“China knows it is in a strategic battle with the West; it is time we realised this basic fact, too. Using their comparative advantage of getting through the virus first, Beijing is pursuing its geostrategic interests via ‘mask diplomacy’, soft power, trying to change the basic narrative by offering hard-hit countries medical supplies, both as a showy humanitarian gesture and as a sign of their system’s supposed superiority. Leaving aside that these supplies must be paid for and some are defective, the whole exercise feels like an arsonist expecting gratitude for providing their victim with a watering can.”
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Samizdata quote of the dayApril 17th, 2020 |
 21 comments to Samizdata quote of the day |
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I would also include China’s efforts to buy controlling interests in strategic Western industries roiled by depressed stock markets and shuttered economies.
I’d venture to say that China’s PR war, waged so successfully over the last decade, has taken a huge hit from this episode. Three months ago, it was Raysist to suggest that China’s motivations and actions ought to be scrutinized. Now, polite conversation continues even after mentioning this.
Even (some) Canadians are starting to question why its national government seems so beholden. This surprises me, as I was fully expecting to see my neighbor to the north become a satellite nation within the decade.
A loss to comedy!
Wuhan has got through it (allegedly). Do you honestly think that it hasn’t spread to the other provinces?
Also while they got through it early, they did so at dreadful cost economically early on. And now that their clothes and toy factories are open again, their markets are all closed.
The biggest loser in this affair will be China, by quite some margin. It has lost face politically, both inside and outside the country. Some of its lackeys, like the WHO, have outed themselves. Foreign companies will start to prefer Vietnam etc as more reliable bases to operate from. Some of those companies stupid enough to have IP being taken by China might decide that it isn’t for the best.
Even (some) Canadians are starting to question why its national government seems so beholden
An up close view of death, disease and mass unemployment has a way of waking people up.
Turns out we are living in interesting times. For China most of all I suspect.
Another great leap backwards?
There’s no harm done to Red China in the UK as of yet, Red China is still building a nuclear reactor with guaranteed price support in the UK market, fleecing British people to pay for the ‘risk’. Red China is ensconced in our 5G telecoms system, via Huawei, despite the ‘valiant’ crackpots burning down the odd mobile phone mast in a criminal attempt to prevent the Covid-19 outbreak. The May-Johnson axis has seen to these advances. And our borders are still open to anyone from Red China, if they can find a flight.
The arsonist’s victims are the British people (and others, including the Chinese people). The accomplice here is the British government, grabbing the petrol cans as the fires consume freedom and prosperity.
That is true as regards formal and voted matters, but in the present state of frozen caretaker haste I’m not sure it is diagnostic. When Boris, who has been given time and reason to think, resumes the reins, we will see if the reports of cabinet awakening to China’s perfidy and danger have any actual content. Niall ever-the-optimist Kilmartin plans to judge what happens then, not the business-as-unsupervised-usual now, as the experimentum crucis.
Mr Ed: “Red China is still building a nuclear reactor with guaranteed price support in the UK market, fleecing British people to pay for the ‘risk’. ”
Britain built its own nuclear program in the ’50s. Why cant’t the government do the same today? Rolls Royce must be being crucified by the
down turndestruction ofinthe aviation industry. So it might benefit from turning its technological abilities to a modern safe (preferably) reactor construction program.The reality is that China’s foreign adventures consist of OBOR, investments, aid, etc., and the US/EU/NATO adventures consist of wars, death, destruction. China has seized the moral high ground, and it is winning the soft power war.
PS. It would also win the hard power war, especially if Russia joined in.
Vintage Bob. China has just experienced the global PR equivalent of a dozen Chernobyl reactor explosions & Bob thinks they have the moral high ground & are winning the soft power war 😆
A Paper Tiger & a Paper Bear respectively.
Before all this blew up China was not popular in Africa anyway. I think it was on this very blog that somebody pointed out that several African countries now have single issue parties –like UKIP–with the single issue being “Chinese out of Africa”.
The CCP habit–as in Italy –of importing Chinese to do all the jobs their various projects create–all the non-menial ones anyway–and leaving little for the locals has not helped.Combined with their sense of innate “middle kingdom” superiority which the Party faithful installed in Africa rarely bother to conceal.
Mr Ed: Hey, free trade, amirite? If a CCP-controlled Chinese company is the low-cost solution to building things like nuclear reactors, critical national telecommunications infrastructure, even weapons systems and power grids, then our RealLibertarian™ credentials demand that we choose them to do it … for teh freedumz.
“Hey, free trade, amirite?”
It depends on what your requirements are. You have x billion pounds to spend. With that, you can either buy three quarters of a nuclear reactor from British suppliers, or five nuclear reactors from a Chinese supplier. On the one hand, the British supplier does give you more assurance about continued supply and quality in case of a conflict with China. But on the other hand you get less reactor for your money.
If those other factors mean that three quarters of a British reactor is still better than five Chinese reactors, then the free market has no problem with you buying British. You’re getting ‘more’ for your money, by some measure. That makes you richer, by whatever measure you’re using that counts more than pure reactor/£.
But the decision has to be based on the *actual* value of *actual* requirements, not on ignorance, vengeance, paranoia, nationalism, jingoism, politics, or protectionism. The lesson of free markets is that total self-reliance costs more. It costs more money, is less resilient to damage, is more likely to have problems with shortages, is more volatile and unstable, and requires larger buffers and safety margins to be maintained to guarantee supply. It’s much more expensive, and buying the most expensive goods generally makes society poorer. So there has to be a damn good reason to override all that.
Besides the economics, though, there are the strategic considerations. The long-term aim is to convert China to capitalism. To lock them into mutual interdependence with us on the global trading network. If they’re independent and self-reliant, they can fight us without negative consequences, (and will be more motivated to do so by the resulting poverty). If we can make them as dependent on us as we are on them, if we can convince them that trade is the route to their prosperity and survival, neither side is going to attack the other side, because that would be suicide. More carrot, less stick. Walls and barriers to trade, on either side, make that harder.
“The CCP habit–as in Italy –of importing Chinese to do all the jobs their various projects create–all the non-menial ones anyway–and leaving little for the locals has not helped.Combined with their sense of innate “middle kingdom” superiority which the Party faithful installed in Africa rarely bother to conceal.”
That sounds a lot like what they said about the British Empire. 🙂
NiV:
I understand you were making a point. But who would buy 3/4 of a reactor for £1bn? I don’t think there is much call even in the ‘free market’ for £1bn and a non functional reactor. But if you were to pay £1.25bn and get one functional British reactor, or six Chinese nuclear reactors – I’d be wondering good and hard about the quality of the Chinese materials. The damn things are going to explode in my back yard, not somewhere in outer Mongolia.
NiV:
Actual = realised in the present.
But there is a future consideration to be made. Does Britain wish to divest itself of grubby high technology industrial capability – actually making useful stuff or would you prefer to pass pretty bits of useless paper around in an ever decreasing circle jerk. The indications so far, British politicians prefer the latter.
I’d prefer to spend £56 billion on a couple of nuclear power plants, than a train running on 200 year old technology that’s supposed to shave 20 minutes of the London to Birmingham trip time. That eventually may not have enough energy to drive it.
Classic, spend to make.
Building a up a decent British industrial capability is worth it. Freeing ourselves of the Middle East is worth it.
Given we already make mini nukes for our own subs, why not build on existing knowledge.
After Covid 19, China has proven publicly it can’t be trusted with either 5G or Nuclear power……
“I’d be wondering good and hard about the quality of the Chinese materials. The damn things are going to explode in my back yard, not somewhere in outer Mongolia.”
Measures to check/ensure quality are part of any contract – and anything nuclear is especially tightly regulated. Nuclear power is generally a lot safer than other forms of power generation – much of the concern is Environmentalist nutterism. Also, I’ve an idea that a lot of the materials and workers are provided locally by British companies sub-contracting to the Chinese.
“Actual = realised in the present.”
And the future, discounted for time and risk.
“Does Britain wish to divest itself of grubby high technology industrial capability – actually making useful stuff”
No, of course not. But we do want to concentrate on those things we do best. If you want to keep a high technology industrial capability, then you have to put in the effort to make it better than the competition. It’s no use tolerating third-best just because it’s British. Do it better and more efficiently than anyone else, and you can keep it. If you can’t do it better, then transfer the resources to some other area of industry where we can.
If the free market buys British rather than Chinese because the British version is cheaper and better, then that’s great! That’s exactly what we want. That’s how we keep technology moving forwards, how we stay ahead of the rest of the world. It’s exactly how we got to be a world power in the first place. But we do *not* want to waste resources propping up the losers, just because they’re British. If you’ve got a plan to make the British technology the best and cheapest, then I’ll support you fully. If your idea is not to improve our offering so it can compete, but to give it the prize anyway just because of its ethnicity, then you’re doing the economic equivalent of “affirmative action”.
If black kids do worse at school, then you can take action to help them do better, and pass the exams honestly. That’s fine. But if you start lowering the pass mark just because they’re black, and do nothing to improve their actual skills, that’s a recipe for life-long failure when they get out into the real world. Skills are what matter, not marks. Affirmative action and comforting but empty lies to ‘boost their self-confidence’ has done far more to destroy the prospects of black kids than any racism. It seems like you’re helping, to the naive, but you’re not.
Lions and gazelles are so fast because those that are not either starve or get eaten. Gazelles are some of the best runners in the world because they have to be. Dodos are not, because they lived on an isolated island with no predators. Protection from competition makes you into a dodo.
NiV:
Typical revisionist perspective.
What really happened was that the liberal faction of the Dodo society urged no action be taken about the incomers who just wanted to eat their eggs. It was a matter of not understanding them, sure in the knowledge the incomers only needed counselling, free education and medical care, preferential nest allocation to assist them to integrate into a civilised peaceful Dodo society, were all Dodos’ just ‘got along’ for the benefit of the greater Dodo Society.
Pretty soon the incomers found they liked Dodo meat too, and slowly but surely, the Dodo society first retreated from its former population centres, into the country side, then found it simply wasn’t safe to go into town for a day out shopping.
There was a faction of Dodo Society that objected to the invasion, but they were subverted by the vocal faction that simply call racist on any suggestion that the Dodo should organise and counter the invaders who stole their eggs and harried them in their own home.
But at least we both agree: Don’t be the Dodo.
We’ve been fed this neoliberal crap for thirty years that China will become more western and more friendly to the west if we trade more with it, let their state backed companies take over many western companies, remove barriers to trade with them (while they keep their barriers up), let them in the WTO, let their students study high tech related degrees at top western universities etc. It’s not achieved anything of the sort really. It’s made the west far too dependent on China, and vastly strengthened China’s military and economic power at the west’s expense. Their government is still highly oppressive, secretive and hostile. Yes the world has got more interdependent, however that interdependence is increasingly feeling like it’s compromised our freedom and autonomy. And trade and interdependency doesn’t prevent war. Wilhelmine Germany and Edwardian Britain were big trading partners on the eve of World War I. The former was largely as capitalistic as the latter at the time too. Didn’t stop the two going to war.
I have a modest proposal: those who favour, or receive any direct monetary benefit from, any accommodation at all with Red China whatsoever are granted it, provided that they go on the live organ donor register and as and when a match is found after their compulsory testing, they have the organ in question removed for the recipient. Call it The Falung Gong Act 2020.
The People’s Republic of China Communist Party Dictatorship could not win without its network of de facto allies – some of whom pretend to be enemies of the dictatorship.
The Economist magazine is an obvious example – it is always careful to present itself as an enemy of the PRC Dictatorship. But it is not.
It will never support an end to the drain of money to the PRC (which has nothing to do with Free Trade as Adam Smith or the other economists understood the term – they did NOT mean endless BORROWING to pay for CONSUMPTION) – and the Economist magazine ends its “anti” PRC articles like this…..
“A lot of this is the fault of Mr Trump”.
By “this” they mean the failure to go along with the World “Governance” Agenda (an agenda that the PRC dictatorship is very happy with – as the international organisations are its puppets).
And “Mr Trump” – not President Trump, “Mr”.
With “allies” like the Economist magazine who needs enemies?
God damn the international “liberal” elite, God damn them to Hell.
Stefan Molyneux points this out: