I believe it's important to separate China and the Chinese Communist Party (CCP).
I don't doubt that the Hong Kong protests were a major problem for the CCP and that COVID allowed them to implement a series of restrictions and laws to stop protests. I also don't doubt the very real possibility of a lab leak in Wuhan (in fact, given how the CCP have responded, I find it very likely).
What I do doubt is that this virus was released to combat the Hong Kong protests. If it was on purpose, it was a huge self-inflicted wound, as the CCP's inability to contain the virus has made them look weak internally and externally. It's hugely crippled their own economic growth which was set to overtake the US, which has now been set back at least 5-10 years based on projections (if they are to be believed).
If I were an evil regime, I would probably fake terroristic plots from the protestors and then respond to them heavily. There were plenty of other options available too, such as "starving out" the protestors (a tactic I believe they employed).
What's more likely is that the CCP are very good at utilizing the current situation to serve their own means. They are surprisingly bad at it though and seem to completely misunderstand how they are perceived on the world stage.
Yes and no? In theory, the American government is "for the people, by the people", a feature not at all shared by the Chinese government. So actions taken by the American government should be the will of at least a majority of Americans.
(Of course, the reality is a bit different; the American government is run by people largely in the pockets of special-interest groups and lobbyists. But we'd like to think democracy works as well as we'd like...)
> Should other countries distinguish between the USA and the American government? That’s something I don’t see.
I think it's important when you are discussing some actions taken by a minority leadership - an unelected leadership at that. If Biden did something bad on behalf of the US, I would be tempted to say "Biden did X" rather than "America did X", especially if potentially speaking to an American.
I also think in terms of geopolitics, it's important to criticise the Chinese government rather than the Chinese people - especially with increasing nationalisation ongoing in China.
To participate in this intriguing line of inquiry,
It may be a case of aligned incentives. A new virus occurs (even CCP does not know whether it is lab-leaked), and it is allowed to exist for some time (doctors arrested for spreading rumors). Definitely prefer incompetence to malice here, but maybe a decision was made to "sit back and assess" while the problem grew more serious.
Faking terroristic plots and blaming protesters is old hat, and the outcome of cracking down on the free territories while you still have the #2 Navy in the world are predictable. Hong Kong is not alone in desiring independence, and Beijing is not willing to lose face. A re-run of Tienanmen Square was starting to look inevitable. What if instead of that well-trod path of war, they chose to boost the poll numbers by allowing a crisis to occur and saving the day?
The cost of an economic slow down, well it's a risky calculus, but if the pandemic becomes global, they will not be left that far behind the competition. In fact, a totalitarian regime may be better-able to enforce health mandates and become productive again sooner.
What's more, USA was also dealing with a kind of dueling rebellion between BLM and Trump-Forever types. Perhaps the two agreed that the world needed a cooling-off.
Indeed, we will likely never really know what the truth is here - even if the CCP dissolved tomorrow I imagine it would be years upon years before we start seeing anything emerge. A bit like the USSR.
> Definitely prefer incompetence to malice here, but maybe a decision was made to "sit back and assess" while the problem grew more serious.
I imagine that initially the CCP leadership was making decisions based on bad data. I.e. the classic "we have so much grain comrade we have to throw it away!", hence why the local government leadership in Wuhan were purged.
> Faking terroristic plots and blaming protesters is old hat [..]
I would say it's 'tried and tested'.
> A re-run of Tienanmen Square was starting to look inevitable.
I wouldn't yet rule it out. These protestors never vanished, the feeling of the people appears to still be strong (although nobody wants to be the nail that sticks out).
> What if instead of that well-trod path of war, they chose to boost the poll numbers by allowing a crisis to occur and saving the day?
How would that have looked like? I imagine it would have been achieved by keeping Hong Kong under zero lockdown to the point of collapse, and then rushing in with supplies, etc. Instead they were pretty quick to lockdown.
> In fact, a totalitarian regime may be better-able to enforce health mandates and become productive again sooner.
Not so long ago, their "5 year plan" entailed global medicine dominance, which you may argue they achieved during the pandemic. Pretty much all PPE was coming out of China. I think they made a mistake in restricting the export of PPE as other Countries suddenly saw them as a supply risk and begun to decentralise.
> What's more, USA was also dealing with a kind of dueling rebellion between BLM and Trump-Forever types. Perhaps the two agreed that the world needed a cooling-off.
I doubt that. The CCP are very interested in fuelling the political divides in the US. You get CCP officials Tweeting (despite Twitter being banned in China) stuff like "I can't breath".
I can't of course rule out that this was on purpose, but I think even the smartest of analysts couldn't possibly predict how this all would have played out. It was a massive gamble. I imagine the only sort of Country willing to take such a gamble is one with nothing to lose. If China's property market bubbles is really that bad (and they know it), maybe I would take it more seriously.
> > What if instead of that well-trod path of war, they chose to boost the poll numbers by allowing a crisis to occur and saving the day?
By this I meant to imply that, as opposed to being faced with rebellion, the government could allow (if not cause) the pandemic to take hold and then show competence vis-a-vis building hospitals and distributing vaccines. By doing a better job at it than democracies, the CCP could buy some praise from the public, but I'm unable to speculate whether the average Chinese citizen feels their government was heroic or not.
Agreed CCP is unlikely to co-operate with USA, but maybe we had the same idea, that division in the US population was a Good Thing, ie, what was that quote, maybe it was Martin Luther King Jr, that as long as poor white and poor black people are kept fighting, they won't notice that they're both being taken advantage of by the rich? That still goes on, but it is Red vs Blue as well, and as long as we keep voting our more radical representatives in, and being angry with the 'other side', the less likely we are to unite and overthrow the corrupt show of two-party politics.
> [..] building hospitals and distributing vaccines.
Eh, I remember those pop-up hospitals they boasted about which ended up being glorified cages. I remember the headlines were something like "China builds a hospital in a week!", and then we heard nothing more after they were forced to tear them down before they fell down. Turns out you can't actually build something to last in a week - the concrete won't even set.
Regarding developing and distributing vaccines, I really suspect this is why the WIV didn't share their latest COVID sequencing data and took their database offline. (They claimed it was due to hackers, but they could have easily sent the database on a shipped hard drive or hosted it in the Alibaba cloud.) It could only serve to incriminate them and it gives them a few weeks head start for generating a vaccine. (It ended up being awful anyway and the local people choose not to take it due to a loss of faith in the CCP - for the same reason they still import their baby milk powder from abroad.)
> By doing a better job at it than democracies, the CCP could buy some praise from the public, but I'm unable to speculate whether the average Chinese citizen feels their government was heroic or not.
If you control all external media, why even bother doing a better job? You can simply claim the rest of the world is awful outside of China and that the CCP is the best thing since sliced bread.
> [..] as long as we keep voting our more radical representatives in, and being angry with the 'other side', the less likely we are to unite and overthrow the corrupt show of two-party politics.
Right, the only thing that happens in a two-party system is that one side is slightly less disappointed than the other. You find yourself voting for what you perceive to be the lesser evil.
> Thanks for joining me under this aluminum tent
I think these ideas are worth probing out as long as everybody involved remembers which parts are fact and which parts are speculation. When we confuse the two it becomes less fruitful.
I don't doubt that the Hong Kong protests were a major problem for the CCP and that COVID allowed them to implement a series of restrictions and laws to stop protests. I also don't doubt the very real possibility of a lab leak in Wuhan (in fact, given how the CCP have responded, I find it very likely).
What I do doubt is that this virus was released to combat the Hong Kong protests. If it was on purpose, it was a huge self-inflicted wound, as the CCP's inability to contain the virus has made them look weak internally and externally. It's hugely crippled their own economic growth which was set to overtake the US, which has now been set back at least 5-10 years based on projections (if they are to be believed).
If I were an evil regime, I would probably fake terroristic plots from the protestors and then respond to them heavily. There were plenty of other options available too, such as "starving out" the protestors (a tactic I believe they employed).
What's more likely is that the CCP are very good at utilizing the current situation to serve their own means. They are surprisingly bad at it though and seem to completely misunderstand how they are perceived on the world stage.