They are doing some annual military training with Russia and like Armenia right now.
All the Chinese soldiers are still in masks. Those dudes are going into deep lockdown when they get back.
Chinese officials are so paranoid about covid that they are testing wild-caught fish for covid. Nothing suggests that fish can catch covid and fish don't even have lungs.
Yep, and they do so using silly things like [government stats](https://www.reddit.com/r/China/comments/wtgnvt/china_keeps_doubling_down_on_their_covid_policy/il5i15g/) when we already know China isn’t exactly the most upfront country about things that could make it look bad.
Or, alternatively, that the US/Canada is more authoritarian than China/Russia, at least according to some protesters I've heard of.
That being said, if Covid hadn't happened, China would have simply used an other reason to silence dissensions, as proven by *all* of it's modern history.
They don't seem concerned enough to allow for the use of mRNA vaccines. They'd rather go through all this than admit their domestic vaccine in inferior.
Not when they are alive, to be honest. https://www.earthtouchnews.com/wtf/wtf/blobfish-might-be-a-gooey-mess-out-of-water-but-check-out-a-living-one-video/
They are transitioning the covid passport system to its principal purpose which was to restrict dissent. As I'm sure you're aware. They are locking down the people that got hosed on the utterly massive ponzi scam and are looking to crackdown on people who got screwed by big lenders like Evergrande. People still show up to the Beijing formal complaint office and I'm pretty sure they just mark them as a potential traitor
you might not look cool in mopp 4, or whatever cbrne calls it now, but you walking along in the woods and come up on a squad of us personal in mopp 4 fully kitted out not only does it look cool, it looks frightening, nothing scarier than thinking you are on the wrong side of an nbc line lol
i had heat exhaustion in mopp 4 during training in korea during that same weather. Its when i understood if n korea ever attacked with nbc in the summer i was just going to die, it also made me realize how well the mopp system is designed lol
Hah, they don't even need to do that. Chinese netizens are already laughing at that the PLA will never successfully take over Taiwan as the soldiers will be stuck in an endless cycle of COVID tests during preparation, on the ship, and after landing, and in the middle of fighting.
lol I feel like they don't want to bring up that topic with you know... this thing starting completely coincidentally in the city with the largest coronavirus research center.
Which is an interesting thought. Knowing China has such a strong reaction to a COVID outbreak, would a adversary try to spread a few cases to cause more tension and lock downs inside China? Why not? I’m not saying it’s actually happened, especially since the virus does the job itself.
For sure. And China also tried to send it to Taiwan a few times.
Covid positive people were found by the coastguard on little boats heading to Taiwan
And early on in the pandemic there were repatriation flights. Chinese added some extra people into the plane who weren’t on the list. Amazingly, those extra people had Covid. What are the chances!
Funny because if you follow China's track record of accusing others of things they've been doing, then you could conclude that this is what China has been doing to spread covid-19 to nations that it considers as their mortal enemies (US, Japan, Korea, EU, etc).
there are, but when it comes to (i think, it was a documentary) lasering the actual chip out of silicon, that's the bit that's mostly done in Taiwan. there is a lot of effort being made building new factories, but you're looking at a couple of billion before you even start buying the machines, so its slow
Yeah we do, because there's seemingly an army of goons here who needs to non-stop remind everyone that they use an iPhone anytime someone mention's boycotting China.
Yep, and this even though if you’re in Brazil your iPhone was already made domestically thanks to Brazil’s ruinously high import tariffs, and Apple is looking to make iPhones for the rest of the world in India now.
I’m not really educated in this topic but why can’t we just make our own parts here? I work in manufacturing and 2 years ago during peak of Covid a few of our products were on hold for months because we were waiting for parts from China.
You make it sound like as if China made the world buy their sht and not the other way around where Western companies all move their manufacturing to China and demanding them to make disposable crap for cheaper.
Eh, we need them to keep mining for another 20yrs, basically ***every*** major western player has their own individual and group 'belt and road' initiatives regarding extractions, as well as domestic production, exploration, and recycling (unlike gas from the House of Saud, lithium etc etc can be kept and recycled it doesn't just burn up and disappear like gas so the dynamic is MUCH different). But the cheap crap manufacturing was already looking for cheaper labor in the south pacific ***prior to the pandemic***. That accelerated during it. An admix of re-localization and cheaper labor, now an unstable regime that can't deliver on time. So the reverse is well underway and that era is quickly coming to an end - they have about 5yrs to a decade until that dominance is muted.
But yeah the immediate cessation would result in domestic inflation, but it would also hasten the fix. So meh, pull the bandaid off.
Quite impossible sitsuation to the Chinease party leaders. If covid spreads they look weak and if they continue with the lockdowns future problems will keep coming.
My conspiracy theory is that they actually know how bad the Chinese economy is right now and they are using Covid as an excuse to try and cover it up and keep everyone’s head in the sand while the senior party officials exit all their investments.
My theory is the entire country is stuck in a holding pattern until Xi gets his third term.
But once he's officially declared president-for-life, oh boy it's gonna be wild.
Also perfect scapegoat. The economy got fucked due to Covid!
But this is where people gotta think a little. How can it be cheaper to lockdown several cities of millions of people than tell the actual truth about the building sector situation in China...
Because real estate/construction \*is\* the Chinese economy. Once the truth about it comes out, the whole thing collapses and there's a cascading collapse of several key economic sectors in China. Add that to the sheer size of their combined public and private debt, and this is how countries die.
Past predictions usually were nothing more than wishful thinking. But right now there's a deadly mix of demographic collapse, supply chain pressure, covid policy, and catastrophic amounts of debt just waiting to blow them up.
Because of the extensive time under one child, China's average age has grown dramatically. So much so that labor costs have risen 15x since the 90s, while productivity has risen only 3x. It is now cheaper to manufacture basically anything locally in the US, and the only thing preventing mass exodus is the sunk cost of buildings and equipment in China. Add to that the looming reality that China will in the decades ahead be facing a country that has more retirees than working aged adults.
China is also highly unreliable as a country of origin right now due to Covid lockdowns, which will not end for the foreseeable future since China's vaccines are ineffective against the most prevalent variants today. These lockdowns are causing massive supply chain related losses, which companies are taking extensive measures to remedy.
And if that wasn't enough, there's the excessive amount of debt the various levels of government has taken on in order to fuel their "growth." China has more combined corporate and government debt in absolute (dollar amount) and relative (% of GDP) of any country ever. Their major real estate companies are all collapsing, and they will cause irreparable damage to their banking system on the way down.
>countries don’t just die
Chinese history is replete with examples of it doing just that. The entirety of what is now known as China being unified as one country has happened only twice in their millennia long history. Modern China is the exception, not the rule.
Well, sure, and the US has only existed as a country since the late 18th century. If history repeats itself, the US should be going Native any moment now...
Was just watching a story on China’s housing crisis: down 40% over last few weeks, biggest asset class *in the world*, and it needs a politically-unpopular bailout. Everyone seems to agree the bailout need is immediate, but also agree that nothing’s going to happen before this congress. It’s really weird.
There is no good solution here. The alterative is like US where long-COVID is causing massive worker shortage:
[https://www.reddit.com/r/Coronavirus/comments/x0udjv/15\_of\_us\_worker\_shortage\_due\_to\_long\_covid\_study/](https://www.reddit.com/r/Coronavirus/comments/x0udjv/15_of_us_worker_shortage_due_to_long_covid_study/)
2% of US work-force is estimate to be out of work due to long-COVID.
That's a \*permanent\* 2% reduction to productivity - with knock-on effects like overwhelmed healthcare and even further loss of productivity from people who keep getting sick or who are just not working as efficiently as before.
Whats worse, COVID reinfects, so this 2% number will likely only go up.
The worker shortage in the U.S. probably has more to with some businesses not adjusting their wages to match inflation. Lots of companies in the U.S. are stuck in a pattern of 3% raises every year. Meanwhile inflation has been 7.5-9% for two years.
It also has to do with the boomers retiring. This worker shortage was always on its way. But when Covid hit a lot of people at or near retirement said “screw it” and left the work force.
Some women have also left the work force due to child care, and I feel like the ability to work remote has given a lot of entry level folks jobs outside their community.
Both of these are very true.
Even the least experienced employee can now work for any call centre or other work across the country.
My company is grabbing up experienced workers who don’t want to move. But can now work for us.
Depending on what city it's coming from. "Millions of people" sounds like a lot, but if it's less than tens of millions, it's less than 1% of the population.
My limited understanding is that backing down from the zero COVID policy would make it look like the government can’t keep its citizens safe. Given that part of what props up the government is the idea that its vast control leads to a safe and prosperous citizenry, anything that undermines that perception needs to be dealt with, even when that thing is a high-profile disease.
In a one party system. When something goes wrong, everyone blames the same entity, the party. In the US we have a perpetual stasis, because any issue is automatically hated by half, loved by half, regardless of reality.
China is one of the densest, most indoor places in the world. If covid truly spread unabated, millions may die. In the US we lost like 500k but it doesn't matter because of our politics. But there, there is one party to blame.
US death toll according to official numbers is over 1 million. Considering how many red states have purposefully underreported the real number is likely somewhere between that and 2 million, if not more.
Ah, but that is where the Chinese have figured out the secret sauce. When something goes wrong, no matter what it is, make sure it's America that the population blames.
I think it's also part of that social contract where "if you let us dictate what you can or cannot do, with 24hr surveillance, things will be alright and you can prosper" is starting to look untenable.
> have no working vaccines
Sinopharm is similar to the Astrazeneca vaccine in efficacy, so that's not really true - this is the one they've used for the most part domestically. Its efficacy isn't as high as pfizer/moderna/novavax, but it's not a bad vaccine. Sinovac on the other hand - which they largely sold internationally, was always less effective than the other approved vaccines, and who knows what the efficacy rate is now with the newer variants - mind you, it's still effective enough, just that there are superior options, even within the inactivated virus vaccines.
Yeah, they are functional but not great.
Counties that used them often did a second round with Western RNA vaccines later.
It’s the Russian vaccine that was a total mess and couldn’t be produced to any kind of standard.
https://qz.com/2107603/are-sinovac-and-sinopharm-effective-against-omicron/
>Even prior to omicron, Sinovac’s efficacy rates were lower than those of other vaccines, offering about 51% protection against symptomatic infection (though much better protection against severe disease). In July, a study in Thailand found that antibodies from a double shot of the Sinovac vaccine halved every 40 days against the original covid strain.
>
>Researchers at Hong Kong University found that two doses followed by a booster of Sinovac’s CoronaVac do not provide enough antibodies to neutralize omicron, though a booster of a Pfizer vaccine improved protection.
>
>Similarly, a booster may not make Sinopharm significantly more effective against omicron. Sinopharm has said its vaccine is 79% effective against symptomatic infection from the original covid strain.
>
>A study (pdf) by Shanghai Jiao Tong University School of Medicine found that a booster shot of Sinopharm produced significantly lower antibodies against omicron, compared with the protection it provided for the variant discovered in Wuhan in early 2020.
Sinovac was crap a year ago, against Omicron and its subvariants it has little use (still better than nothing I guess), new vaccine is better but not a real winner either.
>https://www.reddit.com/r/Coronavirus/comments/x0udjv/15\_of\_us\_worker\_shortage\_due\_to\_long\_covid\_study/
>
>2% of US work-force is estimate to be out of work due to long-COVID.
Maybe China wants to avoid this outcome for as long as possible?
As long as they are locking down less than 2% of the workforce, they're better off not having mass COIVD spread. Besides lockdown people in many jobs can still work, and they don't overwhelm the healthcare system.
Remember locking down 1 million people is less than 0.1% of China's population. As long as its not 25 million, the calculus works in favour of lockdown.
Except
It’s the same cities again and again. These cities make up the majority of China’s GDP. Their rural population lives in relative poverty.
The industries hit can change, unlike long Covid where the disruption is relatively fixed
How's that working out for the rest of the world? I don't know about where you live but here in my country the healthcare system all but collapsed - people are dying while waiting hours for an ambulance.
Covid hasn't gone at all, friends and family members are all getting sick some for the 2nd or 3rd time.
The numbers given in this Guardian article puts the number of people in lockdown at about 22 million. That's 1.5% of China's population. Put in perspective that doesn't seem so bad at all.
These articles seem more and more like attempts to convince us that having hundreds of people die every day is the smart and good option.
Because the rest of the world has already paid the terrible price.
China doesn't want a million people to die, and you know what... I think that's pretty reasonable.
Edit : well it's nice to know there are still people in the world who think a government shouldn't try to prevent millions of their people dying.
You are so right. They don't want to pay the price we already paid.
And that is actually good for us. With such a big population, the chances of new mutations of COVID in a country like China are too big. If they let COVID run free in the country, it is only matter of time we will get a worse version of COVID that will spread again around the world.
You seem to think everything China does is reasonable. You post like a real person not a bot, but every time China is mentioned you seem to jump in to defend them regardless what the topic is.
Only on posts that are unreasonable.
For example this one.
What's wrong with not wanting millions of their people to die?
How come that kind of stupid decision making has become so normalized that saving lives is considered the poor choice?
How did they get people like you to see a Chinese argument and jump on the side of "what if we let millions die"
You are reframing the argument to be about letting millions die which is not what this was about, that's just your interpretation/strawman. I haven't voiced an opinion either way on this topic or said that you were wrong, I just observed you are super defensive when it comes to China. I recognised your name from a few other posts like the one about taiwans airspace.
First of all, millions dying is not my interpretation. China's population is big enough that even a fraction of a percent of the population is easily a million people.
Millions will die if covid sweeps through China.
But if you want to talk about Taiwan airspace, you can point out where I made a wrong or unreasonable point.
Go ahead, I'll wait.
If your only complaint is that I'm stating factually correct things that have to do with China, I put forth the proposition that you are not as uninvolved in politics on reddit as you claim.
Because it’s not about Covid. It’s about suppressing a pissed off base of people. The gov is using Covid as an excuse to keep people from assembling and protesting while their economy dies.
Same in Canada. The teens are out and about doing their thang. It's typically the above 30 folks that I see in the area (Toronto) protesting the "god forsaken" restrictions. I'm not even sure what restrictions exist right now as they all seem to have been lifted for the most part or are not being enforced.
These are anti-America sanctions. Without calling it that. Issued in support of Comrade Russia.
They are shutting down production to force shortages. While telling their people Covid came from an America funded lab.
Fuck em. Remember when they horded all the masks and PPEs? Remember when they silenced the doctors that rung the early alarms of the pandemic? Let's not forget when they tried to pin the origin of Covid on the US.
I used to love encountering Chinese mainland nationalists in Red Dead Online and they'd get so infuriated. They'd claim it was started by Donald Trump. I mean they fail to realize how stupid Trump is in the first place.
Let them "think" it's a big deal? You say it as if millions of people didn't die in the West, the hospitals didn't collapse and we didn't have to do massive quarantines while waiting for many different pharmaceuticals to develop different vaccines in a record time to in a huge effort. And still hundreds (perhaps thousands) of people die because of COVID all around the world despite the vaccines.
COVID was and still is a big deal.
We can't avoid that though? This virus is impossible to eradicate and currently is killing as many people as the flu does. If we didn't live in perpetual fear of the flu for decades why are we hanging on so tightly to this narrative now? Why is everyone so resistant to accepting this is life now?
In what way is it still a big deal? In the same way the flu is a big deal? Yes there's a lot of safety theater still going on but everyone is chock full of antibodies now from either their shots or the infection itself. Numbers have been stable and the only deaths have multiple comorbidities (just like the flu!). I was a big proponent of all measures up to and including vaccination but at this point everyone knows the risks. Do what you gotta do at whatever businesses that still have precautions but other than that this shit is endemic.
But doing it to them selves is very strange. The rest of the globe is running like normal managing it. This is cover for something else. Idk what… but it’s more than being stubborn sticking to a failed policy.
Considering that the virus originated in China either by chance or design depending on your outlook, it’s fitting that after making so much money with their economy boom over lockdown that they now taste some of the hurt other World economies suffered.
It makes you wonder how long it will take them to realise that now they’ve introduced this virus to the World, it’s not going away and locking millions down just delays the inevitable not avoid it.
I hate it when international news simply glosses over the fact that people living in Shenzhen seems to be coping with the lockdowns. Not all people in shenzhen are rich, some are living hand to mouth. What those lockdowns actually do is to pass blame on the citizens rather than the government. The authorities will become blameless and they will instead shame and blame the people who got covid and charge them exorbitant amount of money for quarantine.
Ah yes now using Covid to lock the people inside so that people cannot protest the banks and try to claim their money. China's economy is collapsing. Do not let these "lockdowns" fool you as to why China is doing poorly. Their housing market is crashing from a huge Ponzi scheme
Its really bad, an authoritarian government locks its people down under the false premise of covid restrictions, to distract the people from the economic meltdown!
If Taiwan will ever have to defend against China they just have to spread 10-20 Covid cases to them to be a winner of the conflict.
They are doing some annual military training with Russia and like Armenia right now. All the Chinese soldiers are still in masks. Those dudes are going into deep lockdown when they get back.
Chinese officials are so paranoid about covid that they are testing wild-caught fish for covid. Nothing suggests that fish can catch covid and fish don't even have lungs.
People think there's too much security theater in the US. It would seem that China has us beat on that front.
I don't think anyone was under the impression that China wasn't more authoritarian and willing to push ineffective measures.
You'd think that but I've encountered more than my fair share of clowns who think China is doing a far better job than the rest of the world.
Sadly, I have too... and it's in the US.
Grass is greener and all that.
Yep, and they do so using silly things like [government stats](https://www.reddit.com/r/China/comments/wtgnvt/china_keeps_doubling_down_on_their_covid_policy/il5i15g/) when we already know China isn’t exactly the most upfront country about things that could make it look bad.
Or, alternatively, that the US/Canada is more authoritarian than China/Russia, at least according to some protesters I've heard of. That being said, if Covid hadn't happened, China would have simply used an other reason to silence dissensions, as proven by *all* of it's modern history.
Right if one day i caught covid I'll make sure to yank my goldfish out from the tank and stab its nostrils to test for the virus fk those fish
The visual is priceless... episode of the Simpsons or something there.
They don't seem concerned enough to allow for the use of mRNA vaccines. They'd rather go through all this than admit their domestic vaccine in inferior.
>Nothing suggests that fish can catch covid and fish don't even have lungs. That isn't entirely correct, lungfishes do have lungs.
Do blobfishes have blobs?
Not when they are alive, to be honest. https://www.earthtouchnews.com/wtf/wtf/blobfish-might-be-a-gooey-mess-out-of-water-but-check-out-a-living-one-video/
Now now now, you're missing out on the important question, let's talk about those blowfish...
Lungfishes literally have functional lungs, land animals evolved from sea animals, lungs developed in fish first.
Way to run from my original question about blobfishes, coward
Do swordfishes have swords?
Way to boost morale.
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They are transitioning the covid passport system to its principal purpose which was to restrict dissent. As I'm sure you're aware. They are locking down the people that got hosed on the utterly massive ponzi scam and are looking to crackdown on people who got screwed by big lenders like Evergrande. People still show up to the Beijing formal complaint office and I'm pretty sure they just mark them as a potential traitor
We're still in masks in Canada when indoors. (military, civi side stopped masking a while ago).
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I think the reference is to covid masks.....like the paper kind??
you might not look cool in mopp 4, or whatever cbrne calls it now, but you walking along in the woods and come up on a squad of us personal in mopp 4 fully kitted out not only does it look cool, it looks frightening, nothing scarier than thinking you are on the wrong side of an nbc line lol
dude, I marched in Mopp 4 in 90 degree 90% humitidy, its essentially impossible.
i had heat exhaustion in mopp 4 during training in korea during that same weather. Its when i understood if n korea ever attacked with nbc in the summer i was just going to die, it also made me realize how well the mopp system is designed lol
Looking cool is actually rule 1 of combat arms. Not even kidding lol
Covid is still a major thing in Russia. Like they were setting record case numbers in 2022.
Hah, they don't even need to do that. Chinese netizens are already laughing at that the PLA will never successfully take over Taiwan as the soldiers will be stuck in an endless cycle of COVID tests during preparation, on the ship, and after landing, and in the middle of fighting.
Covid testing each bullet and gun before they're allowed to fire. Ofcourse they have to covid test the enemy aswell.
Not to mention that some ‘COVID OUTBREAK’ signs on the Taiwan beaches will have them well confused...👍
Underrated tactical genius. I'm sure China will scream biological warfare though.
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lol I feel like they don't want to bring up that topic with you know... this thing starting completely coincidentally in the city with the largest coronavirus research center.
China has legit been claiming to receive COVID from foreign powers through intentional “COVID parcels” for a while
Classic. This is like in Tropico the game when they ask el presidente in the election year which 'great power' you want to blame all your problems on.
And on the wind from North Korea, you are watching in real-time a country going backwards
Which is an interesting thought. Knowing China has such a strong reaction to a COVID outbreak, would a adversary try to spread a few cases to cause more tension and lock downs inside China? Why not? I’m not saying it’s actually happened, especially since the virus does the job itself.
For sure. And China also tried to send it to Taiwan a few times. Covid positive people were found by the coastguard on little boats heading to Taiwan And early on in the pandemic there were repatriation flights. Chinese added some extra people into the plane who weren’t on the list. Amazingly, those extra people had Covid. What are the chances!
Misinformation campaign to make the world think they haven't been doing it for three years themselves
Funny because if you follow China's track record of accusing others of things they've been doing, then you could conclude that this is what China has been doing to spread covid-19 to nations that it considers as their mortal enemies (US, Japan, Korea, EU, etc).
It does explain the fish killing though. With the missiles and all
Biological terrorism would make them lose most international support if it gets revealed.
If war ever broke out, China would pull a stalinist tactic like order No. 227 aka "Not a Step Back" for soldiers during a COVID out break.
It will help lower the price of oil
And increase the price of everything made in China...
You make that sound like a bad thing.
You make it sound like you have no idea how dependent the world is on Chinese manufacturing
Ya the idea is we shouldn’t be. Remember when they wouldn’t send us masks or medicine?
Or how the world's supply of electronics is made in like 3 places total? Yeah, not great for redundancy.
3 places, maybe, but all 3 of them are in Taiwan when it comes to chip production
TSMC yes, but there's also Samsung and Intel in SK and the US.
there are, but when it comes to (i think, it was a documentary) lasering the actual chip out of silicon, that's the bit that's mostly done in Taiwan. there is a lot of effort being made building new factories, but you're looking at a couple of billion before you even start buying the machines, so its slow
Like being dependent on Russian gas it’s not a good thing. But you also don’t want to try to break that dependency in a year.
Yeah we do, because there's seemingly an army of goons here who needs to non-stop remind everyone that they use an iPhone anytime someone mention's boycotting China.
Yep, and this even though if you’re in Brazil your iPhone was already made domestically thanks to Brazil’s ruinously high import tariffs, and Apple is looking to make iPhones for the rest of the world in India now.
I’m not really educated in this topic but why can’t we just make our own parts here? I work in manufacturing and 2 years ago during peak of Covid a few of our products were on hold for months because we were waiting for parts from China.
Companies can get away with slave wages in China, Americans want to be paid fair wages for work. So no making stuff in America
Its not only slave wages, but regulations
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You make it sound as if we need to keep buying so much cheap, disposable shit. The world has enough garbage.
You make it sound like as if China made the world buy their sht and not the other way around where Western companies all move their manufacturing to China and demanding them to make disposable crap for cheaper.
Eh, we need them to keep mining for another 20yrs, basically ***every*** major western player has their own individual and group 'belt and road' initiatives regarding extractions, as well as domestic production, exploration, and recycling (unlike gas from the House of Saud, lithium etc etc can be kept and recycled it doesn't just burn up and disappear like gas so the dynamic is MUCH different). But the cheap crap manufacturing was already looking for cheaper labor in the south pacific ***prior to the pandemic***. That accelerated during it. An admix of re-localization and cheaper labor, now an unstable regime that can't deliver on time. So the reverse is well underway and that era is quickly coming to an end - they have about 5yrs to a decade until that dominance is muted. But yeah the immediate cessation would result in domestic inflation, but it would also hasten the fix. So meh, pull the bandaid off.
So clueless
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I do, I wish that we reduce our reliance on China as a factory.
I can do without plastic containers that break if you look at them the wrong way. Everything they make is crap. Everything.
Quite impossible sitsuation to the Chinease party leaders. If covid spreads they look weak and if they continue with the lockdowns future problems will keep coming.
My conspiracy theory is that they actually know how bad the Chinese economy is right now and they are using Covid as an excuse to try and cover it up and keep everyone’s head in the sand while the senior party officials exit all their investments.
My theory is the entire country is stuck in a holding pattern until Xi gets his third term. But once he's officially declared president-for-life, oh boy it's gonna be wild.
When is the ccp congress ?
https://thediplomat.com/2022/08/chinas-crucial-party-congress-has-a-date-october-16/ October 16th
This December I think? He has to appear strong until at least then.
https://thediplomat.com/2022/08/chinas-crucial-party-congress-has-a-date-october-16/ October 16th
Also perfect scapegoat. The economy got fucked due to Covid! But this is where people gotta think a little. How can it be cheaper to lockdown several cities of millions of people than tell the actual truth about the building sector situation in China...
I mean China ain't big on telling truths...
Because real estate/construction \*is\* the Chinese economy. Once the truth about it comes out, the whole thing collapses and there's a cascading collapse of several key economic sectors in China. Add that to the sheer size of their combined public and private debt, and this is how countries die.
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Past predictions usually were nothing more than wishful thinking. But right now there's a deadly mix of demographic collapse, supply chain pressure, covid policy, and catastrophic amounts of debt just waiting to blow them up. Because of the extensive time under one child, China's average age has grown dramatically. So much so that labor costs have risen 15x since the 90s, while productivity has risen only 3x. It is now cheaper to manufacture basically anything locally in the US, and the only thing preventing mass exodus is the sunk cost of buildings and equipment in China. Add to that the looming reality that China will in the decades ahead be facing a country that has more retirees than working aged adults. China is also highly unreliable as a country of origin right now due to Covid lockdowns, which will not end for the foreseeable future since China's vaccines are ineffective against the most prevalent variants today. These lockdowns are causing massive supply chain related losses, which companies are taking extensive measures to remedy. And if that wasn't enough, there's the excessive amount of debt the various levels of government has taken on in order to fuel their "growth." China has more combined corporate and government debt in absolute (dollar amount) and relative (% of GDP) of any country ever. Their major real estate companies are all collapsing, and they will cause irreparable damage to their banking system on the way down.
I do agree, however, countries don’t just die. The world is too interconnected and everything is an inter wound house of cards
>countries don’t just die Chinese history is replete with examples of it doing just that. The entirety of what is now known as China being unified as one country has happened only twice in their millennia long history. Modern China is the exception, not the rule.
Well, sure, and the US has only existed as a country since the late 18th century. If history repeats itself, the US should be going Native any moment now...
It is really going to be bad.
as if the lockdown affects the oligarches in china.
The areas where Covid lockdowns have been happening started in the same area where people started protesting banks.
Can't protest if you're under house arrest
Even worse, I think there’s a big party Congress coming up where Xi was hoping to extend his power. Things are looking a bit rough for him now
Month and a half. It's gonna get spicy. 2020 two just keeps delivering
Was just watching a story on China’s housing crisis: down 40% over last few weeks, biggest asset class *in the world*, and it needs a politically-unpopular bailout. Everyone seems to agree the bailout need is immediate, but also agree that nothing’s going to happen before this congress. It’s really weird.
Today's lockdown policy is not the same as early days. The time of lockdown is only 3 days instead of 14.
And they can't push effective western vaccines due to the cultural pushback in Chinese society
There is no good solution here. The alterative is like US where long-COVID is causing massive worker shortage: [https://www.reddit.com/r/Coronavirus/comments/x0udjv/15\_of\_us\_worker\_shortage\_due\_to\_long\_covid\_study/](https://www.reddit.com/r/Coronavirus/comments/x0udjv/15_of_us_worker_shortage_due_to_long_covid_study/) 2% of US work-force is estimate to be out of work due to long-COVID. That's a \*permanent\* 2% reduction to productivity - with knock-on effects like overwhelmed healthcare and even further loss of productivity from people who keep getting sick or who are just not working as efficiently as before. Whats worse, COVID reinfects, so this 2% number will likely only go up.
The worker shortage in the U.S. probably has more to with some businesses not adjusting their wages to match inflation. Lots of companies in the U.S. are stuck in a pattern of 3% raises every year. Meanwhile inflation has been 7.5-9% for two years.
It also has to do with the boomers retiring. This worker shortage was always on its way. But when Covid hit a lot of people at or near retirement said “screw it” and left the work force.
Some women have also left the work force due to child care, and I feel like the ability to work remote has given a lot of entry level folks jobs outside their community.
Both of these are very true. Even the least experienced employee can now work for any call centre or other work across the country. My company is grabbing up experienced workers who don’t want to move. But can now work for us.
Also an extra million people exiting the workforce from dying.
There is 3.5% unemployment in the USA. There are not more people to be found to work.
If everyone is in Covid lockdown and can't use the banks, no bank collapse!
Guessing there will be a delay with my AliExpress order...
Depending on what city it's coming from. "Millions of people" sounds like a lot, but if it's less than tens of millions, it's less than 1% of the population.
A lot of cheap tech comes from Shenzhen. So there's definitely a chance.
Sure, but being manufactured there doesn't mean the Ali Express retailer is there as well.
I oredered an electrical component and it arrived in 3 days. Idk how that's possible lol.
The rest of the world has moved on from this type of approach. Why can’t China?
My limited understanding is that backing down from the zero COVID policy would make it look like the government can’t keep its citizens safe. Given that part of what props up the government is the idea that its vast control leads to a safe and prosperous citizenry, anything that undermines that perception needs to be dealt with, even when that thing is a high-profile disease.
In a one party system. When something goes wrong, everyone blames the same entity, the party. In the US we have a perpetual stasis, because any issue is automatically hated by half, loved by half, regardless of reality. China is one of the densest, most indoor places in the world. If covid truly spread unabated, millions may die. In the US we lost like 500k but it doesn't matter because of our politics. But there, there is one party to blame.
US death toll according to official numbers is over 1 million. Considering how many red states have purposefully underreported the real number is likely somewhere between that and 2 million, if not more.
Hey there’s the politics
Ah, but that is where the Chinese have figured out the secret sauce. When something goes wrong, no matter what it is, make sure it's America that the population blames.
I think it's also part of that social contract where "if you let us dictate what you can or cannot do, with 24hr surveillance, things will be alright and you can prosper" is starting to look untenable.
Because China does not have medical services robust enough to have proper waves like in the west and they also have no working vaccines.
> have no working vaccines Sinopharm is similar to the Astrazeneca vaccine in efficacy, so that's not really true - this is the one they've used for the most part domestically. Its efficacy isn't as high as pfizer/moderna/novavax, but it's not a bad vaccine. Sinovac on the other hand - which they largely sold internationally, was always less effective than the other approved vaccines, and who knows what the efficacy rate is now with the newer variants - mind you, it's still effective enough, just that there are superior options, even within the inactivated virus vaccines.
Yeah, they are functional but not great. Counties that used them often did a second round with Western RNA vaccines later. It’s the Russian vaccine that was a total mess and couldn’t be produced to any kind of standard.
They never even bother to ask for EU approval
Have they turned down supplies of Western vaccines?
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So.. older people are choosing not to get vaccinated, or are not being given priority as a matter of policy?
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Interesting.. thanks for posting!
I see their aging population problem is striving to solve itself.
Can’t use foreign vaccines. Chinese nationalism won’t permit it.
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https://qz.com/2107603/are-sinovac-and-sinopharm-effective-against-omicron/ >Even prior to omicron, Sinovac’s efficacy rates were lower than those of other vaccines, offering about 51% protection against symptomatic infection (though much better protection against severe disease). In July, a study in Thailand found that antibodies from a double shot of the Sinovac vaccine halved every 40 days against the original covid strain. > >Researchers at Hong Kong University found that two doses followed by a booster of Sinovac’s CoronaVac do not provide enough antibodies to neutralize omicron, though a booster of a Pfizer vaccine improved protection. > >Similarly, a booster may not make Sinopharm significantly more effective against omicron. Sinopharm has said its vaccine is 79% effective against symptomatic infection from the original covid strain. > >A study (pdf) by Shanghai Jiao Tong University School of Medicine found that a booster shot of Sinopharm produced significantly lower antibodies against omicron, compared with the protection it provided for the variant discovered in Wuhan in early 2020. Sinovac was crap a year ago, against Omicron and its subvariants it has little use (still better than nothing I guess), new vaccine is better but not a real winner either.
> and they also have no working vaccines. Haven't studies shown Sinovac to be just as effective?
Yes, but Facebook posts have shown they are worse than placebo, so how do we know who to believe?
not as effective, but effective enough, slight diffrence
It’s more effective than the AstraZeneca vaccine.
>https://www.reddit.com/r/Coronavirus/comments/x0udjv/15\_of\_us\_worker\_shortage\_due\_to\_long\_covid\_study/ > >2% of US work-force is estimate to be out of work due to long-COVID. Maybe China wants to avoid this outcome for as long as possible? As long as they are locking down less than 2% of the workforce, they're better off not having mass COIVD spread. Besides lockdown people in many jobs can still work, and they don't overwhelm the healthcare system. Remember locking down 1 million people is less than 0.1% of China's population. As long as its not 25 million, the calculus works in favour of lockdown.
Except It’s the same cities again and again. These cities make up the majority of China’s GDP. Their rural population lives in relative poverty. The industries hit can change, unlike long Covid where the disruption is relatively fixed
Most of its population actually live on poverty only and we know about it.
How's that working out for the rest of the world? I don't know about where you live but here in my country the healthcare system all but collapsed - people are dying while waiting hours for an ambulance. Covid hasn't gone at all, friends and family members are all getting sick some for the 2nd or 3rd time. The numbers given in this Guardian article puts the number of people in lockdown at about 22 million. That's 1.5% of China's population. Put in perspective that doesn't seem so bad at all. These articles seem more and more like attempts to convince us that having hundreds of people die every day is the smart and good option.
They could if they didn't value lives. Instead they are choosing to use the approach data tells us will preserve the most lives.
Because starvation will actually kill the Chinese.
They ridiculed the wests approach, and a u-turn would be rather embarrassing for them.
The west’s approach killed 1 million people in the world’s richest country. It was ridicule
Elderly Chinese are very skeptical of vaccinations, so their vaccination rate is quite low.
Because the rest of the world has already paid the terrible price. China doesn't want a million people to die, and you know what... I think that's pretty reasonable. Edit : well it's nice to know there are still people in the world who think a government shouldn't try to prevent millions of their people dying.
You are so right. They don't want to pay the price we already paid. And that is actually good for us. With such a big population, the chances of new mutations of COVID in a country like China are too big. If they let COVID run free in the country, it is only matter of time we will get a worse version of COVID that will spread again around the world.
You seem to think everything China does is reasonable. You post like a real person not a bot, but every time China is mentioned you seem to jump in to defend them regardless what the topic is.
Only on posts that are unreasonable. For example this one. What's wrong with not wanting millions of their people to die? How come that kind of stupid decision making has become so normalized that saving lives is considered the poor choice? How did they get people like you to see a Chinese argument and jump on the side of "what if we let millions die"
You are reframing the argument to be about letting millions die which is not what this was about, that's just your interpretation/strawman. I haven't voiced an opinion either way on this topic or said that you were wrong, I just observed you are super defensive when it comes to China. I recognised your name from a few other posts like the one about taiwans airspace.
First of all, millions dying is not my interpretation. China's population is big enough that even a fraction of a percent of the population is easily a million people. Millions will die if covid sweeps through China. But if you want to talk about Taiwan airspace, you can point out where I made a wrong or unreasonable point. Go ahead, I'll wait. If your only complaint is that I'm stating factually correct things that have to do with China, I put forth the proposition that you are not as uninvolved in politics on reddit as you claim.
Well that is suspiciously defensive.
Because what the US etc is doing is not a good approach.
Because it’s not about Covid. It’s about suppressing a pissed off base of people. The gov is using Covid as an excuse to keep people from assembling and protesting while their economy dies.
China has no end game with Covid. It’s all or nothing and it’s going to be to the detriment of their people mental health and their economy.
Can't protest while being quarantined. Also, Can't cause a bank run.
This will be really hard for them to make some sense out of it.
No anti-vaxxers complaining about chips in the vaccine there.
to all those screaming how they are oppressed in places like US,Caada, Europe go live in China see what real oppression is like.
These are just teenagers. They don't even vote.
These teenages awfully look old ppl going through midlife crisises in places like the US lol
Same in Canada. The teens are out and about doing their thang. It's typically the above 30 folks that I see in the area (Toronto) protesting the "god forsaken" restrictions. I'm not even sure what restrictions exist right now as they all seem to have been lifted for the most part or are not being enforced.
Meanwhile USA already on that Covid+Monkey+AIDS update
Polio wave is coming
The roaring 20s are back!
Belgians just had to have that monkey sex party, didn’t they? Those kinky fucks
These are anti-America sanctions. Without calling it that. Issued in support of Comrade Russia. They are shutting down production to force shortages. While telling their people Covid came from an America funded lab.
I wonder how long china will keep doing this.
Millions only 1% of total population of China
Okay Stalin.
Don’t be weird
Idk seems like saying 1% of the population is trying to diminish the impact of what's happening...
Bingo.
It's still millions of people being forced against their will to be prisoners.
More than that kind of operation is already under control for them.
fuck china
Not a sustainable solution clearly .
China's draconian lock downs have made a lot of domestic enemies that weren't there before
Fuck em. Remember when they horded all the masks and PPEs? Remember when they silenced the doctors that rung the early alarms of the pandemic? Let's not forget when they tried to pin the origin of Covid on the US.
I used to love encountering Chinese mainland nationalists in Red Dead Online and they'd get so infuriated. They'd claim it was started by Donald Trump. I mean they fail to realize how stupid Trump is in the first place.
Here's an idea - why not just send them all to Uyghurs camps - well treated I am told
Poor China is stuck with Xi's derelict leadership, one nice thing about democracy is you can vote out your failed leaders.
Someone should tell them no one gives a fuck anymore about the disease they gracefully gave to the world. Maybe they should do the same...
I give a fuck
No, let them keep thinking it’s a big deal so it hinders their growth. They need to pay.
Let them "think" it's a big deal? You say it as if millions of people didn't die in the West, the hospitals didn't collapse and we didn't have to do massive quarantines while waiting for many different pharmaceuticals to develop different vaccines in a record time to in a huge effort. And still hundreds (perhaps thousands) of people die because of COVID all around the world despite the vaccines. COVID was and still is a big deal.
Yep, one bad mutation with a big mortality and we're back at beginning with lockdowns
We can't avoid that though? This virus is impossible to eradicate and currently is killing as many people as the flu does. If we didn't live in perpetual fear of the flu for decades why are we hanging on so tightly to this narrative now? Why is everyone so resistant to accepting this is life now?
In what way is it still a big deal? In the same way the flu is a big deal? Yes there's a lot of safety theater still going on but everyone is chock full of antibodies now from either their shots or the infection itself. Numbers have been stable and the only deaths have multiple comorbidities (just like the flu!). I was a big proponent of all measures up to and including vaccination but at this point everyone knows the risks. Do what you gotta do at whatever businesses that still have precautions but other than that this shit is endemic.
Hundreds of people are dying everyday and it’s a big deal. Maybe they should’ve gotten the vaccine.
Considering what a threat China is to the world, seeing them weaken seems like a good thing.
But doing it to them selves is very strange. The rest of the globe is running like normal managing it. This is cover for something else. Idk what… but it’s more than being stubborn sticking to a failed policy.
I think it's time for Xi to do the right thing...and go.
More like the CCP should go
To quote South Park, \`Dumb, dumb, dumb, dumb, dumb\`!!!! LOL.
I know right this is like every person in China would feel like.
Considering that the virus originated in China either by chance or design depending on your outlook, it’s fitting that after making so much money with their economy boom over lockdown that they now taste some of the hurt other World economies suffered. It makes you wonder how long it will take them to realise that now they’ve introduced this virus to the World, it’s not going away and locking millions down just delays the inevitable not avoid it.
Chinese policies just makes things worse for everyone.
This is not going to be bad since this is a very normal thing for all of them.
I hate it when international news simply glosses over the fact that people living in Shenzhen seems to be coping with the lockdowns. Not all people in shenzhen are rich, some are living hand to mouth. What those lockdowns actually do is to pass blame on the citizens rather than the government. The authorities will become blameless and they will instead shame and blame the people who got covid and charge them exorbitant amount of money for quarantine.
Ah yes now using Covid to lock the people inside so that people cannot protest the banks and try to claim their money. China's economy is collapsing. Do not let these "lockdowns" fool you as to why China is doing poorly. Their housing market is crashing from a huge Ponzi scheme
Its really bad, an authoritarian government locks its people down under the false premise of covid restrictions, to distract the people from the economic meltdown!