Chinese Economics Thread
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A bit heavy-handed imo. I've always noticed the CPC is clumsy at handling media communications in general..
Considering that criticism of zero covid has been taken up by anti-China elements (see Gordon Chang, but also your usual western media outlets) as a means of questioning the judgement and policy of the central government and thus is half a step away from questioning the authority of the government and CCP, this is only to be expected.
These people really should know better.
Yeah. But that would also mean that whenever anti-China elements pick something the rest should not be allowed to speak. I assume you can see the problem on this
The Government should be capable enough to distinguish between malicious propaganda and nuanced views
All governments censor politically sensitive stuff. The US also does censorship, but it outsources the censorship to supposedly "independent" institutions like Big Tech companies before the 2020 election who conspired to keep any discussion on Hunter Biden's corruption off the table. During Covid, anyone who deviated from the official line was first denounced and then, if they persisted, booted off the platform. Fauci was anointed official saint. That's why there's so much panic about Musk because he signals he won't go along with the informal understanding.
China's censorship is more direct and if you think direct equals clumsy, then so be it, but I see no evidence that China censors more than the US. That being said, I am against 99% of all censorship and obviously Zero Covid has been a success that has turned into a liability, so it is politically tricky for the CCP to make the turnaround. IMO, Xi and the other leaders haven't understood that Covid isn't going away and newer variants are becoming less deadly but more transmissible, so Zero Covid is a losing strategy, hence their current struggles.
China's censorship is more direct and if you think direct equals clumsy, then so be it, but I see no evidence that China censors more than the US. That being said, I am against 99% of all censorship and obviously Zero Covid has been a success that has turned into a liability, so it is politically tricky for the CCP to make the turnaround. IMO, Xi and the other leaders haven't understood that Covid isn't going away and newer variants are becoming less deadly but more transmissible, so Zero Covid is a losing strategy, hence their current struggles.
Oh, to clarify, the topic itself is politically sensitive simply even without the fact that anti-China elements have picked up on it.
Skepticism or criticism of zero covid policies, are in essence directly challenging the judgement and assessments of costs/benefits of the central government and the CCP, for a national scale health policy that has repercussions for all aspects of life in an immediate and visible manner. It thus implies that perhaps an alternative choice (one which the central govt did not choose) is a superior one, which creates the issue of what sort of follow on consequences that may create.
Writing publicly on such a matter with social and political interest, without substantial caveats and expressions of maintaining unswerving loyalty to the govt and CCP to balance out expressions of skepticism, are of course going to be viewed poorly (at the present moment).
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I think they are censoring negative views about the zero covid currently, because they need their citizens to cooperate on it and also to protect themselves politically by not amplifying discontent and instilling doubt to bystanders. They really need to figure out how to move away from lockdowns and I hope that they'll take the Shenzhen model as a starting point.
Zero covid is currently the only solution because the CPC didn't have the courage to force or soft-force (European approach) the elderly to start vaccinating.
I hope that this debacle has woken them to start moving on this direction. Its simple, given the gigantic elderly population, if they are not fully vaccinated with 3 doses, the zero covid strategy will have to continue. So now its a race for time to vaccinate as many elderly as possible
manqiangrexue
Brigadier
It's particularly dangerous to allow views that zero COVID is wrong and should be challenged. The price is already paid and the government has decided to go that way, but the benefits may not be reached if bad apples are allowed to be grown that sow the within the public a trend of disobedience to the policy. To allow them to continue is essentially to allow someone to spread poison in the well water. To tell people to go against this at a time when mass cooperation is imperative is definitely malicious propaganda.
This control over the media is a bare minimum when compared to countries like the US that tell thier media to only publish about the economy in a good light because consumer confidence is more important that the truth.
The CPC could have done it if they wanted but the medical risks in old people were substantially higher. I wouldn't call it courage to risk hundreds of thousands of old people who died after taking the vaccine; that would be an epic disaster both at home and internationally. COVID zero is still in place because other countries couldn't keep their shit together so COVID kept evolving into new strains that can't be stopped by old vaccinations.
I don't disagree with you on that. China is actually the role model for beating pandemics. If everyone had acted like China, humanity would have most likely beaten covid a long time ago.
Unfortunately we have to suffer through other countries' idiotic policies. In any case, China has to daily deal with all these irresponsible countries which means that previous policies will most likely have to be adjusted (probably after the Party Congress) because China and western countries (unfortunately) share the same planet