something about it that we don't.

Trying to save face. The number 1 priority of the CCP is staying in power and they can't afford to lose even a tiny bit of face by admitting that their chosen Covid strategy is a failure. So they truck on to the bitter end.