Why isn't this being called a humanitarian crisis by our illustrious Western leaders?
> an event or events that threaten the health, safety or wellbeing of a large group of people
In a despotic country that could be a constant thing.
Shanghai video overwhelms Chinese censor, gets 400M views
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Re: Shanghai video overwhelms Chinese censor, gets 400M views
#22I wonder whether the Shanghai situation will be what finally catalyzes real political reform. The people have put up with a lot from this regime over the years. Shanghai has historically been where anti-government movements get going. It will be interesting to see what transpires over the next few months.
I dunno, one of the stronger sentiments seems to be "the Shanghai government is fucking this up, we need the central government to take over and fix this".
I have heard this line a fair few times as well (not taking a stance in terms of whether it is factually true or not) and it is in my experience fairly common among supporters of authoritarian systems. Given that the leadership is largely (if not entirely) infallible, clearly it was the execution of their orders that was flawed and the fix should be to give them further power and prune some underlings. Rinse, repeat, and the system survives.
Look at a TV “audience” with Putin and you will see the very same pattern.
Re: Shanghai video overwhelms Chinese censor, gets 400M views
#23I wonder whether the Shanghai situation will be what finally catalyzes real political reform. The people have put up with a lot from this regime over the years. Shanghai has historically been where anti-government movements get going. It will be interesting to see what transpires over the next few months.
Repost from somewhere else:
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What bothers me in the past few days is to make sense of what’s happening in Shanghai. There are quite a bit of rumors, but nothing makes sense. However, now I think that I have arrived at a reasonable explanation of what happened.
First, let’s establish some facts:
1. Once you have more than 10k cases in a city with Omicron (R0 ~ 9), true zero-covid policy (as opposed to zero-covid in-face policy, a.k.a. Hong Kong) will cause big human suffering no matter what. There are limitations on what an organization can do.
2. Xi is not a smart person, but he has a big picture in mind and is ruthless. He doesn’t mind being hated in one place, as long as he maintains the power.
3. There are no success stories under CCP to fight one faction against another with street movements. CCP is allergic to any instability, especially after the Cultural Revolution. That is why 1989 can only be ended in that particular way. If you only looked at the symptomatic cases in Shanghai, it can be argued that the dynamic zeroing policy is working, and there is no exponential growth.
With these facts in mind, it doesn’t make sense if Shanghai Clique wants to use the Shanghai situation as ammunition against Xi. The dissatisfaction of Shanghai people will only translate into street movement, a.k.a: instability. If it is a way to prove zero-covid policy doesn’t work, anywhere else is much better to start, and you want it to be nation-wide. For example, Beijing is a much better place to start and Xi would lose face big time.
What’s more plausible, is the following:
Shanghai encountered an outbreak of Omicron, and they chose to weather through this with a combination of under-testing and natural immunity (Shanghai has the highest vaccination rate in China and it shows from the asymptomatic cases). Xi & his people saw an opening to expel Shanghai Clique once for all, and start to implement the most strict zero-covid policy in Shanghai.
So far, the reaction has been what they were expecting. People are revolting, which in turn fueled hatred against Shanghainese in other parts of China. Further instability in Shanghai ensured, and that can only help him to consolidate power more just before the Conference. Remember, Xi’s base is never the middle-class from big cities.
What Shanghai Clique can do:
Contrary to other rumors, there are limited options Shanghai Clique has. Street movements (like Colour Revolution) would guarantee a failure, and further erosion of their power. However, they can leverage Jiang’s influence by having him visit Fangcang. He enjoyed great respect from the old generation of Shanghai. However, this is a tricky balance because aligning themselves as sympathizers to street movements is a sure way to lose power within CCP (like Zhao in 1989).
Re: Shanghai video overwhelms Chinese censor, gets 400M views
#24Why isn't this being called a humanitarian crisis by our illustrious Western leaders?
Some in the west certainly have labelled it that. There's quite a number of humanitarian crises going on at the moment, as have been over the past few years (and basically forever). Western leaders don't get up in the morning and recite lists of them.
>"Western leaders don't get up in the morning and recite lists of them."
Well they should as they've caused quite a share of those crises.
Re: Shanghai video overwhelms Chinese censor, gets 400M views
#25One aspect of this that i'm hoping a more informed person can comment on: Are the news reports of anger by shanghai residents directed against the national or provincial(?) government? From what I previously read Shanghai was discussed as a factional stronghold not wholly subservient to the national government (to Xi). That being the case i've been curious if these draconian measures have been imposed from the nation…
Well Beijing has taken over Shanghai. The number of deaths is miss reported. (If someone has heart disease and dies of covid it’s reported as heart disease, this keeps their numbers Low and explains why America gets 22k deaths from seasonal flu and China gets 50 despite having 4-5 times the population.)
And hospitals aren’t coping, and office blocks are being turned into quarantine facilities that lack basic things like showers.
Even the actual quarantine facilities are being used despite not being completed.
https://www.instagram.com/reel/CcJFpN3pEN3/?igshid=YmMyMTA2M...
https://www.whatsonweibo.com/aerial-view-photos-of-shanghai-...
Re: Shanghai video overwhelms Chinese censor, gets 400M views
#26Quoted post unavailable.
No post body was provided.
Re: Shanghai video overwhelms Chinese censor, gets 400M views
#27Why isn't this being called a humanitarian crisis by our illustrious Western leaders?
My guess is there's too much money on the table for those in the western establishment (corporate media and government) to call a spade a spade. If official criticism of China becomes too strong then the public might start asking for the sort of economic sanctions that would hurt western business interests as well. Basically, a manifestation of that old theory about international trade preempting wars.
Re: Shanghai video overwhelms Chinese censor, gets 400M views
#28One thing that I observe about how China deals with COVID: leadership assumes that they have perfect control over perfect people.
Therefore they try these type of solutions like complete lock-down of a city of 26m people.
They assume that they are perfect as leaders, so planning is perfect and takes everything into consideration.
They assume that people will execute their orders perfectly, even under extreme hardship (hunger, lack of medication, being separated from children in hospital, being separated from sick parents, etc).
Of course none of that is true.
For all its failures, democracy at least has taught us to incorporate the human imperfection into the process and the decisions.
We have to compensate for human imperfection, the same way a good engineer takes into consideration the imperfection of the materials, imperfection of signals, numerical imperfections in algorithms, etc.
I am curious when China will adjust their model/plan for COVID to consider the vast amount of counter-evidence that is accumulating.
Re: Shanghai video overwhelms Chinese censor, gets 400M views
#29Re: Shanghai video overwhelms Chinese censor, gets 400M views
#30Earlier quoted context omitted.
I dunno, one of the stronger sentiments seems to be "the Shanghai government is fucking this up, we need the central government to take over and fix this".
I have heard this line a fair few times as well (not taking a stance in terms of whether it is factually true or not) and it is in my experience fairly common among supporters of authoritarian systems. Given that the leadership is largely (if not entirely ) infallible, clearly it was the execution of their orders that was flawed and the fix should be to give them further power and prune some underlings. Rinse, repeat…
Same thing in Nazi Germany. The Fuhrer was considered to be above party politics and the anti-semitic actions of the nazi state. Of course he wasn’t, but its a tried and true tactic I guess.