GODFREE ROBERTS—Amidst global gloom, 2021 was the best year in modern Chinese history. Here’s what they accomplished:
Eliminated extreme poverty.
Reached 98% home ownership.
Kept Covid death rate at 0.6% of America’s.
ERIC ZUESSE—All of the worst-performing countries have taken, overall, a far-more-libertarian-than-normal policy approach to the pandemic. China has probably taken the world’s most-socialistic policy-approach to it. Some countries, such as DRC Congo, have reported very low case-rates but have untrustworthy reporting. Other than China, whose reporting has been reliable, only #19 (the 17th-lowest of all countries), Taiwan (which is actually a region of China) is at all near China’s: it is 701 cases-per-million.
KIM PETERSEN—If China’s Olympics should be boycotted or tennis tournaments yanked because of an unsubstantiated allegation, then this should apply equally to the United States where a sitting Supreme Court judge and a sitting president have faced allegations of sexual misconduct.
President Joe Biden — who once said, “For a woman to come forward in the glaring light of focus, nationally, you’ve got to start off with the presumption that at least the essence of what she’s talking about is real” — was accused of sexually assaulting a former Senate aide, Tara Reade. The #MeToo movement and Democrats abandoned Reade.
Previously, the Democrats and #MeToo had supported Christine Blasey Ford who publicly accused a Republican Supreme Court nominee, Brett Kavanaugh, of attempted rape.
JEFF J. BROWN—For Westerners and the #MeToo movement, what Peng did was absolutely normal. Take it public, shout it out to the world. Create a media storm to garner attention.
Nevertheless, that is not how it is done in Chinese culture, going back thousands of years. If you want a really good explanation, read The China Trilogy (see below), where during my many years in-country, on a number of occasions I was the accuser and the accused, so I’m speaking from feet-on-the-ground experience.
In China’s Confucian-Daoist-Buddhist society, keeping face and maintaining social stability and economic prosperity for the people takes precedence over individual needs and demands.
PEPE ESCOBAR—Make Trade, Not War: that would be the motto of a Pax Sinica under Xi. The crucial aspect is that Beijing does not aim to replace Pax Americana, which always relied on the Pentagon’s variant of gunboat diplomacy.
The declaration subtly reinforced that Beijing is not interested in becoming a new hegemon. What matters above all is to remove any possible constraints that the outside world may impose over its own internal decisions, and especially over its unique political setup.
The West may embark on hysteria fits over anything – from Tibet and Hong Kong to Xinjiang and Taiwan. It won’t change a thing.