6 ms·

Whenever I think about the situation in China it makes me wonder why the Chinese government is spending so much political capital to keep people from getting in

by ctoth 4y ago

Whenever I think about the situation in China it makes me wonder why the Chinese government is spending so much political capital to keep people from getting infected by such an incredibly transmissible disease. I had this idea that China was run by engineer types who were fairly rational. From the initial denial that there was any disease at all, to later saying it wasn't transmissible between humans, to the obvious lies about the initial death toll, to now attempting to lock down more than any other country, I'm very curious what officials in China know about this particular disease that they aren't sharing with the rest of the world.

_fat_santa 4y ago
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Face_(sociological_concept) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Face_(sociological_concept)
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
rubyist5eva 4y ago
Governments - and to a greater extend Dictatorships - are very rarely rational when it comes to saving face or keeping grip on whatever little power they've managed to grab for themselves.
CogitoCogito 4y ago
> I had this idea that China was run by engineer types who were fairly rational. Why did you have this idea?
- lowkey_ 4y ago
  As someone who has studied East Asian history, it's commonly said that Mao's adversaries within the CCP were the "technocrats," and that the technocrats are the ones who took power after Mao's passing — and still hold power to this day. Here's a couple articles on China's technocrats: https://macropolo.org/analysis/return-technocrats-chinese-politics/ https://macropolo.org/analysis/return-technocrats-chinese-po... https://foreignpolicy.com/2019/07/04/chinas-overrated-technocrats-stem-engineering-xi-jinping/ https://foreignpolicy.com/2019/07/04/chinas-overrated-techno...
- Kranar 4y ago
  Almost every member of the State Council of China consists of people with STEM degrees (mostly engineering), followed by some with an economics/finance background.
  - CogitoCogito 4y ago
    I'm sorry I was a bit unclear. I don't take much issue with "run by engineer types", but really I'd question the assumption that they "were fairly rational". Why do people hold that assumption? Is it because "engineer types" must be rational? Personally I haven't been struck by the rationality of the PRC government.
    - krageon 4y ago
      You cannot get a STEM degree if you are incapable of thinking logically. The same is not true for other degrees. Therefore, it makes sense to connect the two.
      - CogitoCogito 4y ago
        > You cannot get a STEM degree if you are incapable of thinking logically. I'm not really sure what you're basing this off of. I've worked in prominent universities teaching math classes and would definitely not make such a claim. > Therefore, it makes sense to connect the two. No it doesn't. What does STEM have to do with running a country anyway? Would you say that McNamara's policies were correct in Vietnam? I'm not sure you could come up with a more "rational" approach to foreign policy anywhere. Personally instead of round about arguments claiming the PRC is rational due to the degrees held by the ruling class, I'd personally just look at the resultant policies. Watching the PRC for a long time, they don't really strike me as very rational at all. Their current handling of covid is only one example.
        Kranar 4y ago
        >I'm not really sure what you're basing this off of. I've worked in prominent universities teaching math classes and would definitely not make such a claim. I think you're being deliberately obtuse here. Are you genuinely making the claim, based on your experience at prominent universities, that people graduating from STEM fields are incapable of thinking logically? Do you want us to believe that there is no strong relationship between the ability to acquire an undergraduate degree in fields that involve math and science and the capacity to think logically? If that's the case, then so be it, but then I think most people will simply end the conversation at the point since you possibly have a very warped/skewed view of this topic that makes it hard for you to reason about it objectively. >No it doesn't. What does STEM have to do with running a country anyway? No one claimed that the two are connected, all that was claimed is that those in charge of the CCP have engineering backgrounds and hence are very likely to be capable of rational thinking.
akomtu 4y ago
Cynical take: covid is a pretense here, it's actually a fire drill. China wants Taiwan and is prepairing its populace for life under martial law.
- lostgame 4y ago
  I wish I could disagree; but this is a close to the truth as could be. :( Sad state of affairs over there.
- geoduck14 4y ago
  Before we jump to unfounded theories, can I lay down some solid observations: 1)Humans are really bad at responding to highly-unlikely events. Like: is it safer to drive or fly? And knowing which one, how would you change your travel plans? You would probably over react, or not react at all - and both would be a reflection of our inability respond to highly-unlikely events 2) Humans hate uncertainty. You ask someone a question... and then wait for an answer, we want to interject "facts" to get an answer faster. We have a vague threat, we want to protect ourselves - even if that means bringing something even worse on us. In the US, I've seen both sides of the political aisle respond poorly to uncertainty. On the left, I see "lock everything down". On the right I see "all freedoms for everyone all of the time". Personally, I have been on both sides of those decisions My theory: China is responding to to the uncertainty with something they are comfortable with: wide spread conformity. That's not a bad thing - is it simply how they find comfort
- minsc_and_boo 4y ago
  That is a cynical take, because China doesn't need to declare martial law (in Shanghai or elsewhere) if it were to take Taiwan in this scenario. It's more likely that martial law is very good at stopping transmission of a plague with R0 = 7-12
omegaworks 4y ago
Maybe people are more important than cars in China.
- usrn 4y ago
  You can say things like "people are more important than production" and you're technically right, but if you shut down the production all those people starve. When you're talking about things at this scale you have to think with a little more nuance than that.
  - rnk 4y ago
    They will figure out how to distribute food better over time even with the shutdowns. They could then have economic shutdown longer. But the impact of that economic shutdown is unclear.
- jiveturkey 4y ago
  I'm not entirely sure you read the comment correctly. Covid is highly transmissible. A covid-zero policy is untenable. Shutting down essentially everything (including cars) is not going to protect the people.
  - omegaworks 4y ago
    We're at one million dead in the US. China has five times our population and has 5,217 deaths. Covid-zero is not perfect, but it has been effective.
    - jiveturkey 4y ago
      More like 1.7 million. (still quite good, I suppose, for having 5x the population) https://www.forbes.com/sites/georgecalhoun/2022/01/02/beijing-is-intentionally-underreporting-chinas-covid-death-rate-part-1/ https://www.forbes.com/sites/georgecalhoun/2022/01/02/beijin...
Animats 4y ago
Because it works. Shenzhen is not locked down, but they test everybody several times a week. Singapore is down to 5 of 16 districts with COVID. China's zero-COVID policy worked quite well against the pre-omicron variants, with R around 3. It's a tough struggle against omicron, with R around 7. The US just passed one million COVID deaths. The US's "declare a victory and go home" policy is not working. The US case rate is more than double what it was at the beginning of April, and it's climbing. Death rate lags case rate by about a month. Wear an N95 mask. No excuses. That alone seems to be enough to keep Reff < 1, so the case rate declines. The US is squishy-soft on masking. More masks means fewer body bags.
- tinus_hn 4y ago
  Now if only COVID didn’t spread through wildlife this would be some kind of victory. But it does, so a few weeks after the end of the lockdowns COVID will be back and all this sacrifice will be for nought.
  - minsc_and_boo 4y ago
    Based on the evidence available, there is no reason to believe COVID spread from wildlife is anything other than rare. https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/daily-life-coping/animals.html https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/daily-life-coping/...
    - tinus_hn 4y ago
      It’s known to happen and there is absolutely no way to test how often it happens, so this kind of handwaving is opinion masked as science. And it doesn’t really matter, because the lockdown tactic only works with COVID-zero, not with COVID-one. So even if only one infection spreads from wildlife, you’re back at square one and you can start your lockdowns all over again. And don’t think you can just detect the infection before it spreads because a large proportion is asymptomatic and even if it is not, the spread starts before the symptoms.
      - 4y ago
elsonrodriguez 4y ago
One of many possible reasons they are doing this is to practice for a deadlier disease and develop a playbook of what works, what doesn't, how to feed people, how to quell unrest, etc.
- steveylang 4y ago
  They are definitely succeeding at figuring out how not to do it then.
lemax 4y ago
China can easily lift its zero-covid policies whenever it wants, but the global supply chain disruption will reverberate long after it does so. Hasn't zero covid just pushed up prices on Chinese goods and services? I question whether this is a concerted, smarter strategy with a longer term outlook than the media likes to estimate -- China pivots this draconian strategy whenever it wants, and the world just returns to leveraging them at higher prices.
mormegil 4y ago
There is a Nature preprint evaluating the Chinese situation and coming to the conclusion that: > We find that the level of immunity induced by the March 2022 vaccination campaign would be insufficient to prevent an Omicron wave that would result in exceeding critical care capacity with a projected intensive care unit peak demand of 15.6-times the existing capacity and causing approximately 1.55 million deaths. https://www.nature.com/articles/s41591-022-01855-7 https://www.nature.com/articles/s41591-022-01855-7

by ctoth 4y ago

_fat_santa 4y ago

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Face_(sociological_concept) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Face_(sociological_concept)

deleted 4y ago
[deleted]

rubyist5eva 4y ago

Governments - and to a greater extend Dictatorships - are very rarely rational when it comes to saving face or keeping grip on whatever little power they've managed to grab for themselves.

CogitoCogito 4y ago

> I had this idea that China was run by engineer types who were fairly rational. Why did you have this idea?

lowkey_ 4y ago
As someone who has studied East Asian history, it's commonly said that Mao's adversaries within the CCP were the "technocrats," and that the technocrats are the ones who took power after Mao's passing — and still hold power to this day. Here's a couple articles on China's technocrats: https://macropolo.org/analysis/return-technocrats-chinese-politics/ https://macropolo.org/analysis/return-technocrats-chinese-po... https://foreignpolicy.com/2019/07/04/chinas-overrated-technocrats-stem-engineering-xi-jinping/ https://foreignpolicy.com/2019/07/04/chinas-overrated-techno...
Kranar 4y ago
Almost every member of the State Council of China consists of people with STEM degrees (mostly engineering), followed by some with an economics/finance background.
- CogitoCogito 4y ago
  I'm sorry I was a bit unclear. I don't take much issue with "run by engineer types", but really I'd question the assumption that they "were fairly rational". Why do people hold that assumption? Is it because "engineer types" must be rational? Personally I haven't been struck by the rationality of the PRC government.
  - krageon 4y ago
    You cannot get a STEM degree if you are incapable of thinking logically. The same is not true for other degrees. Therefore, it makes sense to connect the two.
    - CogitoCogito 4y ago
      > You cannot get a STEM degree if you are incapable of thinking logically. I'm not really sure what you're basing this off of. I've worked in prominent universities teaching math classes and would definitely not make such a claim. > Therefore, it makes sense to connect the two. No it doesn't. What does STEM have to do with running a country anyway? Would you say that McNamara's policies were correct in Vietnam? I'm not sure you could come up with a more "rational" approach to foreign policy anywhere. Personally instead of round about arguments claiming the PRC is rational due to the degrees held by the ruling class, I'd personally just look at the resultant policies. Watching the PRC for a long time, they don't really strike me as very rational at all. Their current handling of covid is only one example.
      - Kranar 4y ago
        >I'm not really sure what you're basing this off of. I've worked in prominent universities teaching math classes and would definitely not make such a claim. I think you're being deliberately obtuse here. Are you genuinely making the claim, based on your experience at prominent universities, that people graduating from STEM fields are incapable of thinking logically? Do you want us to believe that there is no strong relationship between the ability to acquire an undergraduate degree in fields that involve math and science and the capacity to think logically? If that's the case, then so be it, but then I think most people will simply end the conversation at the point since you possibly have a very warped/skewed view of this topic that makes it hard for you to reason about it objectively. >No it doesn't. What does STEM have to do with running a country anyway? No one claimed that the two are connected, all that was claimed is that those in charge of the CCP have engineering backgrounds and hence are very likely to be capable of rational thinking.

akomtu 4y ago

Cynical take: covid is a pretense here, it's actually a fire drill. China wants Taiwan and is prepairing its populace for life under martial law.

lostgame 4y ago
I wish I could disagree; but this is a close to the truth as could be. :( Sad state of affairs over there.
geoduck14 4y ago
Before we jump to unfounded theories, can I lay down some solid observations: 1)Humans are really bad at responding to highly-unlikely events. Like: is it safer to drive or fly? And knowing which one, how would you change your travel plans? You would probably over react, or not react at all - and both would be a reflection of our inability respond to highly-unlikely events 2) Humans hate uncertainty. You ask someone a question... and then wait for an answer, we want to interject "facts" to get an answer faster. We have a vague threat, we want to protect ourselves - even if that means bringing something even worse on us. In the US, I've seen both sides of the political aisle respond poorly to uncertainty. On the left, I see "lock everything down". On the right I see "all freedoms for everyone all of the time". Personally, I have been on both sides of those decisions My theory: China is responding to to the uncertainty with something they are comfortable with: wide spread conformity. That's not a bad thing - is it simply how they find comfort
minsc_and_boo 4y ago
That is a cynical take, because China doesn't need to declare martial law (in Shanghai or elsewhere) if it were to take Taiwan in this scenario. It's more likely that martial law is very good at stopping transmission of a plague with R0 = 7-12

omegaworks 4y ago

Maybe people are more important than cars in China.

usrn 4y ago
You can say things like "people are more important than production" and you're technically right, but if you shut down the production all those people starve. When you're talking about things at this scale you have to think with a little more nuance than that.
- rnk 4y ago
  They will figure out how to distribute food better over time even with the shutdowns. They could then have economic shutdown longer. But the impact of that economic shutdown is unclear.
jiveturkey 4y ago
I'm not entirely sure you read the comment correctly. Covid is highly transmissible. A covid-zero policy is untenable. Shutting down essentially everything (including cars) is not going to protect the people.
- omegaworks 4y ago
  We're at one million dead in the US. China has five times our population and has 5,217 deaths. Covid-zero is not perfect, but it has been effective.
  - jiveturkey 4y ago
    More like 1.7 million. (still quite good, I suppose, for having 5x the population) https://www.forbes.com/sites/georgecalhoun/2022/01/02/beijing-is-intentionally-underreporting-chinas-covid-death-rate-part-1/ https://www.forbes.com/sites/georgecalhoun/2022/01/02/beijin...

Animats 4y ago

Because it works. Shenzhen is not locked down, but they test everybody several times a week. Singapore is down to 5 of 16 districts with COVID. China's zero-COVID policy worked quite well against the pre-omicron variants, with R around 3. It's a tough struggle against omicron, with R around 7. The US just passed one million COVID deaths. The US's "declare a victory and go home" policy is not working. The US case rate is more than double what it was at the beginning of April, and it's climbing. Death rate lags case rate by about a month. Wear an N95 mask. No excuses. That alone seems to be enough to keep Reff < 1, so the case rate declines. The US is squishy-soft on masking. More masks means fewer body bags.

tinus_hn 4y ago
Now if only COVID didn’t spread through wildlife this would be some kind of victory. But it does, so a few weeks after the end of the lockdowns COVID will be back and all this sacrifice will be for nought.
- minsc_and_boo 4y ago
  Based on the evidence available, there is no reason to believe COVID spread from wildlife is anything other than rare. https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/daily-life-coping/animals.html https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/daily-life-coping/...
  - tinus_hn 4y ago
    It’s known to happen and there is absolutely no way to test how often it happens, so this kind of handwaving is opinion masked as science. And it doesn’t really matter, because the lockdown tactic only works with COVID-zero, not with COVID-one. So even if only one infection spreads from wildlife, you’re back at square one and you can start your lockdowns all over again. And don’t think you can just detect the infection before it spreads because a large proportion is asymptomatic and even if it is not, the spread starts before the symptoms.
    - 4y ago

elsonrodriguez 4y ago

One of many possible reasons they are doing this is to practice for a deadlier disease and develop a playbook of what works, what doesn't, how to feed people, how to quell unrest, etc.

steveylang 4y ago
They are definitely succeeding at figuring out how not to do it then.

lemax 4y ago

China can easily lift its zero-covid policies whenever it wants, but the global supply chain disruption will reverberate long after it does so. Hasn't zero covid just pushed up prices on Chinese goods and services? I question whether this is a concerted, smarter strategy with a longer term outlook than the media likes to estimate -- China pivots this draconian strategy whenever it wants, and the world just returns to leveraging them at higher prices.

mormegil 4y ago

There is a Nature preprint evaluating the Chinese situation and coming to the conclusion that: > We find that the level of immunity induced by the March 2022 vaccination campaign would be insufficient to prevent an Omicron wave that would result in exceeding critical care capacity with a projected intensive care unit peak demand of 15.6-times the existing capacity and causing approximately 1.55 million deaths. https://www.nature.com/articles/s41591-022-01855-7 https://www.nature.com/articles/s41591-022-01855-7