6 ms·

"It's better to be in a bad deal with good people, then a good deal with bad people" China MFG was/is not a deal with the Chinese people. It's a deal with the

"It's better to be in a bad deal with good people, then a good deal with bad people" China MFG was/is not a deal with the Chinese people. It's a deal with the CCP. Those of us who always understood this aren't surprised by any of this. We never expected China to be able to manage domestic risk well and we watched helplessly as they exported that risk abroad in the form of pollution, SARS, contaminated products and more. You may not be a citizen of China, but you're almost as impacted by their decisions. This is worth pondering.

tanilama 7y ago
> We never expected China to be able to manage domestic risk well Well, they have seemingly largely recovered and move their way back to normalcy, as other countries started catching fire. I think a lot of people's takeways will be different than yours: China's ability to control crisis like this scale is going to be valuable assets to global investors.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
- mullingitover 7y ago
  > Well, they have seemingly largely recovered and move their way back to normalcy, as other countries started catching fire. It's not time to start popping champagne bottles in China quite yet. They have a tiger by the tail. The country is shut down, and as they start rolling back travel restrictions it could easily blow up again. They still have well over a billion people who are vulnerable. They just tried rolling back travel restrictions two days ago and immediately reversed course[1]. [1] https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-china-qianjiang/chinese-city-in-hubei-reverses-relaxation-policy-to-continue-transport-ban-idUSKBN20Y09U?il=0 https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-china-...
  - unityByFreedom 7y ago
    Plus who knows if the current numbers from China are accurate. They could still be underreporting as the world focuses elsewhere, we only have the CCP to go by.
- AnthonyMouse 7y ago
  > China's ability to control crisis like this scale is going to be valuable assets to global investors. Their ability to control the crisis is useful from a public health perspective, but they're doing it by shutting down production. Look at how the markets have responded. Are you claiming investors wouldn't have been better off if these companies had invested in a more diversified supply chain? For that matter, having a more diversified supply chain makes it easier to implement these kinds of public health measures in general. Shutting down production is much less costly when there is another region capable of quickly picking up the slack. And making it less expensive to implement measures to contain a contagion makes it more likely they'll be properly implemented, which helps everybody, investors included.
  - tanilama 7y ago
    There is a critical flaw in this thinking. Other countries will catch the virus at some point too. Without stringent measures, it will take more time for other countries to come back from it. In other words, China becomes safer after this.
    - AnthonyMouse 7y ago
      But that's exactly why diversification works. If you have manufacturing only in China and China shuts down, you lose. If you have manufacturing in both China and Mexico and China shuts down, you manufacture in Mexico. If six months later China is back online and Mexico is in quarantine, you manufacture in China. Having presence in multiple regions lets you keep going the whole time. Having presence in only one region doesn't.
      - hnick 7y ago
        It's easy to say it'd be great to have diversification now but it also costs more to maintain that capability every day that nothing like this is happening. If supply is not interrupted for a 10 year streak that will add up and you fall behind riskier competitors. It depends on a company's risk profile as to whether that is tolerable.
      - 7y ago
- handedness 7y ago
  If one completely ignores their dangerous obsession with secrecy and its major role in the spread of said fire to the rest of the globe, yes.
  - tanilama 7y ago
    Which I don't disagree. However, such virus already exists in the wild, though the chances are there, it can jump to human anytime in the future regardless of national boundaries.
    - hnick 7y ago
      We should all be prepared but developed nations have a much smaller interface with the natural world meaning this kind of crossover is less likely, and many developing nations have a smaller global role meaning it won't spread as easily (see Africa & Ebola). I think China is somewhat unique here.
      - handedness 7y ago
        This is an excellent point. I've experienced living in a small, developing nation for years, and while they have the same dangerous mixture as China of live animals (and the associated excretions), dead animals, produce (unwashed, washed, and already skinned for consumption all available from the same table), fertilizer of human origins, farming supplies, pesticides, medical products, hygiene products, clothing, food transport, food storage, food preparation surfaces, cutlery, dish ware and dining surfaces all overlapping to alarming degrees (often sharing the same surfaces at different times), they don't have the potential global role, both based on their size, relative lack of population, lack of foreign travel and foreign entanglements, and so on. Inadvertent power projection from a biological perspective is an interesting concept. Edit to add: I can't judge the people working in these markets and offering products under horrendous conditions. They're trying to feed their families. But China needs to get serious about public health if it hopes to improve its reputation, which is roughly the same from Tehran to Toledo with some justification.
    - handedness 7y ago
_bxg1 7y ago
To be fair, they seem to be handling this crisis better than we are so far.
- save_ferris 7y ago
  How many whistle-blowers trying to alert the public to this disease did the US government throw in prison?
  - b1ur 7y ago
    eh, the US doesn't exactly have the greatest track record on whistleblowers...
    - gpm 7y ago
      It does when "whistleblower" means "independent person publishing data from independent sources". The US has a crappy record on people who leak government data, but that's an entirely different thing.
    - save_ferris 7y ago
      ..and I'm in no way suggesting that the US has a good track record on whistleblowers. I'm simply saying that it's a major stretch to argue that China has done a better job managing the Coronavirus outbreak given all of the reports of suppression that we've seen come out of there.
- philtable 7y ago
  They created this crisis by silencing whistleblowers and hiding case numbers. Don't forget they banned wildlife markets during SARS, but allowed them again a year after. This is going to happen again.
  - _bxg1 7y ago
    Sure, but the U.S. is actively discouraging/thwarting testing efforts, because ~the economy~. And our chief executive is disseminating misinformation (whether out of ignorance or ulterior motives is unclear). I'm not saying China did a great job. But they seem to have gotten a handle on things at least, meanwhile we've yet to even really start preparing. And we have the advantage of hindsight, which they didn't have.

tanilama 7y ago

> We never expected China to be able to manage domestic risk well Well, they have seemingly largely recovered and move their way back to normalcy, as other countries started catching fire. I think a lot of people's takeways will be different than yours: China's ability to control crisis like this scale is going to be valuable assets to global investors.

deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
mullingitover 7y ago
> Well, they have seemingly largely recovered and move their way back to normalcy, as other countries started catching fire. It's not time to start popping champagne bottles in China quite yet. They have a tiger by the tail. The country is shut down, and as they start rolling back travel restrictions it could easily blow up again. They still have well over a billion people who are vulnerable. They just tried rolling back travel restrictions two days ago and immediately reversed course[1]. [1] https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-china-qianjiang/chinese-city-in-hubei-reverses-relaxation-policy-to-continue-transport-ban-idUSKBN20Y09U?il=0 https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-china-...
- unityByFreedom 7y ago
  Plus who knows if the current numbers from China are accurate. They could still be underreporting as the world focuses elsewhere, we only have the CCP to go by.
AnthonyMouse 7y ago
> China's ability to control crisis like this scale is going to be valuable assets to global investors. Their ability to control the crisis is useful from a public health perspective, but they're doing it by shutting down production. Look at how the markets have responded. Are you claiming investors wouldn't have been better off if these companies had invested in a more diversified supply chain? For that matter, having a more diversified supply chain makes it easier to implement these kinds of public health measures in general. Shutting down production is much less costly when there is another region capable of quickly picking up the slack. And making it less expensive to implement measures to contain a contagion makes it more likely they'll be properly implemented, which helps everybody, investors included.
- tanilama 7y ago
  There is a critical flaw in this thinking. Other countries will catch the virus at some point too. Without stringent measures, it will take more time for other countries to come back from it. In other words, China becomes safer after this.
  - AnthonyMouse 7y ago
    But that's exactly why diversification works. If you have manufacturing only in China and China shuts down, you lose. If you have manufacturing in both China and Mexico and China shuts down, you manufacture in Mexico. If six months later China is back online and Mexico is in quarantine, you manufacture in China. Having presence in multiple regions lets you keep going the whole time. Having presence in only one region doesn't.
    - hnick 7y ago
      It's easy to say it'd be great to have diversification now but it also costs more to maintain that capability every day that nothing like this is happening. If supply is not interrupted for a 10 year streak that will add up and you fall behind riskier competitors. It depends on a company's risk profile as to whether that is tolerable.
    - 7y ago
handedness 7y ago
If one completely ignores their dangerous obsession with secrecy and its major role in the spread of said fire to the rest of the globe, yes.
- tanilama 7y ago
  Which I don't disagree. However, such virus already exists in the wild, though the chances are there, it can jump to human anytime in the future regardless of national boundaries.
  - hnick 7y ago
    We should all be prepared but developed nations have a much smaller interface with the natural world meaning this kind of crossover is less likely, and many developing nations have a smaller global role meaning it won't spread as easily (see Africa & Ebola). I think China is somewhat unique here.
    - handedness 7y ago
      This is an excellent point. I've experienced living in a small, developing nation for years, and while they have the same dangerous mixture as China of live animals (and the associated excretions), dead animals, produce (unwashed, washed, and already skinned for consumption all available from the same table), fertilizer of human origins, farming supplies, pesticides, medical products, hygiene products, clothing, food transport, food storage, food preparation surfaces, cutlery, dish ware and dining surfaces all overlapping to alarming degrees (often sharing the same surfaces at different times), they don't have the potential global role, both based on their size, relative lack of population, lack of foreign travel and foreign entanglements, and so on. Inadvertent power projection from a biological perspective is an interesting concept. Edit to add: I can't judge the people working in these markets and offering products under horrendous conditions. They're trying to feed their families. But China needs to get serious about public health if it hopes to improve its reputation, which is roughly the same from Tehran to Toledo with some justification.
  - handedness 7y ago

_bxg1 7y ago

To be fair, they seem to be handling this crisis better than we are so far.

save_ferris 7y ago
How many whistle-blowers trying to alert the public to this disease did the US government throw in prison?
- b1ur 7y ago
  eh, the US doesn't exactly have the greatest track record on whistleblowers...
  - gpm 7y ago
    It does when "whistleblower" means "independent person publishing data from independent sources". The US has a crappy record on people who leak government data, but that's an entirely different thing.
  - save_ferris 7y ago
    ..and I'm in no way suggesting that the US has a good track record on whistleblowers. I'm simply saying that it's a major stretch to argue that China has done a better job managing the Coronavirus outbreak given all of the reports of suppression that we've seen come out of there.
philtable 7y ago
They created this crisis by silencing whistleblowers and hiding case numbers. Don't forget they banned wildlife markets during SARS, but allowed them again a year after. This is going to happen again.
- _bxg1 7y ago
  Sure, but the U.S. is actively discouraging/thwarting testing efforts, because ~the economy~. And our chief executive is disseminating misinformation (whether out of ignorance or ulterior motives is unclear). I'm not saying China did a great job. But they seem to have gotten a handle on things at least, meanwhile we've yet to even really start preparing. And we have the advantage of hindsight, which they didn't have.