Particularly in Chinese history, enormous events have begun with a very small spark. From the New York TimeS: “The fire began with a faulty power strip in a bedroom on the 15th floor of an apartment building in China’s far west. Firefighters spent three hours putting it out — too slow to prevent at least 10 deaths — and what might have remained an isolated accident turned into a tragedy and a political headache for local leaders.
I noted this in the HCR discussion and here as well as I don't think that protesting in a controlled authoritarian society can have the kind of effects we in western democratic leaning societies presume it can have. Western leaders pride themselves (falsely many times) of serving their peoples want and needs. Authoritarian societies, like China and Iran, tell their citizens what to believe, do, and enforce the rules with impunity. JMO. And China has excellent facial recognition technology in use in those same urban areas where protest took place. No hurry to crack down when you can scoop up the dissidents whenever you wish. I can see hundreds of coders updating the citizen records of those who were at the protest, as we write this commentaries.
TC's opened by advising enormous events in Chinese history begin with a small spark.
...in the words of Mao Zedong — 'prevent a single spark from becoming a prairie fire'.
Last week, many speculated that COVID curbs in the city of Urumqi, parts of which had been under lockdown for 100 days, hindered rescue and escape, from an apartment fire, causing the deaths of 10 people.
I may remember best a response to the fire, which TC shared by a WeChat essayist who wrote a satirical piece titled “Good, Good, Good, Good, Good, Good, Good: Good, Good, Good, Good, Good, Good, Good, Good, Good, Good, Good, Good, Good!”
Do you think the former president will plagiarize it for his presidential campaign slogan in '24; that's if our 'Rule of Law' permits him to get that far?
From liberal, earlier Hong Kong I heard a story of the privatized fire brigades: they could start negotiating what resources, and at what price, they would start working, while the house was burning. The lockdown policy has clearly created a 'high pressure boiler', where such an incident of failing fire fighting can spark such reactions. Apart from lockdowns maybe the only alternative, I have been thinking that it is the perfect fine tuning of the most advanced surveillance system in world history; with follow up by prosecution of all 'disturbing elements'. Taiwan remains the worse threat for the Beijing regime, by setting an example of Chinese democracy, better and more ambitious than many democracies in the West, and a most tempting conquest by being world leading manufacturer of electronic components.
Sounds like an incredibly fragile situation that could have ripple effects across the globe.
And could the fact that more recent covid variants are much more communicable cause a wildfire effect?
The decision to rely on deficient vaccines may be seen as one of history's greatest errors.
Young people may feel they have nothing left to lose if their lives are heavily restricted. And the government's idea that they can control everything via security snooping and endless crackdowns flies in the face of logic. What a tinderbox!
We could be seeing a supply chain disruption that makes the last one feel like child's play.
Xi is truly between a rock and a hard place - as you mentioned, the Chinese Covid vaccines are not effective (apparently they are completely ineffective against O,micron), so that lockdowns are the only weapon XI has at the moment. One geopolitical analyst estimates that if fhe lockdowns were eased, the death toll could reach several million per month, for a quarter to a half year. If most of them were elderly, that would be an extra problem for Xi. The irony is that China's place as a major world power is probably temporary. The "one-child" policy in effect for 40 years has guaranteed that China's population will decrease up to 50% over the next 30 years. - there aren't enough Chinese women to repopulate the country as the older generations die off.....probably there are 50-65 million Chinese men for whom there are no Chinese women. Even though the government has increased the allowed children to three per family, modern middle class Chinese do not WANT children - the birth rate in Shanghai is 0.7 children per family, one third of the replacement rate. When the population declines, so will the size of the (very necessary) security forces, so China will likely break up into regional powers, as has been common in other historical periods..... Taiwan many win after all.
TC--You probably saw this, but at least some of those sheets of paper weren't blank. A posting about students from Tsinghua University [think Harvard or MIT] shows them holding up writing paper with the Friedmann equation hand-written on them. Very complicated math but the point is "free-man", get it? I think, to Fred WI's point, that this cleverness will not long evade censoring, recording and possible academic consequences. The only thing that might save them, or at least ameliorate the punishments, is that Tsinghua grads are touted as the top scholars in China--and hence, in the world. The CCP might not want to publicly lose face by over-reacting. (This time, at least.)
This would be a good time to casually ramp up our ability to assist and defend Taiwan. Assuming he could put it together, an invasion either by the PLA or their PDRK stooges would be a serious distraction.
Well, TC, was unable to adopt the 2 boy cats - both having really bigtime issues with being in a shelter & naturally, reacting badly. However, I brought home a four year old female black cat whose person went into a nursing home - so she was surrendered. Shes very unhappy with me at this point, of course. But I have hope that she will come out from wherever shes hiding some time soon. Maybe?
Thanks for the push - I think it helped! I'll keep you updated.
I noted this in the HCR discussion and here as well as I don't think that protesting in a controlled authoritarian society can have the kind of effects we in western democratic leaning societies presume it can have. Western leaders pride themselves (falsely many times) of serving their peoples want and needs. Authoritarian societies, like China and Iran, tell their citizens what to believe, do, and enforce the rules with impunity. JMO. And China has excellent facial recognition technology in use in those same urban areas where protest took place. No hurry to crack down when you can scoop up the dissidents whenever you wish. I can see hundreds of coders updating the citizen records of those who were at the protest, as we write this commentaries.
TC's opened by advising enormous events in Chinese history begin with a small spark.
...in the words of Mao Zedong — 'prevent a single spark from becoming a prairie fire'.
Last week, many speculated that COVID curbs in the city of Urumqi, parts of which had been under lockdown for 100 days, hindered rescue and escape, from an apartment fire, causing the deaths of 10 people.
I may remember best a response to the fire, which TC shared by a WeChat essayist who wrote a satirical piece titled “Good, Good, Good, Good, Good, Good, Good: Good, Good, Good, Good, Good, Good, Good, Good, Good, Good, Good, Good, Good!”
Do you think the former president will plagiarize it for his presidential campaign slogan in '24; that's if our 'Rule of Law' permits him to get that far?
From liberal, earlier Hong Kong I heard a story of the privatized fire brigades: they could start negotiating what resources, and at what price, they would start working, while the house was burning. The lockdown policy has clearly created a 'high pressure boiler', where such an incident of failing fire fighting can spark such reactions. Apart from lockdowns maybe the only alternative, I have been thinking that it is the perfect fine tuning of the most advanced surveillance system in world history; with follow up by prosecution of all 'disturbing elements'. Taiwan remains the worse threat for the Beijing regime, by setting an example of Chinese democracy, better and more ambitious than many democracies in the West, and a most tempting conquest by being world leading manufacturer of electronic components.
What a scene!
Sounds like an incredibly fragile situation that could have ripple effects across the globe.
And could the fact that more recent covid variants are much more communicable cause a wildfire effect?
The decision to rely on deficient vaccines may be seen as one of history's greatest errors.
Young people may feel they have nothing left to lose if their lives are heavily restricted. And the government's idea that they can control everything via security snooping and endless crackdowns flies in the face of logic. What a tinderbox!
We could be seeing a supply chain disruption that makes the last one feel like child's play.
Xi is truly between a rock and a hard place - as you mentioned, the Chinese Covid vaccines are not effective (apparently they are completely ineffective against O,micron), so that lockdowns are the only weapon XI has at the moment. One geopolitical analyst estimates that if fhe lockdowns were eased, the death toll could reach several million per month, for a quarter to a half year. If most of them were elderly, that would be an extra problem for Xi. The irony is that China's place as a major world power is probably temporary. The "one-child" policy in effect for 40 years has guaranteed that China's population will decrease up to 50% over the next 30 years. - there aren't enough Chinese women to repopulate the country as the older generations die off.....probably there are 50-65 million Chinese men for whom there are no Chinese women. Even though the government has increased the allowed children to three per family, modern middle class Chinese do not WANT children - the birth rate in Shanghai is 0.7 children per family, one third of the replacement rate. When the population declines, so will the size of the (very necessary) security forces, so China will likely break up into regional powers, as has been common in other historical periods..... Taiwan many win after all.
TC--You probably saw this, but at least some of those sheets of paper weren't blank. A posting about students from Tsinghua University [think Harvard or MIT] shows them holding up writing paper with the Friedmann equation hand-written on them. Very complicated math but the point is "free-man", get it? I think, to Fred WI's point, that this cleverness will not long evade censoring, recording and possible academic consequences. The only thing that might save them, or at least ameliorate the punishments, is that Tsinghua grads are touted as the top scholars in China--and hence, in the world. The CCP might not want to publicly lose face by over-reacting. (This time, at least.)
This would be a good time to casually ramp up our ability to assist and defend Taiwan. Assuming he could put it together, an invasion either by the PLA or their PDRK stooges would be a serious distraction.
Well, TC, was unable to adopt the 2 boy cats - both having really bigtime issues with being in a shelter & naturally, reacting badly. However, I brought home a four year old female black cat whose person went into a nursing home - so she was surrendered. Shes very unhappy with me at this point, of course. But I have hope that she will come out from wherever shes hiding some time soon. Maybe?
Thanks for the push - I think it helped! I'll keep you updated.
I think Xi will put a stranglehold on this. He's a very tough guy and will
not allow any dissent to get out of
hand. I agree with Fred WI about the facial recognition tracking they're capable of. An example is
what has happened with the Ughers(sp). Thousands gone; dead
and locked up forever, being "re-educated".
Send in tRump [the clowns]...
Don’t bother; they here...