Masayoshi Son wanted to give his home country Japan 1 million tests, and suffered a huge backlash on Twitter from people who said too many tests would "overwhelm the health system".
The news feel under-informed to me. Much of the backlash against Son is carried-over from his other comment to send free masks to medical personnel. People are “wondering loudly” where on earth does he get so many masks when almost literally nobody in Japan can buy any. Doesn’t his move make the problem worse? The test tweet is under similar fire. How is he going to “provide” these tests? Japanese people are not getting tests not because they cannot afford them, but there is not enough medical resource to run the tests. He offering free tests does not move the needle much, but on the other hand may disrupt the already short-handed medical personnel.
Son has long been criticised in Japan of deception via selective facts. The reputation may or may not be justified (he might just not be good at expressing himself and never felt the need to clarify), but his recent tweets are very on-brand with a bold claim and little detail, and it’s understandable for the Japanese to express the same doubts based on his persumed track record.
Shouldn't there be hundreds of labs with these machines though?
Yes. Roche just got FDA approval on a SARS-COV-2 test that will take four (4) hours that works with two of their (whatever you call the machine) models. Per Roche there are around 110 of those machines in the United States. Bloomberg had estimated throughput numbers and also indicated that Roche has tests that work with some of their other, slower equipment (that I assume is in the US as well).
Mayo Clinic recently developed a 2 hour test.
The limits on testing are, from my POV, entirely political at this point.
How does Korea have 15 minute tests (from when a sample is collected) and we're excited about a 2 hour or 4 hour one? I'm not being flippant, I imagine that whatever korea is doing they've been open about it and we know how to do manufacture everything and perform those 15 minute tests, but I imagine there must be some reason that we aren't doing them.
They don't. The drive through stations send samples off to a lab that uses a 5–6 hour process. If memory serves, a Hong Kong company devised a 45 minute test otherwise in most places you're looking at hours not minutes.
You're right. I swear I saw some article that said that South Korean drive through would text results as fast as 15 minutes, but looking at a couple more reports just now all said 24 hours.
Every PI at a major research university who does something related to genetics should have one. There are probably some logistics challenges in getting them all into facilities with the right biosafety level and competent technicians to run them.
The most important factor isn't how quickly one can process the test (so long as it doesn't take an excessive amount of time) or how many, but rather how many false positives you get.
The CDC, in a press conference, explained that tests in places like South Korea are producing 3% to 4% false positives. Our tests are in the 1% to 2% range.
This difference in false positives can have massive consequences as infection spreads. Doubling your false positives could easily overwhelm the medical system. Which in turn, could increase fatality.
And then there's the secondary effects, which Italy is sadly experiencing, as the medical system overloads doctors are having to choose who they simply let die. There are reports of stroke patients going without much attention in Italy because of precisely this issue.
If hospitals can't take care of people because they are overloaded due to administering large numbers of tests with double the false positive outcomes, more people die.
When things truly matter there is no substitute for quality and performance. Quantity and speed are not always the most important factors.
Apparently, almost all of the world's saline bags were made in Puerto Rico, and a single hurricane disrupted this essential gear.
There have been longstanding concerns about strategic food - and even Oil supply, I don't see how the US or any nation can reasonably not have the domestic demand to meet an emergency.
China has been engaging in a form of systematic dumping on a variety of industries for quite a long time - most of us enjoyed the benefits of lower prices while local producers went out of business.
The nefariousness of their strategy is that it's often difficult to tell the difference between simple 'low-cost advantage' vs. actual dumping strategies, and who in the business world is going to argue against lower prices? Nobody.
The US military certainly wouldn't have 99% of their ammunition 'made in China', well, war is much more than bullets, moreover, there's much more to life than war ...
It's definitely time to have national regulations on a lot of such goods. A simple ban on the import of strategic goods would work really well - America is large enough that there'd be several domestic providers.
Americans would end up paying more for certain items, but does it really matter when the surpluses are so large? So it costs $4 per mask instead of $2? The price is not as important as availability. It would be a very natural and synergistic way to increase wages as well.
This could be done in concert with a few key allies on a product by product basis.
Let's not forget that retailers are making their parking lots available, Google has deployed 1,700 engineers to build a flowchart website, and the US is buying up oil reserves.
I think this epidemic is pretty much solved, don't you?
I tried googling some keywords to see if Google would show me that site straight away, but didn't get anything in my 30 seconds of attempts.
Is it because I'm in Europe?
Got to love the oil reserves idea to help Saudi Arabia in its price war against Russia. Ah fuck, that's why he declared national emergency: so he can get 40 billion dollars to bail out the Saudis.
That lady was so proud of her 6 node flow chart too. She was beaming when she took it out...
Nothing exists yet [1]. Verily (an Alphabet subsidiary but essentially "Google" for all intents and purposes) is working on a triage website with a limited focus on the Bay Area.
Ultimately it's going to be a slightly more complex variant of "Do you have a fever?" with a map showing nearby testing locations when someone clicks yes.
This is surprisingly useful and difficult to implement well. It’s more than just keeping accurate information up to date, but also ensuring it works for the blind and as many languages as possible etc. Further, the Bay Area is just the initial pilot, their goal is likely nationwide if not international.
Seems strange that anybody would feel the need, given how the US is one of the richest countries, trumpets it's own abilities endlessly, and has an official policy of "America first".
I.e., it's surely capable of making its own virus test kits and face masks, if it could be bothered.
> it's surely capable of making its own virus test kits and face masks, if it could be bothered.
American manufacturing industries are dying. We know how to make software but making hardware is slowly fading out. Most of our stuff comes from China. China knows how to make the world.
It's not much different from the Gates Foundation and similar ventures. When you're so rich money doesn't matter philanthropic works are expected.
It also doesn't help that the current administration has bungled the testing from day 1; in the past we would have ramped up testing when the disease was spreading in China. Whether it's lack of leadership, incompetence, or deliberate we don't know. But Dear Leader certainly won't take responsibility for it and isn't interested in solving the problem so lack of leadership is definitely a factor. My guess is at least some in the administration were dumb enough to believe it wouldn't spread in the US.
Yeah, honestly. Even as someone who can be cynical about things, I still think this is very much kind and appreciated. Meanwhile I know others who say it's political and means pretty much nothing... I just don't know how to reply.
It's clearly no more political than the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation directing funds & other resources to assist China (and Asia broadly) the other direction, for which Xi personally thanked Bill [1]. China has an enormous amount of wealth and production capacity, anything they can help out with is a positive. As they bring their outbreak under control, they'll have dramatic spare capacity around test kits and medical supplies, that can benefit the rest of the world.
Of course it's more political than anything Bill and Melinda are doing. Jack Ma is a member of the CPC. The CPC is the sole organ of power in China. Currently they are going to great lengths to try to make everyone around the world forget that they are the ones who caused this pandemic in the first place. They've even stooped to allowing the conspiracy theory to spread that the true origin of the virus is overseas. It's shameful.
When the immediate crisis is over, the world needs to hold the CPC accountable. You don't get to set a fire and show up with a bucket three months later expecting to be declared a hero.
So, Jack Ma donating masks around the world can be a positive thing for the people affected by the virus right now, but it can also be a cynical political move at the same time.
Bullshit. When the CDC has 500k tests, by all means, regulate away. To prohibit using even potentially working technology when the alternative is nothing is barbaric.
We're not talking about cancer tests here. We're in a pandemic. The value we would get out of 500k tests for covid-19 with a 3% error rate is far superior to 500 tests with an error rate of 1%. Give me the 500k tests please!
But you can trace all of that after the fact. If you have a positive result you can go prove it later. If you have a negative result you can go prove that later. But you can at least start by acting on the result.
So if you get a negative result from the test-kit, you let the person go, then later after the fact, you realize that it's a false-negative and you shouldn't have let the patient go ... now you've just spread the virus even more
I'd argue that that is better. Because if you're not tested, you know that you don't know. But if you get a false-negative (the test tells you're not infected, but you actually are), you think you're not infected, you may go about your daily life infecting other people.
You’re assuming that most people will act responsibly and not go about their daily lives infecting other people if they know that they don’t know. This goes against my personal experience of how many humans behave.
It’s equally plausible to me that someone receiving a false negative will take extra precautions in order to avoid becoming sick themselves, instead of deciding (in the absence of a test) that they are infected and so don’t need to be careful about protecting themselves any more.
Exactly. At this point only irredeemable bureaucrats care whether a face mask meets ISO-12345 compliance or a test kit has documents stamped by the right government Deputy Inspector of Inspectors. Bring the things in and worry about the right official seals of approval later.
That's insane. If the untraceable masks only block particles larger than 1 micron rather than 0.3 microns, they are useless. If instead of being true N95 they are N80, they are deadly junk.
This isn't about bureaucracy, this is about engineering and science. Junk is junk, and it can kill you when you assume you are being protected (or protecting others) and you are not because they lied to you.
You are ignorant because you assume US tests and masks are vastly superior to Chinese tests and masks for this application. Masks, even perfect ones barely do anything for something that infectious and tests are more for statistics to inform high level decision making than anything else.
Staying away from people is the only thing that measurably does anything.
As I put it in a reply to someone else's honest and intelligent question:
Let's say these masks are going to protect our doctors. The risk is that garbage masks might not protect them at all. Very soon we lose entire hospitals because we used product without traceable and verified specifications and performance.
How many patients die because hospitals go down due to junk masks?
If, on the other hand, these masks are being used while cutting wood on a table saw to keep from inhaling sawdust, well, specifications can be very loose and it will still protect the wearer just fine.
When things matter, adherence to specifications and standards while backed to real and traceable testing matters.
What is ignorant is to not take the time to think, understand and become knowledgeable enough to have an opinion rooted in facts. Please stop using insults in place of doing your homework.
> The people who are reacting negatively to my comments are doing so while completely devoid of experience and an understanding of the realities in China.
You must know much more than the rest us. How many years do you have in China, 老外？
If you think the richest man in China doesn't know more than you do about "specifications, performance, and quality," you're not just misinformed, and you're not merely ignorant.
If you think "Chinese-made masks given as gifts by some dude" is in any way appropriate in a discussion about a donation by Jack Ma, you know less than nothing about Chinese culture and should remain silent.
If "taking the time to learn something and understand" is a value you hold, now is the time for you to do that. Your xenophobic fear-mongering is a shame to your country.
> What I said, very clearly, is that the difference is in TRACEABILITY and, not directly but implied, adherence to REAL SPECIFICATIONS, PERFORMANCE AND QUALITY.
What you don't seem to realize is that any such difference doesn't matter because "The goggles! They do nothing!"
This virus stays airborne for 3 hours after last infected breathed in any given room. Nothing short of full hazmat suit can significantly help. Piece of cloth over your face might reduce infection by 1% and most pristine N95 mask built to most amazing US quality reduces infection by 2%. Would the difference in mask quality really matter if those were the numbers?
When you have diarrhea does it matter if your toilet paper is tracable? You just need a lot of it. Not so much to efficiently help with the disease but mostly for comfort.
Either room is preferable to Room 3: which is no one has any masks.
Or the Chinese made masks in Room 2 would be validated and inspected for compliance state side. Trust but verify etc. The logical scenario is traceable US made masks is triaged for medical workers while patients use Chinese made masks that's undergone some sort of due diligence.
But broadly, you're correct. Extra validation and QC should be emphasized now more than ever, China dramatically ramped up mask production by 10x normal capacity. Factory owners who do not typically make masks are spinning up production lines, raw materials is being sourced from everywhere. There's no doubt a lot of amateur hour happening which is why QC is extra critical with these batches that is at least good enough for Chinese frontline workers.
Unless the risk is China would deliberately send spiked masks via Ma, in which case, why not keep the masks in storage for later propaganda uses. Knowing how heated the rhetoric is going to become, this almost makes Ma's donation a bad move in retrospect. I'd hope the donation is traceable just for that possibility.
No, you can't. You clearly don't understand the subject.
The most you might be able to do is say "Hmmm, we are getting three times more false positives". By that time you will have wasted a ton of time, overwhelmed hospitals with people who did not need to be there and no, despite your belief, there is no way (or point really) to trace it, at least nothing that is going to help your medical system to avoid collapse.
There is no substitute for quality and traceability when lives matter. None.
Why do you believe so strongly that China can't manufacture reliable health products? Most of the health products we've been using for decades are manufactured in China! They are currently operating a fairly successful effort against this disease, and the tests in question are a part of that effort. No one in USA has done the basic work in this field. SMH.
ALL quality medical products and supplies coming out of China, all of them, are made under intense western supervision and quality control. Only after a factory has proven itself that it can be relied upon are they trusted. And, even then, the supervision does not go away.
I would not manufacture coffee mugs in China without supervision. No way.
Has everyone forgotten the iPhone chargers that go up in flames? How do you think that happens?
"1. Every one of those 1M masks are not tainted with coronavirus."
Let's see - 1 of the masks is infected and other 999,999 are perfect and meet 0.3 micron standard or whatever it is to be effective. Following your logic you'd refuse all.
Yes my logic is BS but only because yours is exactly the same, just the opposite end.
Ok, so then you agree they need to be tested, we just disagree on how quantitatively extensive it needs to be. So you tell me then, what percentage of these 1M masks do we test?
Do we test 1% of it and say they're safe to use, or do we test 99% of it?
Either way, it sounds like to me, you agree you can't just overlook basic sanity checks.
Maybe we test 51% of it. I'm not sure where you draw that line. God forbid you or your immediate family member gets one of the 49% that didn't get tested, and get infected. Skin in the game.
The BS was for you to claim the each mask has to be inspected. I am pretty sure that if the US will have agreed to accept the gift (fat chance I think) they would have some of those checked. And the percentge would hopefully be determined by the experts in the field rather then incompetent Jane/Joes of HN of which we are.
“Weakness and ignorance are not barriers to survival, but arrogance is.” You think China can't manufacture good quality mask, a simple mask? You people really are that arrogant?
It’s worse than that. They believe it’s a Chinese conspiracy. One of the few countries to control the spread, but the tests they distribute will be ‘tainted’ and ‘ineffective’.
You put words in my mouth. My concern isn't that it's not "good quality". My concern is, the thing is literally coming from the country where the virus originated from to begin with. Presumably, these things were made with human hands, of people in China, .. the country where this all started. So, ... you're telling me, you're just going to blindly assume these products have ZERO trace of the virus without any verification?
Right now, 99% of active cases are outside of China. If you're worried about shipments from China, you should be 100x as worried about shipments from Europe. Or, for that matter, a different state in the US.
Another point: if you're also an Asian living in the United States, spending all day whipping up anti-Chinese sentiment online is not going to help you. If you succeed, you're going to be treated just as badly as me, because they can't tell the difference between us. If you think you can get away free by just being really, really American, you're hopelessly naive. I'm excessively American myself, and it hasn't helped me one bit.
I've visited senators and representatives and they called me a threat to this country, to my face, knowing full well that I was a US citizen.
Maybe you've had less experience with politicians. Maybe you look less Asian. Maybe you're just naive. I can't know which it is, but I'm sure they think the same of you as me.
You realize that you're the racist here for pulling the race card, right? I'm not on your side just because you're Asian. I'm interested in the general well being of ALL people, Asian or not, in the US. I'm sorry you were mistreated, but you made a wrong assumption that I am, or that I will, and you're trying to get me to be on your "side"? I don't like presumptuous people.
I don't have a "side". On one hand, I was born in mainland China. On the other hand, my parents were almost gunned down at Tiananmen square. We came to America to try to leave that behind, and yet still the senators presume I'm a CCP agent! All it took was the wrong kind of name and face.
I could go on with more of my sob stories, but I can tell you won't take bullshit. The point is: I don't know or care about the geopolitics of the South China Sea. All I know is, when xenophobia rises in the US, the CCP is not actually going to be hurt one bit. The only people that will be targeted will be us.
Thanks for sharing your story. It's rough for immigrants and I can certainly sympathize. I've seen the news of extremely racist things done to Asians in America due to this virus.
Let's unpack what you said here:
"you're going to be treated just as badly as me, because they can't tell the difference between us"
1. That's an assumption of yours that I simply don't agree with. IDK where in the US you are, and it sounds like that's going on where you are, but I haven't seen it where I am and don't expect it. The US is HUGE and you can't just extrapolate like that.
2. I'd be careful about your usage of the word "they" and "us" in this sentence. Are you generalizing that most non-Asian Americans are racist ("they"), and defining "us" as the Asian Americans? Because if you start assuming that, that's just very negative and if Asian Americans ALL start acting that way, it can become a self-fulfilling prophecy. That's why I said I'm not on your "side", because I don't want to see sides.
I prefer thinking of us all (all Americans, regardless of race) as "we". Sure there are some racists, and I react accordingly, but I don't just assume that. Ultimately, if you are dealing with a bunch of legit racists and can't change them, then maybe you should ask yourself why you want to continue living and working where you are, and dealing with those. Lots of options in America.
Where I am, I rarely feel that I am mistreated and have no reason to expect it. That's my data point for you.
Thanks for the thoughtful response. I just have to add one thing: just like you, all ordinary people I've met have treated me just fine. I'm not worried about the couple nutjobs in every city going around beating up Asians, they're a rounding error.
When I say "they", I mean people with power, such as politicians and journalists. Naturally, this is a category that excludes Asians, by design. I'm willing to bet that I've interacted with these people far more than you have, and I can assure you that they're far more racist than ordinary people. Unfortunately, they also are in charge of telling ordinary people what to do and think.
Pls read what's known about this virus survivability outside of hosts body before you assume that item touched by infected person is "tainted" forever.
Yes. I think it's impossible because loading things on planes take time and putting them in boxes before that takes even more time. And driving them to the airport and from the airport takes time. And taking them out of boxes takes time.
If you did everything as quick as possible maybe you'd have a chance to lick a thing that came from china faster then three days after last Chinese person licked it.
In practice. When you have .5 mln mass manufactured items you have no chance.
Also, on cardboard the virus stays potent only fo 24 hours.
So, if you do the thing you suggested yourself, and NOT infer an assumption of a geopolitically motivated act coming from me, you will see that my logic as stated in point 1 and 2 is actually pragmatic and logical.
Assume no malicious intention.
How about we even assume that we paid for this stuff and Jack Ma didn't just hand it out for free. This is to remove your bias that a charitable gesture from someone, so that these products won't escape basic sensible scrutiny.
Are you seriously going to use the products to aid in this national emergency, that was literally made in the country that this virus originated from ... without testing it at all to verify that it is free of the virus that started it all?
I personally did not refute your logic because it doesn't matter if it's correct or not. It assumes falsehood and leads to "garbage" conclusions. Why would anyone want to consider what implication chain have you constructed between false and false?
Let's say these masks are going to protect our doctors. The risk is that garbage masks might not protect them at all. Very soon we lose an entire hospital because we used product without traceable and verified specifications and performance. How many patients die because that one hospital is now shuttered?
If, on the other hand, these masks are being used while cutting wood on a table saw to keep from inhaling sawdust, well, specifications can be very loose and it will still protect you.
When things matter, adherence to standards, honest testing, traceable quality and specifications matters.
One of the reasons the US developed its own test was that the test that China was using had a 48% false negative rate. These are probably the same tests.
Yes, CDC flubbed the test, probably because theirs was a 3 part test. They also ordered that other labs wait for the CDC test instead of making their own. However, any test used had to pass FDA muster at that time, and a test with a 48% false negative rate likely would not.
The CDC is probably not the most agile organization, but I'm hoping that they will scale.
Seems like a power move to me. Painting a picture for the world of struggling U.S. institutions needing a Chinese billionaire's help to weather a crisis.
Indeed. On it's own, it looks like .. I'm not sure "willy-waving" translates into American well.
But once you realise they're sending them everywhere, it makes it look more like they've ramped production up to stupifying numbers (which is China's speciality afterall), and have realised their value in goodwill is far beyond their dollar value.
(or, yes, propaganda - there's not a lot of real difference between PR, propaganda and goodwill. Ultimately, doing something good because the optics benefit you, is still doing something good.)
I’m sure it helps that doing something good also makes them look good and shifts public perception of China from oppressive to we just helped save the world from an epidemic.
There’s no way the leadership has thought out all the angles.
I have no doubt his intention really is to save lives, but a secondary motive is surely also PR. Perhaps the Chinese state had some role in this, as well. I'm not much of a conspiracy theorist, but I could see a possible benign conspiracy like them using Jack as a proxy to distribute these.
If they did it officially, it could be trusted less and the motive would seem more blatant. And Jack of course has enough money to do this himself, but such a big international move might require the approval of the government.
Is it? If the American government were doing this, I would think the exact same thing. And America has in fact done similar things many times in the past.
Of course it's PR. It's always PR, probably regardless of what superpower's government is involved. The only difference here is that the Chinese government has more control over and knowledge of what private citizens are doing, so it can be difficult to disentangle private and governmental action.
Do you feel the same way about Bill Gates' philanthropic work?
Is what Gates does also "always PR"?
Both of these men could afford to retire to a private island (or chain of islands) and never be heard from again. You think they do what they do primarily for PR reasons?
No. I would if I thought Bill Gates represented the US government, but I don't think he does.
The problem here is it's so hard to separate private and governmental action in China. Jack Ma may not have even been able to do this without their approval or prodding, possibly. Maybe he did, but there's no good way to know. Most other large countries don't have such powerful and expansive governments.
This is about geopolitics, not philanthropy. I think most philanthropists aren't doing things for PR, and for the ones who are, it's probably a minor, extra motive. But all bets are off when the philanthropist may be an ultra-powerful nation-state.
This "us vs them" mentality with strong whiff of paranoia. Conceiving ulterior motive and talking as if that was the most important motive. Somehow more true than all other parallel motives. I don't see this kind of thinking much out of US and perhaps Russia. Maybe it's taint of cold war. Maybe it runs even deeper in the culture.
I would think the same if it were the US or Russian government. Why do you think the US invested so much into feeding East Germany? It was to save lives, to regrow an economy, and for PR against the Soviets.
I'm a massive conspiracy theory skeptic and spend an inordinate amount of time trying to debunk them, but this is just how geopolitics work, have always worked, and will likely still work for centuries or millennia to come. Many actions have multiple motives.
Also, I'm just saying it's a possibility. It's just hard to know since it's so hard to separate government and private activities in such a place.
That's what I'm saying. And this specific way of thinking is focusing on the worst of the motives and treating them as if they were the main motives, the most important motives, the most worthwhile motives to observe and point out, maybe the only motives worth mentioning.
>I have no doubt his intention really is to save lives, but a secondary motive is surely also PR. Perhaps the Chinese state had some role in this, as well. I'm not much of a conspiracy theorist, but I could see a possible benign conspiracy like them using Jack as a proxy to distribute these.
I said it was a secondary motive, and that it was a benign conspiracy theory. I only leaned this way due to the fact the outbreak originated in China and because Jack Ma may not have been able to do this without the approval of the government. That means it's fairly likely he either had to request approval, in which case the government may have approved for PR reasons, or it's possible they reached out to him and proposed or demanded it.
Even if it were the Chinese state doing it formally, I'd still say the primary motive is to save lives, even if there were also other motives. Like how the primary motive of the Belt and Road Initiative is to increase trade and uplift poor countries, but there are many other motives, as well. Again, this is the case for all large governments, not just China - the difference here is just the lack of separation between private and governmental action in China, which makes it difficult to tell to what extent this is Jack and to what extent this is the state. If it were somehow proven the state weren't involved in any way, then I would think it was more likely than not that Jack didn't have ulterior motives.
Either way, it's not something I care much about one or way the other. I wasn't the original person to say it was a power move - I just disagreed with the parent poster who suggested it being a global initiative made it less likely to be a power move. No matter his/their motives, it's very good he and/or the Chinese government are doing this.
>...so it can be difficult to disentangle private and governmental action.
It's near impossible to disentangle private and government[al] action in China. It's also not a uniquely American way to think about it. Every country uses private proxies where it makes sense in order to project power.
It definitely shifts the message somewhat from "look, the Americans need our help" to "we're prosperous enough to be a world leader", which depending on your perspective may be preferable
I've noticed China is promoting the medical response teams they've sent to those countries on WeChat. I don't want to be so cynical that I reduce Chinese goodwill to a propaganda move, but it definitely is good PR.
If somebody helps me out of the potentially deadly hole, I do not give a flying feck about the motives. And that somebody can have all the good PR s/he wants from me as a token of appreciation.
The CPC are the ones who dug the deadly hole in the first place. It's great that one of their billionaire members has some money to spare to help people out, but let's not forget they are directly responsible for this pandemic.
Yeah right, they had willfully concocted the virus and diligently sprayed it all around on their streets.
It is very convenient blaming your adversaries/competitors for your own f..ups. We could've easily shut the borders at first sign and be protected and safe. Have somebody to blame for that hole?
Plenty of other governments have made mistakes in dealing with this outbreak, but that does not absolve the CPC from responsibility.
The CPC knew about this virus for over a month before they took any action to contain it. In fact, they arrested people who were sounding the alarm. Xi is claimed to have been steering the ship for weeks before any lockdowns were put into place in Hubei province. The CPC own this global crisis. If it was not for their epic mismanagement, there would not be a pandemic.
"The CPC knew about this virus for over a month before they took any action to contain it"
You are trying to blame politicos for being who they are. Other governments behaved exactly the same. They knew very well what is coming and still kept flow of goods and people. They are just as guilty in ignoring pandemic.
Sure they did not arrest their people for "spreading panic". But that is human rights issue and is totally separate from the subject. Nobody's saying that China is the beacon of freedoms.
But sure it feels much better when one can ignore their own screw ups and pin the blame on somebody else.
Perhaps it's not clear, but i live in China and experience the result of these "politicos being who they are" first hand. This virus could and should have been stopped before it got out of Hubei. The CPC have no excuse for their ineptitude when they already went through a comparable outbreak in 2003 with SARS.
We have evidence that acting earlier was an option, because the party chief of Qianjiang (a city in Hubei) unilaterally decided to do just that. He went against the prevailing wisdom from Beijing and quarantined all coronavirus patients in that city back on January 17 - ten days after Xi Jinping claims he was on top of things and over a week before the party ordered other cities in Hubei (including the epicenter of Wuhan) to lockdown. Qianjiang is now the only city in Hubei that has lifted their lockdown, and infections have been an order of magnitude less than other cities in the province.
And that's only one case that Caixin was allowed to report on. If we had a free press here maybe we'd hear more about the abject failure of party leadership to follow the advice of specialists, but unfortunately we do not.
However, that is beside the point. The point is, this outbreak was grossly mismanaged by the CPC, and now the entire world is suffering. No matter how many lavish gifts wealthy party members bestow upon the rest of the world, it's important that we do not forget how this crisis started and who was responsible for it. Otherwise, how will we learn to avoid the next one?
"it's important that we do not forget how this crisis started and who was responsible for it. Otherwise, how will we learn to avoid the next one?"
Here is the divine revelation - it had started in China. How will it help you when it starts in China or elsewhere next time?
And again you've completely ignored the fact that the rest of the world was happily ignoring all dangers and kept borders opened for goods and people without any testing.
As for starting first: I guess we could blame first human for all our problems. Guilty party is found, the case closed shut
Please try to understand where i am coming from. I live in China and i am concerned that our political elite, who just six weeks ago were being widely blamed for causing this outbreak, have silenced all dissent and are now pushing a new narrative that paints themselves as the heroes.
Perhaps the propaganda has not been as successful overseas, but here in China it is gaining legs. Having a proud party member donate gifts to foreign countries is very much a part of changing the narrative on this crisis. The government here is allowing the conspiracy theory to spread that the origins of the virus were foreign, and that it was all just a stroke of bad luck that Wuhan got hit first. But - never fear - Xi Jinping rode in to save the day! This is an extremely damaging take on what happened. Whether you support the one-party state or not, it bodes poorly for the future of China to have leaders who cannot accept responsibility for their mistakes.
The CPC had the opportunity to learn from SARS, and it appears they did not. They now have an opportunity to learn from COVID-19, but if the story is twisted in such a way that people only remember the great success of Xi and the great magnanimity of people like Jack Ma, then that will not happen.
It can be a political move and be sent to many other countries as well. That makes it more subtle. Jack Ma is really just a CCP puppet, this is a blatant political move. The US doesn’t even need test kits right now!
Because thats what matters to you? Were europeans sending aid to China a power move? It’s acceptable to send aid to each other, no matter who you appear to represent.
The EU sending aid is definitely a political flex. It is still a good gesture, but sending aid is a sign that a country is in a 'superior' position.
Jack Ma doing this is also a political move. I'm sure that part of the motivation is just to help, but it seems clear to me that this is also intended to show that China is in a position to help the US, and the optics of that are that the countries are on equal footing. Remember, China as a country does have a bit of a complex about their status, which is completely understandable considering the rapid changes they have been through. This aid shows that, rather than being a 2nd-class citizen, the country is in a position to help America with something.
That being said, this is a great thing, these are much needed supplies for which there isn't a large domestic manufacturing capacity (as it was offshore). However charitable acts can also have additional political motivations, and that does seem to be a factor here.
> The EU sending aid is definitely a political flex. It is still a good gesture, but sending aid is a sign that a country is in a 'superior' position.
When countries from around the world sent urban SAR specialists to Christchurch following the earthquake, was that a signal that, say, Taiwan, thinks they're superior?
When we send our victim identification specialists or rural firefighter volunteers to countries that need them, is that flexing? Or is it just, I dunno, countries helping each other?
In the case of COVID 19 testing and preparation China today is undoubtedly in a much superior position.
You can even ignore how badly the US government has bungled it. The simple reason is that China is the second largest economy in the world and has had more time to deal with and tackle the virus.
The problem is that the US federal government has so thoroughly messed up the situation that this looks really bad. If the US government hadn’t done such a bad job of testing this donation may have maybe added 50% or doubled the number of available tests and it would simply look like a generous donation, rather than also shining light on the embarrassing US response.
America has the yugest complex around; with Biden as the frontrunner we now have two old men running for the president, both trying to Make America Great Again, only slightly disagreeing on the methods and period of time we have to go back to recover our greatest Great-ness.
That's why when Cuba is struck with a hurricane, they reject American aid [1], despite being a relatively poor country who could obviously benefit from it.
China appear to be making special efforts to send whatever they can to Italy, in recognition of Italy going above and beyond in the aftermath of the 2008 Sichuan 'quake.
For all that's going wrong lately, it's not a bad thing to see, I think.
There is no "appear". China's capitalist leaders are in the pocket of the CCP, whether they want to be or not.
I'm not saying it's unacceptable, I'm saying that China and the U.S. are direct rivals in a way that China and Europe are not, and that it will appear a certain way to the world, and that the way it appears will be advantageous to the CCP.
No one needs to paint a picture of our institutions struggling to the world... we've been doing a fine job of that ourselves. Had a U.S. company made the same gesture to another country, our media would be covering it as humanitarian aid or building goodwill. The fact is that we currently have an inadequate supply of masks and test kits so I think an appropriate response would be 'thank you' regardless of any potentially less than altruistic motives.
Sure, but there's no way one of their billionaires would be allowed to take an action like this without discussing it with the CCP first. For all we know it was their idea.
I'm not saying it's evil or that we shouldn't accept it, I'm just observing the optics and the fact that there's no way the CCP didn't consider it from this perspective beforehand, regardless of any other motives.
For whatever reason, the US lacks the ability and/or the capability of responding effectively to this crisis.
The assistance is valuable and should be respected and appreciated accordingly.
And if people in the US feel uncomfortable about what this assistance implies about the US -- well, there will be time to consider why that is so and what can be done about it at a future date.
Be that as it may, we should accept, and thank him for it. This is not the time for dick measuring contests, and our institutions that were supposed to deal with this (CDC/FDA) have objectively failed.
The right of free transit have been denied in every country with enough infections, why would you particularly demonize China for it? You are in quarantine, you cannot leave, period.
The drones seem if anything quite a lot less privacy-intruding than other possible measures, assuming they're just wandering around looking for people without masks. It would be embarrassing to be on the receiving end but with no real lasting effect or privacy loss, which is ultimately a pretty ideal result on a societal level.
US ability to make and distribute medicine and medical supplies is falling apart and it’s a direct result of consolidation of supply chain and factories that make it. 4 power buyers buys control over 90% of generic drug for US. And probably similar percent for medical equipments.
Good news is that now all eyes are on the medical supply chains, and introduction of the medical supply drug act bill, we should see some supply chain move back to US.
Painting? That's the reality, The US response is a disaster that will likely surpass Italy. We have done close to nothing. Maybe he's trying to help because we are too fucking incompetent to test on our own. The question is, will the US take the help or be the too proud asshole it's always been and ignore it like they did with the WHO test?
It's concerted effort by Chinese establishment to whitewash their handling of the whole thing. They even want to pretend that the virus didn't even originate in China!
You should see what some of my Chinese relatives/friends are forwarding in WeChat-
1. CIA created the virus and released the virus in China as a test.
2. (In Chinese there's no word for 'flu', only 'cold', or 'transmissible cold'.) The 'cold' virus originated in US last year and killed more than 10k Americans before US sent special force to Wuhan to infect us Chinese! Even the head of CDC admitted it (see article).
3. A 5 member US special force went to Wuhan in November. They returned to US and all died in suspicious circumstances.
4. Now all the western countries are sending infected agents into China to blow the epidemic again.
You might notice a common theme that US is the enemy, and they are the originator of all bad things that happened to China. This is not a coincidence.
Look I know this is dumb and all. Other Chinese relatives/friends (usually oversea) are trying to combat all these fake news. But 2 things-
1. WeChat is heavily patrolled and monitored by the PRC censors. If the PRC doesn't want these rumors to circulate, these rumors would not last more than a hour (or seconds. It's very enlightening to see the sensitive terms get filtered in real time.)
In fact, in the last week or so, I've been getting more conspiracy forwards. The spread of rumors on this topic on WeChat is speeding up.
2. I don't see US' Secretary of State accusing China of intentionally creating the virus.
> If the PRC doesn't want these rumors to circulate, these rumors would not last more than a hour
Reddit tries to stop conspiracy theories with quarantines and bans. But they're rapidly spreading anyway.
> 2. I don't see US' Secretary of State accusing China of intentionally creating the virus.
It really is symmetric: Tom Cotton, Senator from Arkansas, has been on Fox saying exactly this.
Fox also has other people on saying it was a joint North Korean and Chinese bioweapon, made solely to attack America, but released initially in China as a decoy. Fox is the most watched cable news channel in America.
But in the current one, who gets on Fox seems to be a more reliable indicator of the thinking of the ruling clique than official pronouncements. Stuff that gets repeated on Fox enough tends to end up coming out of the President's mouth eventually. Official pronouncements from Secretaries of Suchandsuch get countermanded by tweet. One of the President's closest advisors broadcasts on Fox nightly.
"Blame China" is a simple message and it would not be rational to think it is not going to be tweet-official policy soon enough.
Senators are from the legislative branch and have no executive power, however. Their power stems from what they can vote on, eg what justices they can confirm. China for all effective purposes lacks an independent judicial or legislative branch, so it is difficult to compare the two governments.
Senators are within the top 100 most powerful people in the US.
Since there are exactly 100 Senators, you place every Senator over the President, the Speaker of the House, House party leaders, and all Supreme Court justices. And Oprah.
Why does every criticism of China have to have a corollary accompanying US criticism? Can we not just talk about one issue at a time instead of muddling up the waters?
In an ideal world, everyone criticizes things they know the most about and can do the most about, which is whatever is happening in their own country. When this is inverted, there is usually some ulterior psychological need and the criticism ends up not being anything genuine or actionable but a pissing contest. Anything goes in a pissing contest. Why are you surprised?
Use of the phrases like these, exemplifying the tu quoque logical fallacy, was an attempt to deflect criticism of the Soviet Union by referring to racial discrimination and lynching in the United States.
Look at it from the other angle. If you are to blame someone for doing XYZ I assume that you are sparkling clean. If however you are doing the same thing simply get lost. You have no moral right to blame someone for doing exactly the same thing you do.
It is not "Classic Chinese / Soviet tactic (TM)". It is a friggin natural sense of justice that normal people possess.
You can't just declare everything that any low-ranking Chinese bureaucrat does to be an "effort by Chinese establishment". This is nationalistic flame-bait.
For context, there's a growing number of Chinese diplomats from younger generation who want China to reciprocate the rhetoric of the current US administration. Expect a lot more ridiculous clap backs like this, especially on Twitter where Chinese diplomats have been cultivating a following since HK. This is probably a direct response to folks in US administration using Wuhan/Chinese Virus. Chinese international messaging has been predicable and fairly mellow, western MSM likes to blow it out of proportion, but looks like they're about to fully embrace post-truth twitter drama.
You do realize that the MSM and current US administration are completely at odds right? Just by using that term, MSM, would get most people flagged as a Trump supporter. The US drama is mostly internal and has little to do with China.
You do realize that's all marketing bullshit, right?
They're so at odds they agreed to give the Pentagon $100B more this year than last, in addition to loosening accounting rules so they can hide even more of their shenanigans from the taxpayer. They're so at odds that Gitmo is still open, we're still fighting in a dozen nations, we're undermining the democratic governments of several more, and they just gave the next appointed coup leader a unanimous standing ovation at the state of the union ("it's not good!") speech. They're so at odds that to contest an election with a loud-mouthed incoherent corrupt old person with shady Ukraine connections, they've chosen... a loud-mouthed incoherent corrupt old person with shady Ukraine connections.
They're so at odds that when the government decided they needed to destroy a journalist for doing journalism, for revealing to the USA voter and tax payer the evil shit done with their votes and taxes, not a single journalist anyone had ever heard of spoke up in his defense. Oh yeah, that MSM is speaking "truth to power" now. Good grief.
I really don’t think you understand how government works: the media is run by private industry and doesn’t have power to give the pentagon anything. They also don’t run Gitmo, they don’t fight wars, etc...
Yes, the American media isn’t perfect, but deriding it as “fake news” while CCTV a somehow put on a pedestal just seems really wrong. The fact is that it is at least independent of the government and doesn’t have to act in the interest in the ruling executive (and in fact, depending on who is president, there will always be plenty of media that isn’t friendly to their agenda).
The first thing authoritarians do when they gain power is to try and delegitimize the free press so they can get rid of it. That is exactly wha it is going on now, and whenever someone uses the term MSM, that is what I know their agenda is.
Re-read your Chomsky, and pay attention. You've fallen far behind. You're talking about authoritarians and the "trial-by-drone" guy left office years ago. I haven't mentioned CCTV. It is a pale imitation of the much more distracting Western news business. We are endlessly terrorized about bullshit, yet somehow nothing I mentioned above was even covered. They don't focus on the vast areas of agreement between the two faces of the status quo political party.
For all that they caterwaul about surface controversies like is it worse to arrange corrupt positions at foreign firms for one's children or is it worse to investigate such positioning, Fox and MSNBC agree about everything important to the rich bastards who own both the media and the government. For instance, China: we're told constantly by both (all) news firms to fear China. In this very thread there is evidence of a widespread derangement stemming from that constant gaslighting. ("What if the masks are pre-impregnated with virus?!%?") After all, China is an independent nation with a military! USA military-industrial complex might make a lot of money losing a war with China! They must all be evil bastards bent on destroying us! Oh but they're not as bad as Russia! Or Iran! Or Venezuela! Or some random goat enthusiasts in some desert somewhere! When the topic is a war into which we haven't yet blundered, there is unanimity in the war media. (Since you're language policing, tell me: is "war media" better or worse than "MSM" that you derided upthread? On the one hand, it's evocative and focused on the bottom line. On the other, it is one more syllable... I can't decide!)
The media tends to align on certain topics because their audience does: make no mistake, media doesn’t bias their audience, it is most definitely the other way around! Where they differ is almost universally where their audiences differ.
China is played in western media because that is the perception that their audiences want to see. It isn’t universally negative either, it just is what it is. Media reports negative stories about everyone (not just China), because negative news sells more than positive news and unlike CCTV, they have to pay the bills.
No, influence does not go in only one direction. If it did, it wouldn't go upstream! The TV news broadcasts to us, not the other way around.
In the short term, though, you're mostly right. News media firms program to increase audience engagement. Rachel Maddow didn't particularly enjoy turning her program into all-Trump-all-the-time in mid-2015, but she couldn't really help it. There was a large portion of the cable news audience that couldn't resist the frisson that came from seeing that one guy who had said mean things to people on that one TV show now saying other mean things to other people on the news. These morons would tune into to anything Trump (to some extent, they will still), and as Les Moonves observed it was "damn good" for the bottom line.
It's tempting to assume that the modern news media firm doesn't really care about which direction their product points. The particular cars that crashed don't really matter when the morons just want to see car crashes. We could hypothesize an efficient market and be smug in the sure knowledge that there are no long-term trends. Or, we could pull our heads out of our asses and actually observe the trends.
Maybe USA is so irredeemably racist that China is an easy mark for this sort of media malpractice. Somehow our racism has ignored all of sub-Saharan Africa? And somehow Israel is not only not despised, but is actually celebrated, despite the fact they are every bit as awful to Palestinians as China is to Uighurs? This is a strange reflection of common USA prejudice!
In fact, Israel purchases (often with USA tax money) large quantities of armaments from USA armaments manufacturers. The moment they stopped doing that, or alternatively the moment their rivals seemed likely to purchase even more armaments in hopes of finally destroying them, would be the moment they were seen in a very different light in USA news media. In the long run, every stupid misguided war USA or its proxies fight is preceded by a long run of news media demonization. Maybe that's just a natural thing, but I'm suspicious.
By they, I meant official Chinese diplomatic messaging - elements have started to post bellicose and post-truthy rhetoric in tit-for-tat response to current official US messaging. China is letting loose their own Pompeos and hawkish voices, mostly for domestic Chinese audiences as well. See how western MSM has manufactured anti Chinese consent over the last few years - understand that China hasn't let anti-US sentiments devolve that far via domestic censorship controls. Well signs indicate that's about to stop. It's looking like China is positioning itself to go full Trump which is dangerous as hell.
Jack Ma cannot be trusted. He swings high and low, doesn't know where the ball is. He once hit a Alibaba home run and thinks he is a hotshot. It's hard to trust Jack Ma with undertones of the CCP propaganda in this humanitarian aid.
Edit: I am not defending the United States. Just look at what our president said this afternoon. Couldn't even string a cohesive sentence together. If Jack Ma is genuine and wants to help - who knows? To me it feels like a huge power move as the OP said - it feels "correct" to me. This news is trending big time on Twitter.
National security threat is US military not owning aircraft carrier worth of medical supplies while at the same time owning multiple actual aircraft carriers.
The issue isn't "test kits". Its labs to run the tests. It seems like the CDC and state governments are addressing that. Not really sure what this is trying to solve.
Pretty sure in a couple of weeks US will need masks and other equipment. China very likely is the biggest producer of masks and as the number of new cases drops to near zero they have the extra capacity to donate to the rest of world.
There is no way the current administration is going to accept them and make the US look "weak" or "dire". Without exaggeration it's an easy guess they will sit in a warehouse unused no matter how urgent the need.
It wasn’t a language barrier issue though. And his English isn’t clumsy. It's that the actual content of what he said was ridiculous. It reminded me of the kind of BS Adam Neumann would say.
He didn't believe AI could be smarter than the smartest human (IIRC).
It's a different point of view.
You can disagree. But calling him an idiot makes you an asshole, tbh.
The interview was cringey as fuck because of his English skill. He couldn't deliver a joke properly like the joke about Alibaba Intelligence. Musk also didn't handle the joke well (not his fault.. he isn't a professional MC).
Jack Ma knows very well what is AI and all such things. You can look at Alibaba Group's hiring frenzy for AI talents as a signal.
In the end, Jack wants to be an approachable power figure to common (Chinese) people. He shows up in Alibaba's annual corp party wearing weird dresses and sing in front of 100k+ live audience. People call him the "Daddy Ma" in reference to his influence on their buying activities online.
He behaves in this fashion, which the so-called philosophy (or Daoism/Zen-like thinking) trumps the hard reasoning. That gives him an aura of an elevated figure above scientists, engineers, and alike.
The point is, powerful people listen to each other because of the power they wield. Must has to listen to Jack, because Jack can influence the Chinese government in a much more effective way than himself. If it was an actual AI expert on that stage, Must probably wont show much interests in that discussion anyway...
And what if the mask itself is already tainted with the virus? Wouldn't you want to verify that it's actually free of the virus in the first place? It is coming from China.
OMG this is so racist. The vast majority of surgical masks sold in USA in last several decades were made in China. If they were shitting on them we would have noticed. The majority of items sold in USA stores are manufactured in China. They're not intentionally infecting them before selling them to us. Chinese manufacturers sensibly shut down in the most heavily affected areas, in contrast to those in USA. The people dumb enough to look this gift horse in the mouth are all toilet paper hoarders.
Mask tainted with virus? Cmmon man, that is a tremendous stretch of likelihood. And would lead to action.
Original poster was talking about masks not meeting some specification. And I'm pretty sure most of your stuff has been coming from China for a long time.
I really am mindblown by both your, and original poster's negativity on this. The guy is almost certainly trying to help. So thanks. And I say this as someone who disapproves very strongly of the CCP.
Why not spend a little time learning how long the virus can survive on any mask before making nonsense comment like this? It deserved a stronger rebuke than "cmmon man" since it's wasting everyone's time.
So if you notice, you literally defended someone's "cmmon man" argument as NOT a waste of everyone's time. How about you think about this, for a second, hmm?
Studies as of now suggest that the virus can last for 3 days on a surface. So if you ship fly them over here from China, say a half a day flight, you have a good 2.5 days to potentially accidentally infect people.
No, at this point you get a "relax, Nancy". No step in the process of manufacturing surgical masks involves anyone breathing on a mask; they have machines. Masks are never shipped by air; they're too bulky. Even items that are shipped by air take several days on the ground to be shipped from factories and to end users. Your innate fear of Chinese people has sent you off the deep end.
Bulky non-perishable packaged manufactured goods are not shipped by air! It would add quite a bit to the cost of this gesture to rent out three 747s for shipping it.
This is pointless. If the fastest shipping method available took a month, you'd be imagining crafty sick Chinese people stowed away, breathing on the masks for the entire journey. You have a sickness, but it may not be COVID-19...
You realize that there are countries that are in complete lockdown, right? These are not normal, but very serious times. If all a country had to do was pay for the use of 3 full 747s, for a mere 12 hour flight, to get a solution to save countless lives .. sounds logical to me that they'd expedite the delivery.
Due to the fact that is a very serious, urgent, global pandemic. <-- re-read the last four words in that sentence, but slowly.
It blows my mind that during this global crisis, you think that it would take a whole month just to transport life saving medical / health equipment. We're not talking about shipping handbag accessories on Amazon's third party marketplace here, Nancy.
As suggested by others, you do have a sick mind. Why don't you simply propose that people just quarantine the masks in a stock room for 72 hours instead?
It's not a refutation of logic though because you didn't provide any. It's simply scoffing at your ridiculous level of suspicion. You aren't being pragmatic. There is a different term for what you are being.
I've said it repeatedly, but I'll say it again. Here's the logic for you to refute.
1. Mask / test kit made in China.
2. Presumably, it came in contact with the hands of the people making it, in China.
3. If any of those people making the masks and test kits were infected, then there's a chance that the virus itself will be actually sitting on the masks and test kits themselves.
[1] https://www.businessinsider.com/masayoshi-son-breaks-twitter...
No good deed goes unpunished, i guess.