- Reaction score
- 8,298
- Points
- 1,160
Could we call them Reformation ideas?
Chinese Military,Political and Social Superthread
- Thread starter nULL
- Start date
Could we call them Reformation ideas?
- Reaction score
- 8,298
- Points
- 1,160
Further to the Reformation theme
There are those to whom the Truth is Revealed and there are those who are believers. Reading bad books is a sin.
Janet Daley
www.telegraph.co.uk
As the year in which life officially returned to normal comes to an end, we must ask an uncomfortable question. What on earth just happened? We have lived through a period of what would once have been the unthinkable suspension of basic freedoms: interventions by the state into personal life that even most totalitarian governments would not have dared to impose. And we, along with most (not all) of the democratic societies of the West, accepted it. Before that era slips into the fog of convenient forgetfulness, it is absolutely imperative that we – the country as a whole – hold a thorough post hoc examination, because our governing classes have certainly learnt something they will remember.
The critical lesson that has been indelibly absorbed by people in power, and those who advise them, is that fear works. There is, it turns out, almost nothing that a population (even one as brave and insouciant as Britain’s) will not give up if they are systematically, relentlessly frightened.
The Covid phenomenon has provided an invaluable training session in public mind-control techniques: the formula was refined – with the assistance of sophisticated advertising and opinion-forming advice – to an astonishingly successful blend of mass anxiety (your life is in danger) and moral coercion (you are putting other people’s lives in danger). But it was not just the endless repetition of that message that accomplished the almost universal, and quite unexpected, compliance. It was the comprehensive suppression of dissent even when it came from expert sources – and the prohibition on argument even when it was accompanied by counter-evidence – that really did the trick. Now the prescription is readily available for any governing elite hoping to initiate a policy likely to meet with strong public resistance. First tell people that they, or their children and grandchildren, will die if they do not comply. Then prohibit any mitigating argument or critique of this prediction.
If the laws of the land do not permit you to stamp out all such deviant opinions, you can simply orchestrate an avalanche of opprobrium and disrepute on those who express them so that their professional reputations are undermined. But that is yesterday’s battle. Covid – as a historic event – is over. Let’s talk about how the Fear programme, now an accepted part of the armoury of democratic politics, is likely to work in the present and future. As it happens, there is what looks like a remarkably similar model of anxiety-plus-moral-blackmail being applied to the matter of climate change. Note: these observations have no bearing on whether or not there is a true “climate crisis”. What I want to consider is how the policies that are being formulated to address it are being framed.
Words are terribly important here. There seems to be an alarming similarity between the language in which the climate campaign is being conducted and the one used to sell the authoritarian Covid lockdowns. There is, for example, a curious anthropomorphising of the threat in both cases. The virus was depicted regularly by both politicians and their medical officials as a sentient adversary with an “agenda” (that word was, believe it or not, was actually used) to destroy human lives. It was likened to a wartime enemy – except that it was more sinister because it was “invisible”. This was not strictly true, of course: it was an organism clearly visible under a microscope as was demonstrated repeatedly in scary images widely reproduced in the media. Now, the Planet (the word is usually capitalised as if it were a proper name) is being described as if it too was a conscious being whose innocent life was being threatened by the thoughtless rapaciousness of human beings. So we – and our inclinations – are once again the potential danger.
None of this nonsense has anything to do with science. It is the language of horror movies or particularly gruesome fairy tales designed to frighten children into good behaviour. The great offence that is being committed by these machinations, in fact, is against scientific endeavour itself, which relies on disagreement and open debate to progress. Somehow, we have found ourselves back in the Middle Ages when scientists were forbidden to contradict the inviolable truth of authority. Who would have thought that, centuries after the Enlightenment, we would return to Galileo vs the Vatican? This is not intended to imply that religious belief is always the enemy of scientific rationality. I personally believe that human intelligence is the greatest of God’s gifts and that the traducing of it is truly sinful as well as utterly irresponsible. As it happened, there was one more affirmation of the irreplaceable importance of intellect and inventiveness just last week with the successful experiment in nuclear fusion, which may, literally, save the future of all those who inhabit the earth (if, in fact, it is genuinely in danger).
What intelligence and innovation rely on above all is criticism and disputation. That is the nature of the thing. It should be what education is for. We cannot, must not, stop fighting for the right to disagree. It is appalling that it has become necessary to legislate to enforce this freedom on academic institutions that were once dedicated to free discussion. The imperatives that must be taught to the young have not changed since Plato’s day. Argue. Question. Disagree. Expose received ideas to rigorous interrogation. Express doubt when you are unpersuaded. Seek truth through endless dialogue. Certainly some mistakes will be made in the name of liberty, but they can only be corrected if we do not, literally, lose our minds in the name of safety. The lines by Dylan Thomas, which were intended to be about physical death, could just as easily be applied to the death of Reason:
“Do not go gentle into that good night,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.”
There are those to whom the Truth is Revealed and there are those who are believers. Reading bad books is a sin.
Janet Daley
Governments have learnt that fear works – and that is truly terrifying
We have returned to the world of Galileo vs the Vatican. Scientific dissidents are again silenced and ostracised for their opinions
www.telegraph.co.uk
As the year in which life officially returned to normal comes to an end, we must ask an uncomfortable question. What on earth just happened? We have lived through a period of what would once have been the unthinkable suspension of basic freedoms: interventions by the state into personal life that even most totalitarian governments would not have dared to impose. And we, along with most (not all) of the democratic societies of the West, accepted it. Before that era slips into the fog of convenient forgetfulness, it is absolutely imperative that we – the country as a whole – hold a thorough post hoc examination, because our governing classes have certainly learnt something they will remember.
The critical lesson that has been indelibly absorbed by people in power, and those who advise them, is that fear works. There is, it turns out, almost nothing that a population (even one as brave and insouciant as Britain’s) will not give up if they are systematically, relentlessly frightened.
The Covid phenomenon has provided an invaluable training session in public mind-control techniques: the formula was refined – with the assistance of sophisticated advertising and opinion-forming advice – to an astonishingly successful blend of mass anxiety (your life is in danger) and moral coercion (you are putting other people’s lives in danger). But it was not just the endless repetition of that message that accomplished the almost universal, and quite unexpected, compliance. It was the comprehensive suppression of dissent even when it came from expert sources – and the prohibition on argument even when it was accompanied by counter-evidence – that really did the trick. Now the prescription is readily available for any governing elite hoping to initiate a policy likely to meet with strong public resistance. First tell people that they, or their children and grandchildren, will die if they do not comply. Then prohibit any mitigating argument or critique of this prediction.
If the laws of the land do not permit you to stamp out all such deviant opinions, you can simply orchestrate an avalanche of opprobrium and disrepute on those who express them so that their professional reputations are undermined. But that is yesterday’s battle. Covid – as a historic event – is over. Let’s talk about how the Fear programme, now an accepted part of the armoury of democratic politics, is likely to work in the present and future. As it happens, there is what looks like a remarkably similar model of anxiety-plus-moral-blackmail being applied to the matter of climate change. Note: these observations have no bearing on whether or not there is a true “climate crisis”. What I want to consider is how the policies that are being formulated to address it are being framed.
Words are terribly important here. There seems to be an alarming similarity between the language in which the climate campaign is being conducted and the one used to sell the authoritarian Covid lockdowns. There is, for example, a curious anthropomorphising of the threat in both cases. The virus was depicted regularly by both politicians and their medical officials as a sentient adversary with an “agenda” (that word was, believe it or not, was actually used) to destroy human lives. It was likened to a wartime enemy – except that it was more sinister because it was “invisible”. This was not strictly true, of course: it was an organism clearly visible under a microscope as was demonstrated repeatedly in scary images widely reproduced in the media. Now, the Planet (the word is usually capitalised as if it were a proper name) is being described as if it too was a conscious being whose innocent life was being threatened by the thoughtless rapaciousness of human beings. So we – and our inclinations – are once again the potential danger.
None of this nonsense has anything to do with science. It is the language of horror movies or particularly gruesome fairy tales designed to frighten children into good behaviour. The great offence that is being committed by these machinations, in fact, is against scientific endeavour itself, which relies on disagreement and open debate to progress. Somehow, we have found ourselves back in the Middle Ages when scientists were forbidden to contradict the inviolable truth of authority. Who would have thought that, centuries after the Enlightenment, we would return to Galileo vs the Vatican? This is not intended to imply that religious belief is always the enemy of scientific rationality. I personally believe that human intelligence is the greatest of God’s gifts and that the traducing of it is truly sinful as well as utterly irresponsible. As it happened, there was one more affirmation of the irreplaceable importance of intellect and inventiveness just last week with the successful experiment in nuclear fusion, which may, literally, save the future of all those who inhabit the earth (if, in fact, it is genuinely in danger).
What intelligence and innovation rely on above all is criticism and disputation. That is the nature of the thing. It should be what education is for. We cannot, must not, stop fighting for the right to disagree. It is appalling that it has become necessary to legislate to enforce this freedom on academic institutions that were once dedicated to free discussion. The imperatives that must be taught to the young have not changed since Plato’s day. Argue. Question. Disagree. Expose received ideas to rigorous interrogation. Express doubt when you are unpersuaded. Seek truth through endless dialogue. Certainly some mistakes will be made in the name of liberty, but they can only be corrected if we do not, literally, lose our minds in the name of safety. The lines by Dylan Thomas, which were intended to be about physical death, could just as easily be applied to the death of Reason:
“Do not go gentle into that good night,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.”
- Reaction score
- 8,298
- Points
- 1,160
The Errors of modern society
www.papalencyclicals.net
The Syllabus Of Errors - Papal Encyclicals
I. PANTHEISM, NATURALISM AND ABSOLUTE RATIONALISM 1. There exists no Supreme, all-wise, all-provident Divine Being, distinct from the universe, and God is identical with the nature of things, and is, therefore, subject to changes. In effect, God is produced in … <a...
www.papalencyclicals.net
daftandbarmy
Army.ca Dinosaur
- Reaction score
- 32,218
- Points
- 1,160
The Errors of modern society
The Syllabus Of Errors - Papal Encyclicals
I. PANTHEISM, NATURALISM AND ABSOLUTE RATIONALISM 1. There exists no Supreme, all-wise, all-provident Divine Being, distinct from the universe, and God is identical with the nature of things, and is, therefore, subject to changes. In effect, God is produced in … <a...
"If you give me six lines written by the hand of the most honest of men, I will find something in them which will hang him."
Cardinal Richelieu
- Reaction score
- 22,046
- Points
- 1,360
“An abundance of caution” trumps Science, it would seem.Further to the Reformation theme
There are those to whom the Truth is Revealed and there are those who are believers. Reading bad books is a sin.
Janet Daley
Governments have learnt that fear works – and that is truly terrifying
We have returned to the world of Galileo vs the Vatican. Scientific dissidents are again silenced and ostracised for their opinions
As the year in which life officially returned to normal comes to an end, we must ask an uncomfortable question. What on earth just happened? We have lived through a period of what would once have been the unthinkable suspension of basic freedoms: interventions by the state into personal life that even most totalitarian governments would not have dared to impose. And we, along with most (not all) of the democratic societies of the West, accepted it. Before that era slips into the fog of convenient forgetfulness, it is absolutely imperative that we – the country as a whole – hold a thorough post hoc examination, because our governing classes have certainly learnt something they will remember.
The critical lesson that has been indelibly absorbed by people in power, and those who advise them, is that fear works. There is, it turns out, almost nothing that a population (even one as brave and insouciant as Britain’s) will not give up if they are systematically, relentlessly frightened.
The Covid phenomenon has provided an invaluable training session in public mind-control techniques: the formula was refined – with the assistance of sophisticated advertising and opinion-forming advice – to an astonishingly successful blend of mass anxiety (your life is in danger) and moral coercion (you are putting other people’s lives in danger). But it was not just the endless repetition of that message that accomplished the almost universal, and quite unexpected, compliance. It was the comprehensive suppression of dissent even when it came from expert sources – and the prohibition on argument even when it was accompanied by counter-evidence – that really did the trick. Now the prescription is readily available for any governing elite hoping to initiate a policy likely to meet with strong public resistance. First tell people that they, or their children and grandchildren, will die if they do not comply. Then prohibit any mitigating argument or critique of this prediction.
If the laws of the land do not permit you to stamp out all such deviant opinions, you can simply orchestrate an avalanche of opprobrium and disrepute on those who express them so that their professional reputations are undermined. But that is yesterday’s battle. Covid – as a historic event – is over. Let’s talk about how the Fear programme, now an accepted part of the armoury of democratic politics, is likely to work in the present and future. As it happens, there is what looks like a remarkably similar model of anxiety-plus-moral-blackmail being applied to the matter of climate change. Note: these observations have no bearing on whether or not there is a true “climate crisis”. What I want to consider is how the policies that are being formulated to address it are being framed.
Words are terribly important here. There seems to be an alarming similarity between the language in which the climate campaign is being conducted and the one used to sell the authoritarian Covid lockdowns. There is, for example, a curious anthropomorphising of the threat in both cases. The virus was depicted regularly by both politicians and their medical officials as a sentient adversary with an “agenda” (that word was, believe it or not, was actually used) to destroy human lives. It was likened to a wartime enemy – except that it was more sinister because it was “invisible”. This was not strictly true, of course: it was an organism clearly visible under a microscope as was demonstrated repeatedly in scary images widely reproduced in the media. Now, the Planet (the word is usually capitalised as if it were a proper name) is being described as if it too was a conscious being whose innocent life was being threatened by the thoughtless rapaciousness of human beings. So we – and our inclinations – are once again the potential danger.
None of this nonsense has anything to do with science. It is the language of horror movies or particularly gruesome fairy tales designed to frighten children into good behaviour. The great offence that is being committed by these machinations, in fact, is against scientific endeavour itself, which relies on disagreement and open debate to progress. Somehow, we have found ourselves back in the Middle Ages when scientists were forbidden to contradict the inviolable truth of authority. Who would have thought that, centuries after the Enlightenment, we would return to Galileo vs the Vatican? This is not intended to imply that religious belief is always the enemy of scientific rationality. I personally believe that human intelligence is the greatest of God’s gifts and that the traducing of it is truly sinful as well as utterly irresponsible. As it happened, there was one more affirmation of the irreplaceable importance of intellect and inventiveness just last week with the successful experiment in nuclear fusion, which may, literally, save the future of all those who inhabit the earth (if, in fact, it is genuinely in danger).
What intelligence and innovation rely on above all is criticism and disputation. That is the nature of the thing. It should be what education is for. We cannot, must not, stop fighting for the right to disagree. It is appalling that it has become necessary to legislate to enforce this freedom on academic institutions that were once dedicated to free discussion. The imperatives that must be taught to the young have not changed since Plato’s day. Argue. Question. Disagree. Expose received ideas to rigorous interrogation. Express doubt when you are unpersuaded. Seek truth through endless dialogue. Certainly some mistakes will be made in the name of liberty, but they can only be corrected if we do not, literally, lose our minds in the name of safety. The lines by Dylan Thomas, which were intended to be about physical death, could just as easily be applied to the death of Reason:
“Do not go gentle into that good night,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.”
daftandbarmy
Army.ca Dinosaur
- Reaction score
- 32,218
- Points
- 1,160
I wonder how this death toll will impact their political (in) stability...
A fast-spreading covid-19 outbreak in China has researchers predicting a surge in virus-related deaths next year, with several analyses forecasting more than 1 million fatalities in a country that until now has largely kept the coronavirus in check.
Earlier this month, China dramatically loosened its strict “zero covid” policies following a wave of protests in towns and cities where residents were fed up with years of stringent lockdowns, mass testing and centralized quarantines. The demonstrations marked the most significant show of public dissent in China in years.
But many of China’s 1.4 billion people remain vulnerable to the virus because of limited exposure, low vaccination rates and poor investment in emergency care. And now, funeral homes and crematoriums in Beijing, the capital, are struggling to keep up with demand, Reuters reported.
Covid spreads and medical staff sicken after China relaxes restrictions
On Friday, the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME), a global health research institute at the University of Washington in Seattle, projected that China’s covid-19 death toll would spike to more than 322,000 by April. An analysis of the report by Reuters found that China could see more than 1 million coronavirus deaths in 2023 — up from an official toll now of just 5,235.
That would put China’s death toll on par with the United States, where 1.1 million people have died of covid-19 since the pandemic began.
“However way we look at it, it’s very likely that the next few months are going to be quite challenging for China,” IHME director Christopher Murray said in a video statement earlier this month. “The populations at greatest risk in the world are those that have avoided a lot of transmission and have gaps in vaccination. And that’s exactly the case for China.”
The virus first emerged in the Chinese city of Wuhan in December 2019 — and quickly spread around the globe. But after that initial outbreak, Chinese authorities embarked on a hard-line strategy to prevent transmission, closing the country’s borders, isolating patients and their contacts, and in some cases locking down entire cities to keep the virus from circulating.
As new, more infectious variants appeared — including omicron and its offshoots — the strategy became less effective, experts say, while angering residents who watched as the rest of the world opened up.
The virus was already spreading “intensively” in China before authorities relaxed restrictions on Dec. 7, the World Health Organization said last week.
“There’s a narrative at the moment that China lifted the restrictions and all of a sudden the disease is out of control,” the WHO’s emergencies director, Mike Ryan, said at a news conference Wednesday. “The disease was spreading intensively because I believe the control measures in themselves were not stopping the disease. And I believe China decided strategically that was not the best option anymore.”
Chinese lock themselves down, hoard medicine over fear of new covid wave
Still, a separate study published last week by researchers in Hong Kong predicted that 684 people per million would die if China reopened without a mass vaccination booster campaign and other measures. According to a Bloomberg News analysis, that would add up to about 964,000 deaths over the course of the reopening.
China’s official coronavirus vaccination rate is 90 percent, which includes two doses of its domestically produced vaccines. But those shots, which use older technology, have lower efficacy rates than messenger RNA vaccines and offer weaker protection against new variants, experts say.
Another problem in China is vaccine hesitancy, particularly among the elderly. Just 40 percent of Chinese older than 80 have received a booster shot.
China’s “vaccine induced immunity has waned over time and with low booster uptake and no natural infections, the population is more susceptible to severe disease,” said Airfinity, a London-based health analytics firm.
Airfinity’s own models, released in late November, projected between 1.3 million and 2.1 million deaths in China if the government abruptly ended its zero-covid policy.
Other estimates have been even bleaker. Also in November, epidemiologists led by Zhou Jiatong, the head of the Center for Disease Control in China’s Guangxi region, estimated that more than 2 million people could die if the country suffered a covid-19 surge similar to the one that hit Hong Kong in the spring.
Because China stopped publicizing asymptomatic cases — and appeared to tighten its definition of a covid death — earlier this month, the IHME and others used Hong Kong’s omicron outbreak to inform their models. The variant ripped through the densely populated region, and within three months, the population of just 7.4 million saw more than a million new coronavirus cases and some 7,000 deaths.
As infections rise, China stops counting asymptomatic cases
Now, the severity of China’s coronavirus surge is being reported largely anecdotally, with stories of deserted streets, strained hospitals and funeral homes, and pharmacies being emptied of fever medication and traditional remedies.
Murray, the IHME director, said China has several options. It could slow the transition away from zero covid to avoid overwhelming hospitals. It could also change course and try to inoculate residents with mRNA vaccines or increase access to antiviral medications such as Paxlovid.
Last week, Pfizer signed an agreement with the state-owned China Meheco Group Co. to import and distribute Paxlovid on the mainland, Bloomberg News reported.
The Hong Kong-based researchers also wrote that waiting a month to reopen and using that time to increase booster and antiviral coverage could reduce cumulative deaths in China by 26 percent.
“Although the surge of disease burden posed by reopening in December 2022 — January 2023 would likely overload most local health systems nationwide, a reopening strategy that combines vaccination, antiviral treatment and [public health and social measures] could allow China to exit zero-COVID more safely,” they wrote.
New models predict at least 1 million deaths in China amid covid surge
A fast-spreading covid-19 outbreak in China has researchers predicting a surge in virus-related deaths next year, with several analyses forecasting more than 1 million fatalities in a country that until now has largely kept the coronavirus in check.
Earlier this month, China dramatically loosened its strict “zero covid” policies following a wave of protests in towns and cities where residents were fed up with years of stringent lockdowns, mass testing and centralized quarantines. The demonstrations marked the most significant show of public dissent in China in years.
But many of China’s 1.4 billion people remain vulnerable to the virus because of limited exposure, low vaccination rates and poor investment in emergency care. And now, funeral homes and crematoriums in Beijing, the capital, are struggling to keep up with demand, Reuters reported.
Covid spreads and medical staff sicken after China relaxes restrictions
On Friday, the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME), a global health research institute at the University of Washington in Seattle, projected that China’s covid-19 death toll would spike to more than 322,000 by April. An analysis of the report by Reuters found that China could see more than 1 million coronavirus deaths in 2023 — up from an official toll now of just 5,235.
That would put China’s death toll on par with the United States, where 1.1 million people have died of covid-19 since the pandemic began.
“However way we look at it, it’s very likely that the next few months are going to be quite challenging for China,” IHME director Christopher Murray said in a video statement earlier this month. “The populations at greatest risk in the world are those that have avoided a lot of transmission and have gaps in vaccination. And that’s exactly the case for China.”
The virus first emerged in the Chinese city of Wuhan in December 2019 — and quickly spread around the globe. But after that initial outbreak, Chinese authorities embarked on a hard-line strategy to prevent transmission, closing the country’s borders, isolating patients and their contacts, and in some cases locking down entire cities to keep the virus from circulating.
As new, more infectious variants appeared — including omicron and its offshoots — the strategy became less effective, experts say, while angering residents who watched as the rest of the world opened up.
The virus was already spreading “intensively” in China before authorities relaxed restrictions on Dec. 7, the World Health Organization said last week.
“There’s a narrative at the moment that China lifted the restrictions and all of a sudden the disease is out of control,” the WHO’s emergencies director, Mike Ryan, said at a news conference Wednesday. “The disease was spreading intensively because I believe the control measures in themselves were not stopping the disease. And I believe China decided strategically that was not the best option anymore.”
Chinese lock themselves down, hoard medicine over fear of new covid wave
Still, a separate study published last week by researchers in Hong Kong predicted that 684 people per million would die if China reopened without a mass vaccination booster campaign and other measures. According to a Bloomberg News analysis, that would add up to about 964,000 deaths over the course of the reopening.
China’s official coronavirus vaccination rate is 90 percent, which includes two doses of its domestically produced vaccines. But those shots, which use older technology, have lower efficacy rates than messenger RNA vaccines and offer weaker protection against new variants, experts say.
Another problem in China is vaccine hesitancy, particularly among the elderly. Just 40 percent of Chinese older than 80 have received a booster shot.
China’s “vaccine induced immunity has waned over time and with low booster uptake and no natural infections, the population is more susceptible to severe disease,” said Airfinity, a London-based health analytics firm.
Airfinity’s own models, released in late November, projected between 1.3 million and 2.1 million deaths in China if the government abruptly ended its zero-covid policy.
Other estimates have been even bleaker. Also in November, epidemiologists led by Zhou Jiatong, the head of the Center for Disease Control in China’s Guangxi region, estimated that more than 2 million people could die if the country suffered a covid-19 surge similar to the one that hit Hong Kong in the spring.
Because China stopped publicizing asymptomatic cases — and appeared to tighten its definition of a covid death — earlier this month, the IHME and others used Hong Kong’s omicron outbreak to inform their models. The variant ripped through the densely populated region, and within three months, the population of just 7.4 million saw more than a million new coronavirus cases and some 7,000 deaths.
As infections rise, China stops counting asymptomatic cases
Now, the severity of China’s coronavirus surge is being reported largely anecdotally, with stories of deserted streets, strained hospitals and funeral homes, and pharmacies being emptied of fever medication and traditional remedies.
Murray, the IHME director, said China has several options. It could slow the transition away from zero covid to avoid overwhelming hospitals. It could also change course and try to inoculate residents with mRNA vaccines or increase access to antiviral medications such as Paxlovid.
Last week, Pfizer signed an agreement with the state-owned China Meheco Group Co. to import and distribute Paxlovid on the mainland, Bloomberg News reported.
The Hong Kong-based researchers also wrote that waiting a month to reopen and using that time to increase booster and antiviral coverage could reduce cumulative deaths in China by 26 percent.
“Although the surge of disease burden posed by reopening in December 2022 — January 2023 would likely overload most local health systems nationwide, a reopening strategy that combines vaccination, antiviral treatment and [public health and social measures] could allow China to exit zero-COVID more safely,” they wrote.
Colin Parkinson
Army.ca Myth
- Reaction score
- 11,929
- Points
- 1,160
China and Japan butting heads
- Reaction score
- 5,973
- Points
- 1,260
More (bad) news for China according to The Guardian. "Yi Fuxian, an obstetrics and gynaecology researcher at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and expert on China’s population changes, said the decline in population was occurring almost a decade earlier than the country’s government and the United Nations had projected ... “Meaning that China’s real demographic crisis is beyond imagination and that all of China’s past economic, social, defence, and foreign policies were based on faulty demographic data,” Yi said on Twitter ... [and] ... “China’s demographic and economic outlook is much bleaker than expected. China will have to undergo a strategic contraction and adjust its social, economic, defence, and foreign policies. China will improve relations with the West.”"
- Reaction score
- 8,298
- Points
- 1,160
Taking Public Relations Advice From Roseanne Rosannadanna: "Nevermind"
Perhaps this has something to do with it
China tells the world that the Maoist madness is over – we can all make money again
China's apparent return to the fold at Davos raises hopes of a quick economic rebound
ByAmbrose Evans-Pritchard IN DAVOS17 January 2023 • 4:18pm
Xi Jinping secured a third term as Chinese president at the 20th Party Congress in October CREDIT: TINGSHU WANG/Reuters
China has extended the olive branch to Western democracies and global capitalists alike, promising a new era of detente after the coercive “wolf warrior” diplomacy of the last five years.
Vice-premier Liu He, the economic plenipotentiary of Xi Jinping’s China, told a gathering of business leaders and ministers in Davos that China is back inside the tent and eager to restore the money-making bonhomie of the golden years.
“We must let the market play the fundamental role in the allocation of resources, and let the government play a better role. Some people say China will go for the planned economy. That’s by no means possible,” he said.
“All-round opening-up is the basis of state policy and the key driver of economic progress. China’s national reality dictates that opening up to the world is a must, not an expediency. We must open up wider and make it work better,” he told the World Economic Forum.
The choice of Liu He as messenger of conciliation is lost on nobody. Both an economic moderniser and a graduate of Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government, his charm offensive in Davos hits two global constituencies at the same time.
It is a subtle way of telling the world that the neo-Maoist fever of Xi Jinping’s second term has subsided since the 20th Party Congress in October. Xi’s third term is going to be a giant pivot back to international harmony.
China is calling off its ruinous assault on technology companies – the country’s most dynamic entrepreneurs, but also the regime’s most powerful political foes. The green shoots of the next Chinese economic boom are already emerging.
China's vice-premier Liu He stressed that the country was open for business again after two years of disruption CREDIT: Stefan Wermuth/Bloomberg
“The technology sector is moving full steam ahead. We’re seeing the inflows come back through our China Connect and have got a hundred tech companies lining up to go public,” said Nicolas Aguzin, head of the Hong Kong Stock Exchange. The Hang Seng tech index is up 60pc from its nadir last year.
Aguzin said in Davos that China’s “remediation process” – a euphemism for the political purge of big business – has run its course. The Chinese people have accumulated $2 trillion in excess savings and are raring to go with an enormous spending spree.
It will act as a countercyclical buffer for the world as Europe and America struggle with recessionary forces. “China’s post-Covid reopening is the most positive catalyst for global markets this year,” he said.
Vice-premier Liu He’s conciliatory pitch is also a signal that China will return to its longstanding position as a stakeholder of the existing Davosian global order rather than a revisionist power determined to overthrow it.
“We need to uphold an effective international economic order. We have to abandon the cold war mentality,” he said, pledging a push for “economic re-globalisation”. There was not a whiff of criticism of the US or the West. No speech of this kind has been delivered by a top Chinese leader for years.
It goes well beyond the first signs of a tentative thaw at a US-China summit late last year, suggesting that China’s 20th Party Congress marked a watershed moment in Chinese strategic thinking. Whether it is authentic or tactical remains to be seen.
In a sense, the new policy is a recognition by the Communist Party that the democracies are not as weak as they looked a year or two ago. The West still controls the machinery of global finance, technology transfer, and maritime trade. The war in Ukraine has revealed that it can be remarkably unified and has a backbone of steel when seriously provoked.
Xi’s profession of friendship “without limits” for Vladimir Putin is surely an embarrassment he would rather forget – though there are some advantages for Beijing in a dependent Russia with nowhere else to turn. Russia’s military has been exposed as a paper tiger. Its value as an ally is enormously degraded.
Above all, Xi Jinping discovered that the US controls the global supply of advanced semiconductor chips, the primary fuel of the 21st century technological economy.
Without that you are nothing. China’s repeated efforts to close the chip gap have all faltered, and the latest has just been abandoned due to prohibitive costs.
Ursula von der Leyen, the European Commission’s president, struck a more sceptical tone in Davos. Speaking immediately before Liu He, she accused China of actively trying to poach European green-tech companies with subsidies, labour dumping and regulatory arbitrage, while systematically obstructing foreign access to its internal market.
“Competition on net zero must be based on a level playing field. We will not hesitate to open investigations if markets are being distorted by such subsidies,” she said.
The White House remains wary of the softer Chinese tone. The violation of the 1984 accords on Hong Kong is now an irreversible fact. Military islands are still being developed in the territorial waters of other countries in the South China Sea. It will take more than words to repair that diplomatic damage.
Deng Xiaoping long pursued a policy of “bide your time and hide your strength”. When Xi Jinping abandoned this restraint and switched suddenly to a posture of impatient menace he revealed what China might be like as the global hegemon.
This reached its apotheosis in pandemic triumphalism. It was not an attractive spectacle. Switching back even more suddenly to global happy talk will be a hard sell.
Liu He said China’s property bust had pushed the economy close to a systemic crisis, requiring a “blood transfusion” and massive state bail-out of the mortgage system to restore confidence. The worst is now over and the economy should be back to pre-pandemic trend growth of 5pc or more this year.
Officially, growth was 3pc last year. The proxy measure of Capital Economic suggested that it was far worse, with output contracting almost 7pc in November (year-on-year), before Beijing threw in the towel on zero-Covid. By this measure GDP is barely higher than it was before the pandemic.
A V-shaped economic rebound is now on the cards. China’s property curbs – the “three red lines” – have largely been lifted. All levers of policy are stimulative.
For the rest of the world, the implications are bittersweet. The risk is that surging Chinese demand for oil, gas, and commodities risks setting off another round of imported inflation before Europe and America have fully recovered.
Strap your belts for another turbulent year.
I wonder if Xi has been called in for tea.
- Reaction score
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Roger Boyes, the diplomatic editor of The Times, says that we need to understand Xi, the dictator: Xi, he says, is "an adaptive dictator — altering policy, often using information about his subjects, for his own ends. If that means performing a flip-flop on social or health policy, he will go ahead and do it. He will sacrifice any doctrinal principle he needs to in order to raise growth rates ... [and] ... Strong leaders with a tame press need not fear charges of hypocrisy. And he knows that most Chinese will accept high Covid fatality rates if the country as a whole gets richer. More importantly, he correctly assumes that the rest of the world is desperate for the Chinese economy to return to robust growth. It’s what makes the globe go round ... [thus] ... Understanding how Xi ticks has never been more important. He has built up a huge army and navy as a form of geopolitical leverage. Some analysts might look at what seems like his erratic behaviour of recent weeks and conclude he has lost his way — that if confronted with a crisis in the South China Sea he would do a cost-benefit analysis, blink and decide war with a US-led force was too big a risk. But the real lesson from his zig-zags is that he feels free to do what he wants. He no longer feels bound by any faction. Xi is the freest man in the world’s most unfree society. That’s something to be worried about."
I am worried ... Xi worries me a whole helluva lot more than Putin does.
I am worried ... Xi worries me a whole helluva lot more than Putin does.
- Reaction score
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One is an master chess player and one is a grand master chess player.
The first has the ability to shock and awe in terms of their boldness of play, even against grand masters themselves. But a grand master is slow, methodical, looking many many steps into the future, analysing many many possibilities until they see the victory and then orchestrate it to happen, almost if by magic. This is Xi.
Halifax Tar
Army.ca Fixture
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You dont say! You mean a communist dictatorship wasn't forthright with the world ?
- Reaction score
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And yet more, from The Diplomat, which see six horsemen in a coming Chinese apocalypse: demographics; a looming food crisis; a debt crisis; the worsening global geo-strategic situation; supply chain issues; and mismanaged urbanization. "Failure to grasp the reality of these crises,": the authors say, "would hamper the Chinese authorities’ governance, mitigation, adjustment, and means to address the problems. The final outcome would be nothing short of unspeakable social tragedies. For instance, the crisis seen in public medical resources today, though driven by the COVID-19 outbreaks, is in fact a manifestation of the aging crisis at its core ... [and] ... In the future, these Six Horsemen of Apocalypse would surely make their appearance, unleashing shock waves that will be transmitted to the deeper level of society, causing more and more realistic problems and conflicts."
GR66
Army.ca Veteran
- Reaction score
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The cynical part of me thinks that the sudden easing of all Covid restrictions including all travel restrictions for the New Year at the same time that there are warning bells about a major demographic crisis are not a coincidence.
A declining population is one thing but the real problem is the huge imbalance between the older, retired/retiring population and the younger working population. Which group is Covid run rampant most likely to affect? Perhaps they see a potential benefit to a 'Covid Cull' of their older population that would ease the impact of a declining population?
A declining population is one thing but the real problem is the huge imbalance between the older, retired/retiring population and the younger working population. Which group is Covid run rampant most likely to affect? Perhaps they see a potential benefit to a 'Covid Cull' of their older population that would ease the impact of a declining population?
- Reaction score
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…from whom we can see a half-baked/poorly-executed Mini-me in the form of Trudeau Jr.
I think the two horsemen on the lead mounts are demographics and food supply. They have been first-order within Xi’s control in a way that is much more closely linked to his direction than the others, and will impact both the depth and duration of the fall…
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From the Telegraph - cause for western optimism? Or is it?
Xi Jinping’s dream of world domination is over
A stagnant economy and falling birth rate will not be fixed by China’s failing leaders
www.telegraph.co.uk
FSTO
Army.ca Fixture
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GoC asleep at the switch again (or still)?
www.theglobeandmail.com
The cartoon in todays G&M is telling.
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Ottawa urged to issue directive to universities halting joint research with Chinese military scientists
Official Opposition calls for a ministerial order to advise provinces and universities against research partnerships with Beijing’s military
www.theglobeandmail.com
The cartoon in todays G&M is telling.
- Reaction score
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They're asleep, in bed beside the CCP.GoC asleep at the switch again (or still)?
Ottawa urged to issue directive to universities halting joint research with Chinese military scientists
Official Opposition calls for a ministerial order to advise provinces and universities against research partnerships with Beijing’s military
The cartoon in todays G&M is telling.
QV
Army.ca Veteran
- Reaction score
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Until the GoC takes security threats seriously, don't expect the rest of the country to do so.
Spencer100
Army.ca Veteran
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Bingo.....is China the only one?
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