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There's a bit of a glaring omission here.

They persisted with covid 0 well into mid-late 22. It was very clear 2 and a half years into the pandemic that covid was not ebola.

Hard-line initially is defensible, rationalizable.

Later not so much.

The other conclusions seem off too. Other Asian and South Pacific countries demonstrated their willingness to lock down and turn more authoritarian in the face of an unknown threat. They pivoted though.

>They persisted with covid 0 well into mid-late 22. It was very clear 2 and a half years into the pandemic that covid was not ebola.

It was not clear what omicron was.

Anyway I don't entirely blame them for maintaining the hardline even well past the advent of conflicting evidence. This is actually normal human behavior. People cannot flip their opinions and beliefs in the exact instant they are presented with opposing evidence. Humans just don't work this way. There's no individual or government that will reverse a policy and admit a mistake instantly. Literally not one. It's not right, but I don't expect any other form of behavior from a human or humans running an organization.

>The other conclusions seem off too. Other Asian and South Pacific countries demonstrated their willingness to lock down and turn more authoritarian in the face of an unknown threat. They pivoted though.

Naw not at the scale of China. It's easy for a small island to execute lockdown. It's extremely hard for a landmass as large as china to execute the same thing.

I'd disagree with the first point there, they were very late to pivot.

The rest seems internally inconsistent with where you were initially. I think it's because you might have stretched the kernel of wisdom, "authoritarianism may have some benefit in the kind of disaster which is only mitigated by authoritarianism" a bit further than it goes on its own merits.

They screwed up by doubling down. Your main point would actually be a lot easier to defend if you separated it from the overextended Chinese implementation.

> I'd disagree with the first point there, they were very late to pivot.

Relax the US took 10 years to apologize to the Japanese people they threw into internment camps. That was a bigger fuck up than the china covid lock downs.

>The rest seems internally inconsistent with where you were initially. I think it's because you might have stretched the kernel of wisdom, "authoritarianism may have some benefit in the kind of disaster which is only mitigated by authoritarianism" a bit further than it goes on its own merits.

Internally inconsistent? No it's not. And you didn't point out where too. Just a vague, "seems inconsistent".

It's also not really a stretch. Part of the speed and efficiency in China's response comes from central control. Part of Americas dying infrastructure comes from lack of centralized control, too many Nimbys, different motives and conflicting opinions.

>They screwed up by doubling down. Your main point would actually be a lot easier to defend if you separated it from the overextended Chinese implementation.

Yeah they screwed up. But my point still stands. Also it's not the biggest fuck up. Not by a long shot. Take a look at the US blowing up the nordstream pipelines. Holy shit a literal act of war/terrorism on an allied country. The US is no stranger to dark shit and huge fuck ups on a scale equivalent if not worse than china.

Relax the US took 10 years to apologize to the Japanese people they threw into internment camps. That was a bigger fuck up than the china covid lock downs.

I wouldn't count on China ever admitting they messed up. That's just not how it's done there. Hands will be waved, stories will be spun and they'll talk like it was a perfect strategy.

"Saving face" is very real in Asian cultures. If you can avoid ever admitting a mistake or fault, you do it. I saw it a lot while living there.

I 100% agree with this. I'm Chinese (racially) so I know. That being said, it doesn't mean other "cultures" don't have the concept of "saving face". It's an inborn thing. Genetic. I haven't met anyone asian or not who admits their mistakes with ease. Think about it, 10 years of not apologizing is not that far off from never admitting a mistake.

I will agree with you that from my own experience that this does effect the Chinese more than other people in general. But my argument here is simply that the Chinese had a superior response to other democratic countries when handling covid.

The response ended up being from certain perspectives, mistaken, and the slow reversal of the response while, wrong, is something that governments (including rival governments) also do similarly.

That's it.

It took me a while to wrap my head around it, but saving face is more than just "not admitting mistakes". It's the view that your social status and honor is based on not being wrong or admitting mistakes.

A good example of the differences are apologies by Western governments for past wrongs. Doing so can actually increase social standing among the population. Admitting guilt and wrongdoing can be seen as a redeeming quality.

But I do agree that not admitting fault is a pretty universal human thing. I think "saving face" has more to do with the social pressures around it.

>It took me a while to wrap my head around it,

I'm chinese. I understand what you're talking about it, More than you. But you are taking it too far. The concept is exactly the same as the the universal thing about not admitting fault. It is exactly the same.

The main difference is the concept has been crystallized into the language and is more prevalent. It is not anything more than that.

It's likely someone who was natively born in China is trying to explain the concept to you without fully understanding western culture. He likely thinks western culture is some sort of pristine culture with no concept at all of "not wanting to admit fault" and was trying to explain it to you thinking that the concept was completely absent from your background. No, this is wrong.

I'm a creature of both worlds. Deep insight into western culture by virtue of being born in the states and deep insight into east asian culture by virtue of being born of the chinese race, having family who is chinese and also having friends who are all chinese.

The duality of my origins make my insight more calibrated in this regard.

It’s not the same because the consequences are different. Thats my observation having lived in both the West and Asia.

Tell me what you observed because you're dead wrong. You're a foreigner and treated as such, your interpretations are likely through a filtered lens. I'm not.

Perhaps you know you're wrong and you're trying to save face?

When you look at Chinese people "saving face", when you look at the Chinese government "saving face" keep in mind that sometimes you're looking at a mirror. We're not that different. I think you mistook a popular Chinese idiom for some Chinese cultural quirk.

As a foreigner, I read the same local news same as locals. I can observe the behavior of governments when it comes to "saving face" versus Western governments.

It's pretty obvious that in countries like China the idea that the government can "never be wrong, never show weakness" is different than the Western approach.

This is a authoritative government thing. Not a Chinese thing.

The western government does the same shit. Their reach just isn't as far as the Chinese government in its ability to completely lock down the media. Instead the US government typically does what they call "a cover up".

Both governments launch massive amounts of propaganda, both would take a loong time to admit thier mistakes if given enough pressure. The only difference is, in china no one is allowed to deliver pressure.

Let me ask this - when was the last time the Chinese government apologized for something?

https://www.news4jax.com/weather/2023/02/03/china-apologies-...

>A good example of the differences are apologies by Western governments for past wrongs.

Do they apologize for their own past doings or does one US faction throw another faction under the bus through a half-hearted apology?

It seems most of the US population considers an apology worthless at this point, atleast if it's not attached to financial compensation which is the case for the majority of mistakes or crimes. They are just considered political lip service.

European countries did much better than china regarding covid. US did protlly because of many internal issues which seem to be unadressable.

Oh, and Nord stream 2 was not the US. At least there's no credible proof or semblance of one.

>Oh, and Nord stream 2 was not the US. At least there's no credible proof or semblance of one.

You have to be really lying to yourself to believe that. Look at the twinkle in bidens eye when he says it: https://youtu.be/OS4O8rGRLf8?t=82

This coupled with: https://seymourhersh.substack.com/p/how-america-took-out-the...

It's unmistakable. The US did it and everybody in Germany and Europe knows it. The US was meanwhile over-concerned with their first major F-35 kill ever: Balloon gate.

> European countries did much better than china regarding covid. US did protlly because of many internal issues which seem to be unadressable.

The US did poorly because of lack of centralized control and abundance of karens and the male counterpart. China had the superior response in terms of infrastructure adaption.

It was very clear what Omicron was by that point. China didn't really relax restrictions until December 2022. By May of 2022, most other countries had pretty much opened up and had Omnicron run rampant through their populations.

My hypothesis is that China stuck with it so long because: 1) their vaccine wasn't that good and they refused superior mRNA vaccines and 2) their ego was all wrapped up in the "glory of the Chinese way" of dealing with Covid and letting it run rampant was tantamount to admitting their policy was wrong.

It wasnt ego. There wasn’t ready supply of 3 billion doses of mRNA vaccines (its more than one dose)

Doubtful. Pfizer manufacturer 4B and Moderna almost the same. Plus Fosun-BioNTech partnership allowed manufacturing in Hong Kong. There was certainly capacity to produce enough or at least enough for a large percentage of the Chinese population.

China just decided they weren't going to use it. It literally wasn't allowed.

If China had used a mix of mRNA and other vaccines I might see the argument they had a lack of supply.

The US didn't allow the Chinese vaccine to be used either. It's Also because of ego across the board. It still isn't allowed in the US.

There were definitely supply problems in the US in the beginning.

Did China submit their vaccine to the FDA? Not as far as I’m aware.

And before China opened up millions of doses were being destroyed by countries who bought too much.

China absolutely could have gotten mRNA vaccines. Hell, Hong Kong had them.

So like i said, they could have gotten access to some mRNA vaccines, they choose not to.

> China absolutely could have gotten mRNA vaccines. Hell, Hong Kong had them.

Hong Kong has 7 million people… 7 million != 1.3 billion.

Are you saying Hong Kong can't produce more vaccine than its own population? I mean, the US produced enough for 20x it's population.

Hong Kong imported the vaccines. The city was international enough that using a foreign (non-Chinese) vaccine wasn't a political statement that the Chinese vaccine wasn't as effective. The political calculus is different for China generally.

The plan was to manufacturer the vaccine in Asia for the Chinese market.

I agree that the politically, China didn't want to use Western vaccines.

BioNTech and Fosun Pharma are setting up a 50-50 joint venture to make and sell the COVID mRNA shot in China, with manufacturing capacity to produce up to 1 billion doses a year, Fosun said in a filing (PDF) to the Hong Kong Exchange on Sunday.

https://www.fiercepharma.com/manufacturing/biontech-fosun-ph...

Setting up… so you’re saying they don’t have access to it now… Which means they didn’t have access to it in January… Which was my point the entire time.

They always had access to it. Either through imports or manufacturing in Hong Kong.

They choose not to use it.

This just isn't true. There has never been enough global supply for China AND the rest of the world. If there was, why (as you stated) would they be setting up net-new manufacturing of it?

That, coupled with the fact that the Chinese population have resisted getting vaccinated meant that it was never a viable strategy to purchase billions of doses and open up. The only option they had was COVID-0 style strategies.

I dont know why youre so hung up on “not enough supply for China”. There is no binary option. They could have imported multiple vaccines (like Vietnam and many other countries did) and used what they imported.

They didnt.

Instead they used their home grown vaccine which had terrible efficacy.

Vaccinating 20% of your population is not helpful. You need to hit 50-80% else you shouldn’t do it.

Supply being one problem and uptake being the other. Meant China never had a proper “opening up” option presented.

I’m saying no one could produce enough supply for the whole world plus China. That capability is only just coming online nowish.

And yes HK couldn’t produce or purchase the billions of doses required to vaccinate the mainland. I’m saying that too

They dont need to produce enough for all of China. They could have imported 100M and used that.

They didnt.

It would have been pointless. 10% vaccinated would not have had a big enough impact rate of hospitalisation.

I think you don’t really understand the problem.

The FDA would be asking for submission if that vaccine was from Europe. There was a huge supply side problem in the US in the initial stages of the pandemic and any additional vaccines could have alleviated this issue.

The FDA doesn't "ask" for submission. The manufacturer initiates the review.

Don't be so pedantic. When people are dying and supply is low, "asking" for it is a valid move whether by the FDA or the president.

The fact that it wasn't done is deliberate from both sides.

That's not how it works. I should know - I've submitted things to the FDA.

If the Chinese vaccine manufacturers wanted an FDA review, they can pay a fee and get it.

It's not about the technicalities of submission. It's about whether or not there was political desire to "bend the knee" and ask for a vaccine. The answer is obviously no. Neither side will do it.

So do the math: 1.3 billion x 3/4/5 doses… It was never a viable choice.

They also had a low trust society in western medicine, there never got effective uptake of any of the vaccines.

It meant they didn’t have the options that countries like Taiwan and Australia had, where high vaccine uptake allowed lockdowns to be loosened.

Yes, I don't completely disagree. But keep in mind. Every government including the US one, has ego.

It was clear for 2.5/3 years that covid0 was defensible as it enabled most of PRC to operate with relatively little disruption, wasn't until after omicron that the system became unsustainable. Persisting for another few months _ when able _ to figure things out understandable. It's a luxury other hard lock down countries didn't have, and who didn't pivot, they conceded to living with covid because they simply lacked state capacity to tackle omicron. Difference is PRC did, hence wasting a few months, or buying a few more months of insight, before calculation or reality forced throwing in towel as well. Fairly responsive as far as decision making goes.

Not sure why you're downvoted but you're right.

Analysis goes full stupid when it comes to PRC policies / decision making. Seemed exceedingly rational that something as infectious as omicron was all or nothing containment affair. Just like western mRNA wank despite mRNA failing to prevent spread post delta - their only distinguishing advantage that would have helped buy more time - if worked as advertised but didn't. As if PRC would spend months and billions to vax population on political unreliable western vax for what, a few % better severe case protection among high risk elderly. Or build up reserves of expensive paxlovid when to be blunt, that's luxury reserved for high income countries. The most prudent thing to do in lieu of omicron spreading to point that required massive lockdowns after dynmamic clearing couldn't contain was simply to abandon covid0 enmass - what everyone else did. I suppose people expected PRC could have done some sort of measured transitioned, which itself is recognition of PRC state capacity, but by my assessement is that's throwing good money after bad. CCP gambled a few months to see if dynamic clearing had a chance, it didn't, next best thing was just to live with omicron as fast as possible.

> What happened here isn't a case of the government going insane.

You're missing Dan's references to the two notable previous cases of the Chinese state adopting batshit insane policies and persisting with them for years, namely the Great Leap Forward ("their pots for backyard steel furnaces") and the Cultural Revolution ("out of their schools for class struggle"). Both were calamitous, directly leading to millions of deaths, and accomplished nothing at all of use.

How am I missing those? Yes those are cases of the Chinese state being insane.

But what does this have to do with the Chinese response to covid? My comment is specific to the example I quoted in the specific post.

I think there's a bit a team mentality going on here. Pick a team. Team China or Team USA and the opposing side is a villain.

What's really going on here is not a team situation. Just two different fruits: Apples and Oranges. Both can and Have gone rotten at times.

What Dan is saying is that the Chinese state has a track record of adopting policies and sticking to them for lengthy periods despite mountains of evidence that they're harmful, and their COVID response is only the latest example.

Democracies generally have a harder time doing this, because they have checks and balances that prevent going to extremes (welding people into their homes etc) and the governments responsible will eventually get voted out if public opinion turns against them.

> What Dan is saying is that the Chinese state has a track record of adopting policies and sticking to them for lengthy periods despite mountains of evidence that they're harmful, and their COVID response is only the latest example.

I know. But that's separate from my point. Dan is not wrong about China.

Additionally I would argue every government acts this way. It's human nature. When someone fucks up big time it takes them awhile to voluntary face that fuck up. Governments are no different.

I mentioned this somewhere else but the US one time threw the entire japanese population in the states into internment camps. It took them 10 years to apologize. The internment camp thing is an epic fuck up. Epic. And it took 10 years the government to admit they were wrong.

>Democracies generally have a harder time doing this, because they have checks and balances that prevent going to extremes (welding people into their homes etc) and the governments responsible will eventually get voted out if public opinion turns against them.

This is garbage. Democracies are no strangers to dark dark shit. Again as I mentioned in a sibling comment on this thread, the US recently blew up the nordstream oil pipelines. Literal act of terrorism against an allied country. Germany is clamming up because they don't want to start WW3.

Not to mention the CIA torture program or the CIA program of SELLING crack cocaine to americans to finance their foreign operations.

Literally throw a dart and it will land on some atrocity conducted by the US, there are tons and tons of shit you can dig up. It's no different for China. Just apples and oranges.

Humans aren't white knights, and operate in areas that are morally grey. This aspect of humanity is reflected in governments, independent of centralized or democratic organization.

Are you with a straight face arguing that autocracies are morally equivalent to democracies? Remind me again which democracies have let 15-50M of their own people willfully starve to death (Great Leap) or willfully destroyed nearly their entire cultural heritage while killing millions in the process (Cultural Revolution)?

It's no coincidence that the three bloodiest mass murderers of the 20th century -- Hitler, Stalin and Mao -- were all dictators, and while the US has done and continues to do a whole lot of repugnant shit, nothing comes close to any of these three.

>Are you with a straight face arguing that autocracies are morally equivalent to democracies?

I judge morals by actions not by labels. If a country dropped a nuclear bomb on hiroshima slaughtering millions of innocent civilians. I don't judge that country based off of a label of "democracy", I judge it based off of action.

If a country kills millions of people by letting them starve to death than that country is ALSO judged.

Not only do I not Judge a country based off of a label. But I don't hold any loyalties to ANY country. I don't join teams or take sides. I judge dispassionately with ZERO patriotism. Patriotism is bias. You should not hold it for a country or for a philosophy. If democracy has issues I judge it, it communism has issues I also judge it.

This idea of the ludicrousy of asking the question: "Are you with a straight face arguing that autocracies are morally equivalent to democracies" is raw garbage. I don't take sides. EVER. And I hold all things equal until I look at evidence and form conclusions from that ONLY.

>It's no coincidence that the three bloodiest mass murderers of the 20th century -- Hitler, Stalin and Mao -- were all dictators, and while the US has done and continues to do a whole lot of repugnant shit, nothing comes close to any of these three.

It's not a competition. The point for why I pointed out atrocities in America was to sort of tone down the bias against China. To help people see that there are negative aspects of both countries and to help eliminate this idea that a democratic country is some kind of paragon for moral goodness. It is not.

Many Americans are blinded by the current cold war rivalry that they are unable to see the things that China got right. China EXCELS and is SUPERIOR then the west in many areas. One of these areas is large scale response and organization to potential threats LIKE the pandemic.

>Remind me again which democracies have let 15-50M of their own people willfully starve to death

The US and other western countries blocked Chinese emergency imports of food that wouldve saved those people. I've never heard of China willfully allowing people to starve to death but the democratic US has done just that to it's own indigenous population, children in Iraq, and countless other countries.

Because nobody can stand up to "The Great Leader" so Chinese government has no accountability.

Nobody is standing up to the CIA for selling crack cocaine to American citizens. Nobody is standing up to biden for blowing up an oil pipeline.

It's the same everywhere.

Plenty of people do, and they don't get disappeared by the CIA

That's an ahistoric claim. People standing up to the CIA, FBI, or othe parts of the US government that are a reasonable threat end up falsely arrested, assassinated, or tortured and killed in blacksite prisons.

You're misinformed.

From 2020 to 2021 I would have agreed with you, but after the vaccine was out Chinese citizens mostly all got it. The remaining restrictions were absolutely unnecessary and actually ineffective.

Even now, you need to wear a mask in public transit, and just to come into the country you need to take a COVID test before your flight. You get a COVID test after touching down.

But for what? That's an unnecessary expense for the traveler since nobody does free COVID tests. My girlfriend paid $140 in the US for one, I paid $50 in Korea (it would have been $80 in the airport, but I wasn't at the airport at the time)

>>> but after the vaccine was out Chinese citizens mostly all got it.

When the restrictions were lifted and the cases skyrocketed, it was because people hadn't taken Sinovac. Chinese don't trust chinese vaccines. Everyone was flocking to macau to take foreign vaccines

You are seriously misrepresenting what happened. The cases FIRST skyrocketed. The restrictions were still in place in October/December

The country removed restrictions when everyone already had the virus, by December I knew nobody in China who didn't already get it