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While social media has been more critical depending on the source, the mainstream media has definitely been carrying the water for China. https://twitter.com/K

While social media has been more critical depending on the source, the mainstream media has definitely been carrying the water for China. https://twitter.com/KenDilanianNBC/status/1243243758914863104 https://twitter.com/KenDilanianNBC/status/124324375891486310... I think it's been interesting wave. When the cases first started, China got blasted. As it hit the US, Administration political opponents have criticized the US response, but many have gone to the point of praising China's response and forgetting about China's actions in December/January.

wwweston 7y ago
If China did in fact ship emergency medical supplies to Italy, that's a gesture worth recognizing and praising. "Carrying water" is a weird way of characterizing that recognition. China also deserves criticism; its initial response was dysfunctional in some ways (albeit somewhat different ways than the United States dysfunctional response). Fortunately, as you say, it's been blasted in some discussion. But recognition of ways in which its response has been respectable is less the mark of someone "carrying water" and more part of the process of learning things and having our political institutions learn things.
- gesticulator 7y ago
  That tweet was referring to shipments from China to Italy, many of which were paid for and orders. Some were donated, but the articles present it as a grand gesture instead of Italy attempting to provision their own supplies on the market. It’s a sad mix of propaganda and temporary faith in a shaky globally supply chain.
- snapetom 7y ago
  That's beyond recognition in that article. They're calling Beijing a "global leader." A response of purposeful coverup and suppressing dissenters is in no way showing leadership.
- uncoder0 7y ago
  I've never seen the mainstream media question the veracity of the statistics about Covid that came out of China until the evidence is too obvious to ignore. There is plenty of proof that they regularly manipulate their statistics such as GDP. https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-03-08/china-s-gdp-growth-pace-was-inflated-for-nine-years-study-finds https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-03-08/china-s-g... https://time.com/5811222/wuhan-coronavirus-death-toll/ https://time.com/5811222/wuhan-coronavirus-death-toll/ etc Why should any respectable journalist quote their statistics about COVID and conclude how effective their response was without mentioning that they've been known to fabricate statistics? Let alone calling them a 'Global Leader' in response. I've not seen this qualification mentioned once with respect to China's stats on this virus.
  - snapetom 7y ago
    Side note, they absolutely manipulate their financial numbers. "No one believes China's numbers," my financial broker uncle in Hong Kong once said. No one really cared that much because manipulation, risk, and uncertainty is baked into financial equations no matter what the country or government. Now that we're talking about lives, it's harder to dismiss.
  - dirtyid 7y ago
    >mentioned once I don't see it frequently in writing, but the majority of TV and podcast reporting from news sites has the disclaimer. And there's enough China bad articles out there that I feel like this is implicitly assumed. Either way, no one trusts Chinese stats, including the Chinese public themselves, and the Chinese government most of all. The ability to collect accurate statistics when there's so many different development levels country-wide simply isn't there. For example, China doesn't use GDP internally, they use LKI, LiKeQiang Index which aggregates a value from measurable indicators like freight cargo volume, electric consumption, bank loans. There's also TSF, Total Social Financing. They can still be gamed, but physically (running empty trains), but much harder to fake via submitting fake excel sheets to central government. Chinese GDP is basically a back of the napkin estimate to appease foreign investors, it's also used to set growth targets instead of reflecting it. Most of the mainstream western reporting on Chinese GDP does not understand this. It's well understood among China watchers. The most comprehensive study on Chinese GDP so far, by CSIS, suggested China was under reporting their GDP. As for stacked urns in Wuhan, the city is still under quarantine so urns would not be picked up. Also necessary to account for other sources of death. The article quotes 56K cremations in Q4 2019, so a few thousands urns especially as restock doesn't seem atypical. Like LKI, it's an useful oblique indicator, but should be considered in other context. If there's mass death, enough to measurably affect hysterical people in quarantine, it would be on Chinese social media which would leak to China watchers. There's many expats and Chinese people with VPNs, things that affect the public on a mass scale inevitably leaps over the firewall, it's not opaque like politburo politics. People need to stop looking at Chinese numbers and instead extrapolate from oblique indicators. When expats in China talk about things returning to normal, when Chinese diaspora aren't mourning about sick or dead family members en-mass, then you can assume that reflects ground reality.
- gentleman11 7y ago
  > If China did in fact ship emergency medical supplies to Italy, that's a gesture worth recognizing and praising. Fully agreed on that particular point, that is commendable
ajross 7y ago
I don't read that tweet as praise for China at all, and I'm curious why you do. It seems pretty obviously a dig against the US administration that, when Italy needed help, we refused to provide it while China stepped up. It's an expression of shame at our national impotence. Now, I suspect you wouldn't agree with that perspective either. But it's definitely not praise for China. As far as the article to which it links... that's all factual stuff. The PRC absolutely has exported a ton of PPE equipment and assigned a bunch of well-documented medical personnel to hot regions. That's good, as far as it goes. It doesn't say anything about what they're doing inside the PRC, but it absolutely is helpful that they're doing it externally.
- snapetom 7y ago
  You don't think calling China a "global leader" despite their awful initial actions is praising China?
  - ajross 7y ago
    Not in the context presented, no. The article isn't talking about their "initial actions", it's talking about their international assistance work. China is absolutely a global leader in providing humanitarian assistance to other nations struct by COVID-19. In fact they're pretty much the only nation doing anything like this, at all. And historically, that was always one of the core roles played by America. So in perspective it's sort of notable, no?
    - snapetom 7y ago
      > Not in the context presented, no. You're contracting yourself and just being argumentative. The whole context is their international assistance work, and there is nothing but praise in that article. Meanwhile the article just brushes aside their initial deceit which greatly magnified the problem.
      - ajross 7y ago
        Are you saying that merely reporting on the fact that China is providing international assistance is... praise? I genuinely thought you were talking about the tweet about the article being the praise. The article was just facts. Facts, to borrow a phrase, don't care about your feelings.
SuoDuanDao 7y ago
The mainstream media will carry water for anyone they compare to the Trump administration.

wwweston 7y ago

If China did in fact ship emergency medical supplies to Italy, that's a gesture worth recognizing and praising. "Carrying water" is a weird way of characterizing that recognition. China also deserves criticism; its initial response was dysfunctional in some ways (albeit somewhat different ways than the United States dysfunctional response). Fortunately, as you say, it's been blasted in some discussion. But recognition of ways in which its response has been respectable is less the mark of someone "carrying water" and more part of the process of learning things and having our political institutions learn things.

gesticulator 7y ago
That tweet was referring to shipments from China to Italy, many of which were paid for and orders. Some were donated, but the articles present it as a grand gesture instead of Italy attempting to provision their own supplies on the market. It’s a sad mix of propaganda and temporary faith in a shaky globally supply chain.
snapetom 7y ago
That's beyond recognition in that article. They're calling Beijing a "global leader." A response of purposeful coverup and suppressing dissenters is in no way showing leadership.
uncoder0 7y ago
I've never seen the mainstream media question the veracity of the statistics about Covid that came out of China until the evidence is too obvious to ignore. There is plenty of proof that they regularly manipulate their statistics such as GDP. https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-03-08/china-s-gdp-growth-pace-was-inflated-for-nine-years-study-finds https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-03-08/china-s-g... https://time.com/5811222/wuhan-coronavirus-death-toll/ https://time.com/5811222/wuhan-coronavirus-death-toll/ etc Why should any respectable journalist quote their statistics about COVID and conclude how effective their response was without mentioning that they've been known to fabricate statistics? Let alone calling them a 'Global Leader' in response. I've not seen this qualification mentioned once with respect to China's stats on this virus.
- snapetom 7y ago
  Side note, they absolutely manipulate their financial numbers. "No one believes China's numbers," my financial broker uncle in Hong Kong once said. No one really cared that much because manipulation, risk, and uncertainty is baked into financial equations no matter what the country or government. Now that we're talking about lives, it's harder to dismiss.
- dirtyid 7y ago
  >mentioned once I don't see it frequently in writing, but the majority of TV and podcast reporting from news sites has the disclaimer. And there's enough China bad articles out there that I feel like this is implicitly assumed. Either way, no one trusts Chinese stats, including the Chinese public themselves, and the Chinese government most of all. The ability to collect accurate statistics when there's so many different development levels country-wide simply isn't there. For example, China doesn't use GDP internally, they use LKI, LiKeQiang Index which aggregates a value from measurable indicators like freight cargo volume, electric consumption, bank loans. There's also TSF, Total Social Financing. They can still be gamed, but physically (running empty trains), but much harder to fake via submitting fake excel sheets to central government. Chinese GDP is basically a back of the napkin estimate to appease foreign investors, it's also used to set growth targets instead of reflecting it. Most of the mainstream western reporting on Chinese GDP does not understand this. It's well understood among China watchers. The most comprehensive study on Chinese GDP so far, by CSIS, suggested China was under reporting their GDP. As for stacked urns in Wuhan, the city is still under quarantine so urns would not be picked up. Also necessary to account for other sources of death. The article quotes 56K cremations in Q4 2019, so a few thousands urns especially as restock doesn't seem atypical. Like LKI, it's an useful oblique indicator, but should be considered in other context. If there's mass death, enough to measurably affect hysterical people in quarantine, it would be on Chinese social media which would leak to China watchers. There's many expats and Chinese people with VPNs, things that affect the public on a mass scale inevitably leaps over the firewall, it's not opaque like politburo politics. People need to stop looking at Chinese numbers and instead extrapolate from oblique indicators. When expats in China talk about things returning to normal, when Chinese diaspora aren't mourning about sick or dead family members en-mass, then you can assume that reflects ground reality.
gentleman11 7y ago
> If China did in fact ship emergency medical supplies to Italy, that's a gesture worth recognizing and praising. Fully agreed on that particular point, that is commendable

ajross 7y ago

I don't read that tweet as praise for China at all, and I'm curious why you do. It seems pretty obviously a dig against the US administration that, when Italy needed help, we refused to provide it while China stepped up. It's an expression of shame at our national impotence. Now, I suspect you wouldn't agree with that perspective either. But it's definitely not praise for China. As far as the article to which it links... that's all factual stuff. The PRC absolutely has exported a ton of PPE equipment and assigned a bunch of well-documented medical personnel to hot regions. That's good, as far as it goes. It doesn't say anything about what they're doing inside the PRC, but it absolutely is helpful that they're doing it externally.

snapetom 7y ago
You don't think calling China a "global leader" despite their awful initial actions is praising China?
- ajross 7y ago
  Not in the context presented, no. The article isn't talking about their "initial actions", it's talking about their international assistance work. China is absolutely a global leader in providing humanitarian assistance to other nations struct by COVID-19. In fact they're pretty much the only nation doing anything like this, at all. And historically, that was always one of the core roles played by America. So in perspective it's sort of notable, no?
  - snapetom 7y ago
    > Not in the context presented, no. You're contracting yourself and just being argumentative. The whole context is their international assistance work, and there is nothing but praise in that article. Meanwhile the article just brushes aside their initial deceit which greatly magnified the problem.
    - ajross 7y ago
      Are you saying that merely reporting on the fact that China is providing international assistance is... praise? I genuinely thought you were talking about the tweet about the article being the praise. The article was just facts. Facts, to borrow a phrase, don't care about your feelings.

SuoDuanDao 7y ago

The mainstream media will carry water for anyone they compare to the Trump administration.