Japanese firms hit by COVID lockdown in Shanghai

Those scenes of people wailing and screaming from those skyscrapers in Shanghai were like something out of a dystopian sci-fi horror movie. It’s absolute chaos over there, pandemonium. Communism delivers yet again.

Ricky Kaminski13Today  07:00 am JST

Those scenes of people wailing and screaming from those skyscrapers in Shanghai were like something out of a dystopian sci-fi horror movie. It’s absolute chaos over there, pandemonium. Communism delivers yet again.

It's more of a bizarre mix of state-capitalism and semi-market capitalism cosplaying as a 'communist' country.

It's more of a bizarre mix of state-capitalism and semi-market capitalism cosplaying as a 'communist' country.

Cosplaying, I like that.

Authoritarian? With Chinese characteristics. Seen the video? Kowaine. Whatever we label the system, it's all on show at the moment.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RBJj_UwkSyc&ab_channel=GuardianNews

I'm interested in hearing from those who spent the past 2 years telling us that China's official covid numbers were too low to be believed and therefore must be lies and propaganda. The extreme reaction by the Chinese authorities in this outbreak suggests that those low official figures must have been more accurate than not.

Sorry for businesses now on rainy days. But don't forget that China's political risk had often been warned even before the pandemic, during the shining day. Unfortunately they never listened seriously, perhaps for fear of missing quick money and markets.

Ricky, that's a good video. People outside Shanghai have been going through that for a long time with their lockdowns. Some friends who live in other regions tell me they are sorta happy that the snooty people in Shanghai are finally having to experience what the rest of China has been under for 18+ months.

In the daylight: https://youtu.be/w2nCYls475M, the volunteer Red-Guard thugs enforce lockdowns with violence.

I feel bad for the people.

I feel slightly less bad for the terrible choices made by the CCP govt, because they are more interested in saving face about their lies than they are actually helping their people.

There is no nobler goal for a skilled worker than to leave China.

The FU

Some friends who live in other regions tell me they are sorta happy that the snooty people in Shanghai are finally having to experience what the rest of China has been under for 18+ months.

No doubt, it's ok when it's happening to someone else syndrome. The panic attacks and tantrums of the entitled ones would be mildly satisfying if you were on the lower end of the social status. Those screams music to the ears of the poor sods charged with cleaning the skyscrapers of Shanghai.

You have to wonder whether these zero covid policies, with their large scale heavy-handed lockdowns are just the inevitable results of top-down decision-makers refusing to take responsibility for a worsening situation? Unable to admit the strategies are no longer viable, are becoming dangerous and starting to backfire big time ;

or

(More dystopian horror movie hypothesis) This is actually a rehearsal, for a much worse virus that we all may have to face in the near future. One that makes Covid look like a walk in the park.

You do have to wonder, just hope it's the former and not the latter!

Crazy !

If you're a foreign company still in China after everything that's happened you're not deserving of any sympathy

From a South China Morning post article, Shanghai with 26 million has 280,000 cases with only 12,000 that are symptomatic and only 9 cases are severe. So, 268,000 cases are asymptomatic and the 9 severe cases are ages 70-93 years old. It is utterly ridiculous to be locking down 26 million people for very few cases and for a disease that has 99.8% survival rate which is similar to the flu. Also, people are being beat and removed from their homes to convert their homes to quarantine facilities. Complete human rights abuses that is not doing any good.

Here is some videos that are coming from China.

https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2022/04/chinese-police-forcing-residents-homes-build-covid-isolation-facilities/#comment-5831768154

And to think that I complain about the measures here in Japan.

Never had it so good!

Funny video of Chinese aid workers "efficiently" delivering supplies. https://youtu.be/Zv1NWXwZS_4 Just the first 15 seconds are funny. I suspect the people locked inside their towers/flats without any food the last week wouldn't find it so.

Chinese people are very resilient, even when it isn't really necessary, just mandated by the CCP govt.

I wish measures in my home area were a little stricter, not much, just a little. A new wave of the omicron variant seems to be infecting more people in my area. 22K positive tests per 100K people here. That doesn't mean 22K per 100K got infected, just that ratio of tests were positive. Some people have been infected multiple times. About 80% of people aren't wearing masks when grocery shopping here. I suppose once you've had it, you don't see the point anymore, so screw everyone else? IDK.

The Chinese Govt policy of zero cases isn't viable. Sorta think a 2nd amendment would be good in China about now.

Yeah, any international firm based in Shanghai is going to suffer the same as domestic companies, that is the way this works.

You can definitely critique the Shanghai situation for being way too slow/unprepared in their response, and I don't doubt that heads will roll after this is done with. They should have been on top of this WAY sooner, but they started with the kind of half-hearted lockdown that hasn't worked overseas, and started way too late. I don't know if the leadership there was unprepared, if they were worried about the economy, or simply the Jiang clique that wanted to make Xi's government look bad. I am leaning towards the clique explanation, but that is purely speculation on my part.

It's funny how little we heard about every other lockdown China did internationally because they were so smooth. Didn't want to accidentally make China look good.

I'm interested in hearing from those who spent the past 2 years telling us that China's official covid numbers were too low to be believed and therefore must be lies and propaganda. The extreme reaction by the Chinese authorities in this outbreak suggests that those low official figures must have been more accurate than not.

Aa you forget a key part of reporting on China.

Any good news about China must be immediately dismissed as propaganda that couldn't possibly be true.

Any negative news about China must be immediately accepted as the absolute truth, no matter how far fetched it may seem.

That building looks so much like the place Mama live in ! She's be on the first floor to the right of the entry way. The bathroom window would open into the entry way (nice !). Noisy and no privacy.

It's more of a bizarre mix of state-capitalism and semi-market capitalism cosplaying as a 'communist' country.

That was mostly true of China during the Presidencies of Jiang Zemin and Hu Jintao, but Xi Jinping is a different creature. He is a Maoist true believer intent on making China into a no-kidding Communist country. Read his speeches. He claims history has proven Marx and Lenin right, that capitalism is doomed to fail and will be replaced by socialism. He claims China is on the path to communist perfection. He strongly favors the State Owned Enerprises over private enterprise. You see how he has basically forced China's most prominent tech giants right out of the companies they built. He isn't stopping there. In so many ways from calling himself "Helmsman" to banning the teaching of the Cultural Revolution (claiming that criticism of Mao is criticism of the CCP itself) to wearing Zhongshan suits to official functions (and expecting others to wear them too) he models himself very much after Mao. Xi is intent on re-making China into something different than what it is today. Of course he may very well end up driving China's economy into a ditch much as Mao did if the CCP grants him a third term as President and General Secretary, which seems likely at the moment.

I'm interested in hearing from those who spent the past 2 years telling us that China's official covid numbers were too low to be believed and therefore must be lies and propaganda. The extreme reaction by the Chinese authorities in this outbreak suggests that those low official figures must have been more accurate than not

The BA2 variant tearing through Shanghai is about 80% more transmissible than the BA1 variant China has been dealing with up until recently. There is also an XE strain that is a mix of BA1 and BA2 that is even more transmissible. They saw what BA2 did to Hong Kong and soon thereafter Shenzhen. China's Sinopharm vaccine is not as effective as the mRNA vaccines available in the US and Europe. The prospect of BA2 becoming established in all of China must keep people up at night in Beijing.

@Desert Tortoise

Is mostly right about comrade Xi. I agree with pretty much everything in regards to him being fundamentally a ML communist, not a capitalist by any stretch of the imagination. Now that China has utilized capitalism to be safe of outside interference, they can theoretically transition to a more socialist form of government. Which ultimately was always the goal of the CPC.

The point we may disagree on is that this is why I consider him one of the best major world leaders in existence today. I think as an assessment of what his character actually is, you are without reproach though. Too many people dismiss China out of hand as being closeted capitalists, which they mostly are not.

China is dealing with Covid the way China see's fit to do so. It affects many foreign companies operating in China. Japan will have to suck it up just like everybody else.