I had written a comment as a response on an article titled "It’s Time for Conscious Uncoupling With China" that was written by Dan Harris and published on "The China law blog" this April 11, 2020.
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I now share this response on my blog because "The China Law Blog" censured it while in no way does it peddle fake-news, nor does it attack individuals, nor does it use foul language. It conveys an analytical sketch of the present moment in history. In other words refusing to publish it was a blatant act of censuring free speech. A screenshot of freedom made in the USA...
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I have to say that it saddens me enormously to witness the spectacle of the present Western civilizational break-down that backfires in the transformation of reality into propaganda that, in turn, crushes the sanity of individual minds and leaves them to simmer into a virtual world made of fakery.
I’m a regular reader of your blog since many years and always appreciated the rigor of the information that you share with your readers. Unfortunately since a few years already your content gradually veered towards regurgitating the propaganda of the Western powers that be. And in this present post you are letting your mental break-down completely take over your writing. I understand your point of view but I fundamentally disagree with the resulting lamentation.
I intent no offense but I have to say that your article is a symptom of the capture of your mind by the sinophobe derangement syndrome that has sized the West.
So what is this sinophobe derangement syndrome ?
I’m a regular reader of your blog since many years and always appreciated the rigor of the information that you share with your readers. Unfortunately since a few years already your content gradually veered towards regurgitating the propaganda of the Western powers that be. And in this present post you are letting your mental break-down completely take over your writing. I understand your point of view but I fundamentally disagree with the resulting lamentation.
I intent no offense but I have to say that your article is a symptom of the capture of your mind by the sinophobe derangement syndrome that has sized the West.
So what is this sinophobe derangement syndrome ?
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First let me sketch the context in which it emerged :
- The Western mindset formed over the last 2000 years of the history of Europe’s civilization which gave rise to the Christian worldview ”we = good vs the other = bad” that activated the countless genocides committed along the path of forcing Modernity on the rest of the world generally against its will.
- Today the worldview ”we = good vs the other = bad” explains why the West can’t accept the existence of any societal system of governance that is not a carbon copy of “Western democratic liberalism”.y
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Western Modernity consecrated “the reason that is at work within capital” as its core societal principal. Its success was radical, for proof, population curves went exponential. This core societal principal was why the West went on voyages of discovery which gave rise to Early Modernity in the form of “commercial capitalism” that allowed fortunes to be accumulated which later would be invested in industrial productions in order to by-pass costly imports…
- Western Modernity was shuffled down the throat of the rest of the world, over the last few hundred years, by force and intrigue. This is viewed by many students of history as having been the worse totalitarian endeavor ever of humanity.
- Having suffered from Western aggression China, which is the oldest civilization-nation in existence today, eventually came to the conclusion that it had to subscribe to “the reason that is at work within capital” in order to build up the necessary strength to avoid the death of its nation at the hands of a conquering West. In the meantime, in the seventies, western big capital was observing the plateauing of its profits and decided, as a strategy to ensure further growth, to expand its reach to the whole world. The 2 strategies appeared to be complementing each other ...
- Seen from a historical perspective China industrialized in the blink of an eye. This took Westerners by surprise. They awakened only to the reality of a changed world after Chinese high-tech enterprises started to beat their traditional Western champions. This was anathema because R&D and high-tech, from the get go of globalization, had been considered as being the reserved domain of Western activities that would ensure continuous Western economic dominance. Remember the debates in the seventies and eighties between pro and anti globalization ?
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The derangement syndrome
- The West was beaten at its own game by “the other” :
- Anger ensues :
in pure spite at losing at its own game the USA gradually goes on dismantling the institutional model of Geo-political relations that it had built up just after the 2nd World War. But dismantling this model gives rise to nationalism, protectionism, propaganda and the hardening of Western political institutions which results in the erasure of freedoms in Western societies. -
”we = good vs the other = bad” :
the West wants to affirm its exceptionalism and any deviation from its economic and political model is seen as anathema. The problem is that this is an unreasonable proposition that has no grounding in reason. -
Because of its success :
China’s system of governance attracts the attention of emerging economies which questions the validity of the exceptionalism of Western ways.
- Anger ensues :
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the epidemic of the CoronaVirus broke-out in Wuhan.
But its origin (first patient) is unknown to this day. China says that this matter should be resolved by the scientific community and not by political fiat …
The article by Andrew Sullivan that you mention was published on April 10th and in it Sullivan observes the following : “We don’t know how contagious this virus is, how exactly it may mutate, how widespread it already is in the population at large, and even if it can reactivate in those who have recovered from infection”. But this does not refrain Sullivan to criticize China for facts that are well anterior to this statement : “We still don’t know how this virus emerged — and China hasn’t given any serious explanation of its origins. … At the most critical juncture — mid-January — the WHO actually tweeted out Communist Party propaganda: “Preliminary investigations by the Chinese authorities have found no clear evidence of human-to-human transmission of the novel Coronavirus”.
Is it not hypocritical to blame China for not having supplied the world with answers within less than 10 days following the first observation of an outbreak of a pneumonia with an unknown cause while recognizing that the Int'l community has still not found the answers to these questions some 100 days later ?
In light of these citations Sullivan’s accusation, and yours by association, appear simply disingenuous to say the least which begs the question "what was the intention ? "… -
the virus was new and unknown.
it took the Chinese scientists less than two weeks from the time they observed the outbreak of “a pneumonia from unknown origin” to the time they open-sourced the genetic code of the new virus. This has been categorized by scientists the world over as having been extremely fast…
- the regime censured and punished those who sounded the alarm and lied about the true extent of the crisis :Andrew Sullivan states that “What we do know is that the regime punished and silenced those who wanted to sound the alarm as early as last December, and hid the true extent of the crisis from the rest of the world”.
As shown in 2.3. the facts on the ground paint a radically different picture than Sullivan’s description which, by the way, is the word for word script of the US State Department whose propaganda all mainstream US media are parroting nowadays.
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- Here are the facts :
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2019-12-27:
Zhang Jixian, a doctor from Hubei Provincial Hospital of Integrated Chinese and Western Medicine, informed China’s health authorities that a pneumonia with an unknown cause was taking place in a hospital in Wuhan that had admitted four individuals with pneumonia and recognized that all four had worked in the Huanan Seafood Wholesale Market. The hospital reported this occurrence to the local CDC, which lead staff to initiate a field investigation with a retrospective search for pneumonia patients potentially linked to the market. Additional patients were found linked to the market, and on December 30, health authorities from Hubei Province reported to China’s CDC. -
2019-19-30 :
Wuhan health commission notifies hospitals of a “pneumonia of unclear cause” and orders them to report any related information. Dr. Ai Fen, a top director at Wuhan Central Hospital, posts info on her private WeChat account about the new virus. Li Wenliang receives the message and re-sends it to his own private Wechat group informing his colleagues about an outbreak of SARS that infected 7 patients. His message is then re-sent on public Wechat groups which starts a chain reaction of fake-news and the risk of societal disorder. -
2019-12-31:
China’s CDC reports that a pneumonia of unknown cause had been detected in Wuhan to the WHO Country Office in China -
2020-01-01:
the Huanan seafood market is being closed down -
2020-01-02:
laboratory tests confirm 41 patients have contracted a pneumonia of unknown cause that later will be called ‘Covid19’. -
2020-01-03:
the Chinese CDC informs the director of the U.S. CDC about the outbreak of a pneumonia of unknown cause.
Dr Li is summoned by officers, from Zhongnanlu Police Station in Wuhan, who make him sign a document whereby he recognizes his "misdemeanor". These officers will later be punished for having over reacted. -
2020-01-07:the Chinese health authorities identified a new coronavirus as the cause of the outbreak of the pneumonia
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2020-01-09:
China open sources its mapping of the coronavirus genome to the world (1) and reports the first death linked to Covid-19 : A 61-year-old male in Wuhan with several underlying medical conditions. -
2020-01-14:
the WHO announces that the Chinese authorities have seen "no clear evidence of human-to-human transmission of the novel coronavirus " -
2020-01-20:
Zhong Nanshan, a top Chinese doctor who is helping to coordinate the coronavirus response, announces that the virus is transmissible from people to people. -
2010-01-21:
China’s Central Political and Legal Affairs Commission – the country’s top political body responsible for law and order – runs a commentary on its ‘Chang An Jian’ account that reads “Anyone who puts the face of politicians before the interests of the people will be the sinner of a millennium to the party and the people ”.
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2020-01-23:seen the increase to 500 confirmed cases and 17 deaths the central Government puts Wuhan and three other cities on lock-down
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- The West was beaten at its own game by “the other” :
In light of its historical context the present sinophobe derangement syndrome is understandable and it explains the virulence of the Western language about China. But understandable does not equal excusable.
Humanity has indeed reached a cross-point :
- the center of gravity of the economy-world is finalizing its shift towards East-Asia which has Beijing at its core.
2017 GDP (PPP) in billions of USD :
North East Asia = $32,514.1 (China = 23,300.78)
South East Asia = $7,386.38.
East Asia Total = 39,900.48 or 31.25% of world GDP and 206% of US GDP - the side-effects of Modernity are converging and unleashing feed-back loops among themselves whose complexity is out of human comprehension (climate change, pollution of air water and land by industrial chemistry, peek resources, soil erosion and so on... ).
Biologists and ecologists already warn us that the result of this convergence is a 6th mass extinction of life on earth that could wipe out the human species.
Conclusions :
- At this cross-road in history we observe that the West has lost its dominance on the world economy and its economic weight is bound to further decelerate in the future. Nothing can change the fact that the economic engine of the world has shifted to the territory of another civilization which has its own axioms of civilization and worldviews that are shaping a daily culture that is different in fundamental ways from Western daily culture.
The least we can say is that Western big capital holders, at this stage of history, will not let their servants, – the political decision makers – the corporate managers – the opinion leaders in civil society, destroy their future source of profits in what is growing into, by an extremely large margin, the world’s biggest consumer market.
We should thus, in all probability, soon observe a public shift in the investment preferences of Western big capital holders that will impose drastic changes in the political and ideological views that the future propaganda of the powers that be shall peddle to Western populations .… - The Western public is perceiving the increasing urgency to tackle the side-effects of Modernity and it is using ever more hard methods to gain the attention of society. It is thus crystal clear that societal responses to these problems are not so far away. The public is also clearheaded that the responses will have to be global and binding on all nations on earth. Whatever presently held ideologies might be saying about these matters the fact of the matter is that Western younger generations will very soon want to see such binding responses be implemented by an international institution having the power to sanction recalcitrant nations … Nothing is going to stop that.
In light of this changing historical context I think that presently held ideologies have to be toned down drastically in order to open up a clean level playing field for the ideas expressed by the younger generations who will soon inherit the mess left over by the boomers and Xers.
I understand that the biggest capital holders are very few and that they prefer to hide in anonymity. But they have a disproportionate power to finance the turning of Western societies that is necessary to ensure their survivability.
As a servant of capital holders (Int'l legal services) it is your duty to surf on the waves of this changing Zeitgeist by refusing to be bamboozled by the propaganda of the nationalist losers who have momentarily monopolized the political decision making process in your country
I understand that the biggest capital holders are very few and that they prefer to hide in anonymity. But they have a disproportionate power to finance the turning of Western societies that is necessary to ensure their survivability.
As a servant of capital holders (Int'l legal services) it is your duty to surf on the waves of this changing Zeitgeist by refusing to be bamboozled by the propaganda of the nationalist losers who have momentarily monopolized the political decision making process in your country
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Notes
1. GISAID (www.gisaid.org) under the accession number EPI_ISL_402119, EPI_ISL_ 402020 and EPI_ISL_402121.
