CHINESE WAY OF LIFE

KIM PETERSEN—Chua is sympathetic to Chinese government censorship: “Given the amount of relentless agenda-based disinformation against the Chinese government, it is not hard to understand why China needs to counter such disinformation with censorship to protect its own society from undue influence by the ill-intended and well-funded Western propaganda machine.” (76)

While I prefer to err on the side of freedom of expression; I do not fence-sit when it comes to the insidiousness of disinformation. I shared the unanimous declaration of participants at the Halifax International Symposium on Media and Disinformation that disinformation should constitute a crime against humanity.

FRED REED—Americans are not an historically aware people and so have little idea of how or why they are regarded as they are abroad. Consider Mexico, where I live. People here know of the Mexican-American War (of which, preposterously many Americans have never heard) as well as the bombardment of Veracruz and Pershing’s incursion. Peoples remember their defeats and humiliations as the victors do not. Mexicans know they are powerless against America, resent it intensely. Latin Americans in general know of the almost endless list of invasions, coups, dictators installed, economic exploitation that Americans have never heard of. Today they see the persecution of Cuba, the attempt to starve Venezuela into giving Washington control of its oil, the coups and murder attempts against Maduro, the coup in Bolivia, other attempts in Ukraine and Byelorussia, on and on.

Many countries have endured American manipulation exploitation, invasion. Americans seldom know of these things, but the countries involved do.

METALLIC MAN—Chinese haven’t even gotten all that much from America. 
Sure, some Chinese studied in America, including in STEM, before 1949. People like Qian Xuesen. Also humanities people like Hu Shih and Soong Mei-ling (Chiang’s wife) and Hsiang-Hsi Kung.

That class of humanities graduated people from Ivy League who entered higher echelons of KMT eventually lost the war and fled to Taiwan or America.

Also, for STEM, Europe was much better (to learn from and be educated in) than America especially in the early 1900s.

Chinese students would have benefited much more from studying STEM in Europe at that time. Unfortunately, it was the situation that arose after the suppression of the Boxer Uprising in 1900 (by Eight-Nation Alliance) that resulted in the Chinese studying in America over studying in Europe. Modern China, especially the practical aspect of it, was far more influenced by USSR and Japan.

LARRY ROMANOFF—At the end of 2011, Nike admitted to a scheme of false advertising in China. At the time, a new Nike sport shoe had become the newest ‘must-have’ item for the kids. A prime feature in Nike’s advertising was that the shoe had two air cushions, to provide shock absorption. The shoe, which I believe was made in China, was priced in the US at 700 RMB ($125), while the price in China was 1,300 RMB (over $200). Nike heavily advertised the product in China as being the original; however the company made a much cheaper substandard version of the shoe to be sold in China. Chinese consumers picked up on the fraud very quickly and reported the matter to the authorities, China’s SAIC eventually levying a fine of nearly $1 million and instructing Nike to refund the full purchase price to all customers. Interestingly, Nike repeated this exact same fraud some years later, apparently learning nothing the first time.

CHRIS KANTHAN—A lot of even smart people say that, “Since the virus was first found in Wuhan, the virus must have originated in Wuhan.” They usually go on to say, “If the virus had started elsewhere, other countries would have detected it.”

Really? Look around the world. Country after country remains clueless until the pandemic explodes in their face. For example, in the middle of April, India proudly announced that COVID-19 had been contained. Two weeks later, they were registering 300,000 cases! India was totally oblivious to the double/triple mutant that caused the colossal second wave.