flowers comments

Kaimycahl, "if you look at all the world markets they are all struggling. The problem is each government printed money and managed a false economy and they are using the war in Ukraine as being the problem."

I don’t think the “biggest culprit is Covid” as you mentioned, it was the approaches that the government used to tackle the Covid and Ukraine problems. They simply did not learn from the past. China was different in the ways they approached the problems. As you should know, China did not print money but offer coupons for the people which boosted the economy and therefore, did not have big inflation problems like in the West including Japan. In the Western media, you would hear that the employment data were still good and you believed so. But isn’t that against the logic because during high inflation corporations’ bottom lines would be affected and that would lead to tightening of their finances by cutting staff. The West is now standing on the edge of a cliff. Without China’s help, recession here it comes. China did not add fuel to the fire in the Ukraine case by sanctioning and sending weapons to prolong the war which caused the energy crisis. Yes, China has real estate and banking problems but those are not critical to the point of collapsing its controlled economy like in the West caused financial crisis. You are right though that the rich are getting richer even after the downturn of the stock markets, note that only 4% of the rich control the US economy and they’ve sucked the life out of the middle class. I’ve always puzzled how the rich managed to get richer in time of crisis, maybe the crisis was created by them in the first place.

CCP numbers are not even remotely trustworthy

I actually trust CCP numbers more from the way they’ve tried to control the virus. Have the West followed China and applied Zero Covid policy, the virus spread would have been curbed and eradicated. Now, many people in the West have to endure pain and suffering from the long Covid and shorter life span, too bad.

Who would have guessed, Osaka was inserted on the top 10th list to evade criticism. There is another inference, can anyone guess? Treat for a faithful lap dog!

This is how China is helping the neglected developing countries: a mere mention of security agreement and a visit. Did you hear the laugh coming from the CCP office?

The fact that all these governments trying to assert more controls over the Internet has already proven that they are leading towards more authoritarian. Promoting “democracy” is a façade used to manipulate gullible people. Life, safety, and security should be above all else. Right now the so-called democratic countries fail in all these aspects. Without the above there would be no human rights. A government that lets so many people die of preventable causes, such as Covid and gun violence does not deserve to use the word “democracy”.

“It said Chinese and U.S. regulators are having a “good dialogue” about stock markets and working on a plan for cooperation following disputes over audit requirements that led to a threat to kick some Chinese companies off American exchanges.”

What does the above paragraph convey to you? A good journalism will not use the words that convey prejudice and bias. The words, “led to a threat to kick” can be replaced by “may result in delisting.”

“China's wages are a fraction of those in the US and labor is the vast majority of the cost of designing, testing, producing and maintaining military hardware.”

It may be true a decade ago, but not now, China’s labor costs have been increasing substantially. Note also that China has to feed a lot more people in military. You also mentioned “per capita income” in China, which is not really comparable because of the difference in the cost of living, a dollar is worth more in China. Also, China has the most millionaires and billionaires in the world. I think the efficiency is the key which leads to the lower costs overall. Can the West build a functionable hospital in 10 days?

“Maybe the mainland will end up like Hong Kong, swamped by Covid infections? Hong Kong followed the mainland's Covid playbook and look where they are.”

Maybe this only shows that freedom has its drawback!. In any case, when comparing Hong Kong’s Covid infections to the West, I think Hong Kong is still far better.

Basically the increase of China’s military spending is about the same as the US in dollar terms of $15 billion, am I right? But showing 7.1 percentage increase is more impressive and scarier to the readers. Remember that the US spends more than 3 times that of China’s and only has about 25% of China’s population.

theFu, “No. It is illegal to hold a diplomat performing their official duties.” Not really, there are some exceptions that make temporary detention legitimate, such as political conspiracy, assaults, espionage activities, violence, and even drunk driving. It is obvious that China is trying to keep it quiet by only saying the Japanese diplomat had engaged in activities "inconsistent with their capacity in China" but China has made a representation to Japan.

Zero Covid strategy is the right move after seeing the West struggling with it. Human life is more valuable in China than in the West. China can control the virus, why can’t the West do it? You tell me. Pretty soon it will be million deaths in the US; hey here is the old slogan, “let’s blame China,” and the dead will rest in peace.

88k is a good lucky number, Hong Kong people like it.

Not to be cynical about this but people should be alert when going outside. I’ve seen people’s eyes just glue on a cellphone unaware of any danger around them. Split-second reaction is a matter of life and death.

Zero-Covid approach is the way to go. Short-term costs for long-term gains. Living with the virus is not acceptable because of potential health damage later on and considerable costs in the long run. Piece meal approach or mitigation approach will have larger impact on the economy, the Western economies are still slowly recovering but Chinese economy is already up and running.

Stormcrow,

“OK, you've lost me. Nobody said anything about banning China, however, there are some here who would like to know what happened. That cannot happen if the guilty party is continuously dragging its feet, denying, lying, whining about being picked on, etc., etc., It doesn't matter which country it is. What does matter is getting to the bottom of why and how millions of people died. It's not a bad thing to speak out on the dead's behalf in this case.”

Please don’t change my wording, I said “blaming” China, not “banning” China. You probably have the notion of “banning China” in mind, that is why you considered China guilty already. Let me tell you this, millions of those dead people would have been walking and enjoying life right now if the Western governments were more serious in preventing the virus since the beginning. China has proven time and time again that the virus spread can be stopped if those governments care enough about the life of the people. I bet they even have a study on what kind of people were affected most by the virus. Yes, the elderly and minority who suffered the most. Now, Delta variance is like a karma which does not discriminate races any more. So, to get to bottom of this, you should ask why it took the governments so long to act? is it a sound approach to completely relying on the vaccines and ignore other prevention methods?

“In other words, vaccinated is bad while unvaccinated is good. Also, unvaccinated people should be very careful of vaccinated people spreading the Coronavirus to them. Who told you this?”

To answer you, please look at the statistics. In the beginning when the vaccines started to be available the cases started to drop, do you know why? It’s because people take all kinds of preventions including the vaccine and face masks. But, afterwards as time goes on, the governments declared that the vaccines worked and prevention was no longer necessary, so the more people taking the vaccines the more cases started to rise. The unvaccinated people should be constant in both time periods but their cases started to rise right after fully-vaccinated people started to ignore other preventions. So, now they put the blame on the unvaccinated people, which is not right. The Western governments should have continued the prevention and control methods until the virus spread dropped to the point that could be eliminated. It will cost more in the long run if we are forced to live with the virus.

“No denying that these are crazy times and western governments and other governments are doing the best they can with what they've got, but this is the kind of virus that only comes along once every few generations. Whether it's natural, man made or a combination of the two needs to be discussed now not later in order to protect future generations by educating ourselves. If China is responsible, then some kind of international viral tripwires need to be established around it to prevent this or diminish future viruses.”

No, you are wrong. The governments are more concerned about the politics than the lives of the people. Remember what Trump said in the beginning of last year, “it is a war!” Do you think the US won this war with the virus even with the vaccines? We cannot blame any country which discovered the virus, we only should try to find the origin and root cause of the virus, to prevent it from occurring. No country should be responsible for the nature-born viruses. Do you know how many deadly viruses started in the US? We surly don’t want to put the US in bankruptcy.

Is it human nature that we have to blame other people for the wrong that we did ourselves? Blaming China will not raise the dead or preventing more from dying. Yes, the virus was discovered in China but virus can start anywhere. It is our government’s responsibility to curb or eliminate the virus. So, what did they do in the West, they have done studies after studies of the effectiveness of the face masks! It took them months after months for the Western governments to ask people to wear the face masks.

Common, isn’t it logical to throw everything at the virus instead of debating it to death. Relying too much on the vaccine is also a big flaw, thinking that you are invulnerable after two vaccinations is extremely naïve. Fully-vaccinated people start bringing down their guards, they carry the virus around with them and spread to those unvaccinated people. Herd immunity can never be achieved in the West, no matter how you dream it to be. So, now the western governments have no choice but to accept that they failed and ask the people to live with the virus. It is just a little more serious and contagious than the flu, heck they are now being led to believe that they can live with it. Their life span has been shortened and the economies are in perpetual slump, but hey, it is a blessing to know that the booster shots are coming, just keep taking it until your turn to die.

Nothing mentioned about those people who were shot by the US soldiers just trying to get on the plane.

Flip-flopping, putting politics ahead of science. No wonder, people don’t trust WHO any more.

Some researchers estimated that over 4000 children died and most of those kids who attended the schools and survived telling their stories about being humiliated and abused. Western people have the thinking it happened in the past, so “let’s forget about it.” There are many more cases like this that have not been brought into the open. Western countries that robbed the indigenous people of their lands such as the US, Canada, Australia all had this kind of histories and many cases are still being “skeletons in the closets.” Number of indigenous people in those countries are shrinking and their cultures are destroyed. China’s treatments of indigenous people in Tibet and Xinjiang are pale in comparison, Western countries should be ashamed as this is pure genocide.

Yea, Canadian government likes to do things in steps as more and more people are dying along the way.

We can see the bias in the news article which mentioned over 40 countries sending medical supplies including the US, France, Germany, Ireland, Australia, and even Russia. But nothing mentioned about China, why is that? Don't you find it strange. China is one of the largest contributors of medical supplies to India, such as 25,000 oxygen concentrators, 5,000 ventilators and 21,000 oxygen generators. Fear of China and political bias are so apparent here.

Welcome to the Chinese sanction list. Muji really has some naive directors. As they say, "when you are in Rome, act as the Romans do," not to play politics. The shareholders are expecting the bottom line results not publicity stunts.

Dear ReasonandWisdomNippon,

Look at your actions in the past 10 years. It's not the peaceful rise as you promised.

Any more peaceful would be a laughing stock to the world. China did not drop any bombs or topple any governments in the past few decades.

Killing 20 Hindu soldiers at the boarder with India. That was not peaceful.

I wonder why Hindu? Maybe they were too bored and had nothing to do so they picked a fight with Chinese soldiers with sticks and stones. But that should be expected when you have envious neighbor who always has a fight with another of your neighbor.

Building islands armed with weapons and jet fighters. Not peaceful.

I consider China to be the most peaceful in this regards, China could just invade and take over existing islands but no, China built its own islands to avoid more problems.

Being more aggressive against Taiwan and next to Senkaku Islands, that's definitely not peaceful.

I don’t see what China is doing to be aggressive in any way. China tends to respond to other agitating words or actions. You should stop aggravating or smearing China to prove that China is not peaceful.

What's happening in Myanmar is terrible and China is supporting the wrong side. That's not peaceful.

How come China has to end up as a culprit. Even when Thailand had a coup China was to blame. China has a strict policy of not interfering in other country’s internal affairs but always ends up being blamed. Look at the nice placards in the picture they are all written in English and someone had to pay for the printing of those expensive placards, definitely not by the Burmese’s people.

After looking at the number of people died from the virus, I trusted China even more. A country which let its own people die like flies from a preventable disease do not deserve to be trusted. No matter whether it’s freedom or democracy, lives of its own citizen should come first. Facts have been revealed again and again that China was right in dealing with the virus but the West ignored and even smeared China. Now the WHO results have proven that China is innocent and right all along.

Desert Tortoise , “Laughable. My family lost their home to the Red Guards.”

I heard this same story repeatedly, but in the end you should thank China for your life now in LA. The struggling is what make people better. China has changed a lot in the past few decades and what you have described were very old stories, maybe a few decades old. Chinese people are getting better and richer, the last I heard number of middle income people in China is more than the population of the US. A lot of my friends complained that they should have remained in China.

What you have mentioned about Xi is the Western version of the story, but the main point is he painfully struggled to get where he is now. Unlike the western leaders who are all rich and famous but most lack ability to be good leaders. A country needs good leaders to advance further. I know that there is good and bad in every government but the thing is there is more “good” than “bad” in Chinese government. China has lifted more people out of poverty in a very short time than any countries in the world in the history of mankind but the main thing is Chinese people are happier and trust their government more than any other countries in the world. More and more advanced products are coming out from China first, so you can understand why Western companies are not willing to leave China. China has the largest car and cell phone markets in the world just to mention a couple, and there are many other largest things in China. I now know that you are Chinese and you hated China because of what happened in the past. But everything changes with time and only time can heal all wounds if you let it. Current CCP is not the same CCP in the Mao era, a lot of improvements have been made so to hate the current government for the past government’s fault is not reasonable. So, hating Trump is to mean hating Biden too, you must still be living in the past. So sorry for you.

Desert Tortoise, My relatives there say "the government does what it wants and we do what we want".

You seem to have a very limited understanding of China’s political systems. The Chinese system is Meritocracy that is the government officials are selected on the basis of their ability. It took 30 years for Xi to become the leader of China, unlike the West where some rich bozo can be the president damaging the country for years to come.  Your relatives were right; when you have a trusted and effective government why rock the boat!

“The CCP wants to control everything and dominate the world. They are the enemy of individual liberty and individual rights. Given the opportunity they will try to limit my rights.”

I wonder what kinds of individual rights you have. Chinese people believe in the majority rights not some selfish egocentric rights. Take the current pandemic for example, Chinese people wear masks without any questions, but Western people had to do some masks studies for months and fear of eroding freedom is getting into their heads. Eventually they still have to wear masks but not until so many people have died. This time the pandemic has shown that rights and freedom have their limits. And yes, you have the right to buy the products that are not made in China. But what you lose is your own savings, as for me I really don’t care where the product comes from as long as it has the quality and value that I am looking for. I wouldn’t lower my standard of living for the sake of politics that will not make me any richer.

"But with the U.S., China and Russia opting out of a collaborative effort to develop and distribute a vaccine, and some rich nations striking deals with pharmaceutical companies to secure millions of potential doses, the U.N. pleas are plentiful but likely in vain."

I thought only the US is opting out, not China and Russia.

Here is the thing I don’t trust what has been reporting in the media that much. I tend to go over various sources and one of the sources is my friends in China telling me that China’s economy is returning back to normal. You may dispute it whatever you want but the facts are there. Another thing I’d like to comment on is don’t you find it odd that the US leader doesn’t see the virus as serious and playing it down all the time. According to stats, the virus tends to kill about 12% of the white people who are also old and frail. The virus just happened to start right in the middle of China, at that time everybody was expecting China to suffer a lot of deaths and tremendous downturn of the economy, but luckily it turned out Chinese people had learned from past experiences and took precaution ahead of time. You would think that the advanced countries in the West should have performed better in these cases or there may be some reasons behind it for not doing so. You see all of a sudden China became the centre of smearing campaigns and intense sanctions from the West. You would expect Western leaders to take care of their own people more seriously but they just didn’t care as much even when the death toll exceeding 135,000 and counting. I remembered 9/11 when a few thousand people died, the US reactions were so intense. But, not so this time even though in the beginning Trump said, “ this is a war,” he was so sure to win. Maybe it just backfired.

I think China should be praised and compensated for the losses sustained from closing the cities trying to delay and prevent more virus to spread across the world causing even more damages. For those countries which took steps to protect their citizens early sustained less damages and deaths, Blaming and smearing China will only expose their governments' incompetence and lack of regard to the value of human life.

@arrestpaul, “The bottom line is that No Country was prepared for this Chinese disaster, …” Blaming China and WHO for your own government’s failures is ridiculous. Two months is an ample time to prepare, some countries had achieved lower rates of infection because they were well-prepared. Heck, China even got blamed for only 6 days delay, I guess it is a psychological thing, it is a way people are coping with this crisis. Even the opening up of wet markets seems to be a problem, not thinking that wet markets have been in existence for thousands of years. Just, more sanitization and pre-cautions have to be put in place, that’s all. New York’s just announced that everybody has to wear face masks when social distancing is not applicable after so many people have died, why didn’t they think of this right in the beginning? In some hospitals in the West, staff were not allowed to wear face masks because it might scare the patients, what kind of the logic is that? You tell me. Using Covid-19 as a political game is also disgusting, Taiwan said it had lower infection rates because it is democratic, tell me how democratic system helped achieve the lower rates, I am really curious. Some other provinces in China even achieved better rates than Taiwan. How can “WHO is China-centric” when it consists of experts from all over the world and the US is one of the largest contributors which supposed to have the most influence, why would it damage it’s own reputation? This doesn’t make any sense to me.