current developments in China and some geo-political aspects, reflected in reporting of Western mass media <\/p>\n\n\n\n
a personal intervention by Peter Herrmann<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Obviously, it is difficult to assess from outside the situation of anti-Corvid policies in China[1]<\/sup><\/a> as it is equally difficult to develop an unbiased approach to the current polity and policy developments abroad. With this wording it should be already clear that one of the major problems is given by the fact of confusing different issues and establishing this way a melting pot that can only be regarded as anti-Chinese chivvy. In other words, in order to properly assess reports on China, it is important to distinguish clearly between the different issues. I propose that a distinction between at least the following elements is crucial:<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u2013 The following aims on objectively classifying what is going on, i.e. the background of the current media coverage; in other words: it is not seen from what is reported, but instead looking at the reasoning behind the reporting itself.<\/p>\n\n\n\n It is probably fair enough to say that any decision taken and any action undertaken is at least in danger of being wrong \u2013 the problem is that decisions have to be taken in the light of uncertainty. While there are good reasons in favour of relaxation of strict policies of containment, the development in several countries give evidence of the fact that relaxation is also in danger of profound dysplasia: The reoccurrence of the virus, the danger of serious and life-threatening courses of the disease and the overstretching of capacities. While the Chinese strategy applies radical restrictions, the common presentation of a total lock-down is simply not true. Referring to some indeed heart-breaking examples and generalising them is surely misleading, as it is highly problematic to de-contextualise them. More interesting is a look at the concrete circumstances, e.g. when and why and how infected children are taken from their parents\u2044mothers. The same is true when it comes to the fire in Xinjiang, killing 10 people[2]<\/sup><\/a>: While this is tragic, it is not certain if access of security staff and the fire brigade had been hindered by the Corvid policy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Little is said about public health \u2013 and such silence is increasing. While in the beginning of the pandemics the Chinese policies had been frequently celebrated as success in respect of maintaining public health, this disappeared by now. One exception: Chinese health facilities facing now difficulties, supposedly due to the rejection of Western vaccines. While difficulties should not be denied, it is important to clearly define them, also putting them into the wider context: in China we are dealing with an \u2013 in principle \u2013 public system, whereas we are in the west dealing with a private system, i.e. financing, provision and perception by users being a matter of profitability. The problems, though in some instances possibly the same on the level of appearance, are essentially different. This is not only an economic problem; a different philosophical understanding of human beings and responsibility is also concerned. Blaming China for difficulties with reference to the non-acknowledgement of Western vaccines is at least a strange move (i) after China sent huge amounts of vaccines abroad and (ii) while Chinese vaccines are not recognised in the West. Is it completely absurd to assume that it may be a matter of economic interests by some pharmaceutical companies? However, it would be interesting to investigate the vaccination rate \u2013 according to reports it is not as high as one would expect after the high take-up rate in the beginning.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Latest with the 14th<\/sup> Five-Year Plan (2021-2025) for National Economic and Social Development we see the official commitment<\/p>\n\n\n\n to a people-centered approach. We must ensure the principal position of the people, and work towards common prosperity. We must insist that our development is for the people and depends on the people, and that its fruits are shared by the people. We must safeguard the fundamental interests of the people, stimulate their enthusiasm, initiative, and creativity, promote social equity, improve people\u2019s wellbeing, and constantly help realize people\u2019s aspiration for a better life.[3]<\/strong><\/sup><\/a><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n While it is generally, i.e. in many reflections on current mass protest movements, stated that they are an expression of unwillingness to accept further lock-down policies, some fine-tuning is required. Lock-down measures are certainly affecting people of all strands in life, probably in most serious ways workers; however, the protests are apparently originating from different strata:<\/p>\n\n\n\n People from different social backgrounds\u2014university students, migrant labourers and wealthy city-dwellers[4]<\/strong><\/sup><\/a><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n Indeed, one of the problems arises actually from the shift of orienting production: from the orientation on export industries to the new orientation on producing for the old population. The paradoxes that the emerging middle class \u2013 something that did not exist as such in previous years \u2013 developed and further develops in a very brief a period of time, while the new structure is likely causing fundamental socio-psychological changes. In this light, the protests are indeed not so much about the corvid strategy as such; instead, it seems to be a bourgeois movement within a communist setting[5]<\/sup><\/a> and thus in several respects counterrevolutionary or conservative. Therefore, it is not by surprise that not least Western conservative forces are taking up reporting, suggesting that the groups in question claim democratic rights, opposing oppression. The wider discussion cannot be undertaken here. But something can and has to be done: rejecting the claim that such reports are unbiased.<\/p>\n\n\n\n On the contrary, the media are publishing reports on various topics, not without contradictions, overall aiming on questioning China\u2019s integrity. Even in case we follow for the sake of the argument the thesis of a principal decline, it remains an analytical task to be clear about what is behind such suggested development. Indeed, it is again and again stated that (i) only a small number of \u2013 more middle-class \u2013 people is actively protesting and (ii) that they represent social strata that are in particular ways effected by the new economic policies: after having been more or less the predominant winners of the economic development after the reforms under Deng Xiaoping, they are now in danger of becoming relative losers, competing with the new middle class, and also loosing directly the privileges.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Whereas the protests are in multiple ways more complex than being just about discomfort with the Zero-Corvid strategy, and surely deserve \u201ccritical attention\u201d in the sense of considering that they raise issues in need of being addressed, the reports in Western media are also \u2026, well in fact they may be under-complex, a way of picking up on scattered pieces of information, welding them in an eclectic way together under a heading of anti-Chinese confrontation and defence of an idealised Western supremacy. In The Economist we read about<\/p>\n\n\n\n Xi\u2019s ideology and motivations: a deep fear of subversion, hostility toward the United States, sympathy with Russia, a desire to unify mainland China and Taiwan, and, above all, confidence in the ultimate victory of communism over the capitalist West. The end state he is pursuing requires the remaking of global governance.[6]<\/strong><\/sup><\/a><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n Couldn\u2019t we say \u2013 cum grano salis \u2013 something similar about the ideology of American presidents from Adams to Wilson \u2013 ALL having been convinced and outspoken about the greatness of America \u2026; only few words are need of being changed while some corrections of historical perspectives need to be addressed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n One of the historical contortions is concerned with one of the suggested ways<\/p>\n\n\n\n to constrain and temper Xi\u2019s aspirations now\u2014through coordinated military deterrence and through strict limits on China\u2019s access to technology, capital, and data controlled by the United States and its allies\u2014rather than wait until he has taken fateful and irrevocable steps, such as attacking Taiwan, that would lead to a superpower conflict.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n Doesn\u2019t this show what the reporting is really about? Even without engaging in the \u201cTaiwanese question\u201d one has to ask why Chinese engagement in Taiwan would be reason for a \u201csuperpower conflict\u201d while the world is asked to accept the US-occupation of part of Cuba (Guantanamo Bay) and the invasion in Iraq, although the UN-Security Council stood in opposition. Stating this is not about a Tit-for-Tat-view; rather, it is mentioned in order to show the actual background and direction of the reports \u2013 statements made in order to<\/p>\n\n\n\n sustain Chinese dependence on the rest of the industrialized world<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n as it is openly stated.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Reading then that<\/p>\n\n\n\n TikTok and other content apps based in China or owned by Chinese firms represent potentially powerful instruments for censorship and mass manipulation; Washington should ban their use,<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n one sees a surely serious problem addressed \u2013 mistakenly directed against Chinese firms while the actual challenge is about the private sector taking hold of media that are carriers of public opinion.<\/p>\n\n\n\n It is surely remarkable that the reports about movements in China \u2013 these are supposedly the main reference of the article in question \u2013 are answered by military threats:<\/p>\n\n\n\n The contest between democracies and China will increasingly turn on the balance of dependence; whichever side depends least on the other will have the advantage. Reducing Washington\u2019s dependence, and increasing Beijing\u2019s, can help constrain Xi\u2019s appetite for risk. When coupled with U.S. cooperation with Australia, Japan, and Taiwan to field an unmistakably superior and well-coordinated military presence in the western Pacific, constrainment offers the best way to prevent the \u201cstormy seas of a major test\u201d that Xi seems tempted to undertake as he begins his second decade as China\u2019s dictator.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n Not least, all this must be seen against the background of another structural-cyclical crisis looming around the corner of Western economies.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Considering this as background, we may now start to think seriously about the movements and also some of the reports: \u2022 the changing scope of protests; \u2022 the problems (also problems of legitimacy) of a political leadership facing a catch-22-situation; \u2022 the not least psycho-social tension emerging from a private-market economy, interwoven with complex causal interrelations (as for instance the specific backlog after overcoming poverty, the emergence of a new middle-class \u2026) and social(ist) principles and requirements; \u2022 the difficulties and tensions emerging from globalisation, not least including the hostility linked to the Western claim of supremacy, strengthened by the fact that China developed quickly from a \u201cdeveloping\u201d country to a threshold country, moving quickly further to a \u201cdeveloped country\u201d; \u2022 the difficulties stemming from the linkage of communism and capitalism.<\/p>\n\n\n\n [1]<\/sup><\/a> Leaving the fact aside that looking at a country of such seize and diversity must remain incomplete.<\/p>\n\n\n\n [2]<\/sup><\/a> Some reports speak of 9, others of \u2018at least 10\u2019, though it does not matter \u2013 of course, every lost life is one too much.<\/p>\n\n\n\n [3]<\/sup><\/a> Outline of the 14th<\/sup> Five-Year Plan (2021-2025) for National Economic and Social Development and Vision 2035 of the People’s Republic of China; http:\/\/www.fujian.gov.cn\/english\/news\/202108\/t20210809_5665713.htm; 01\/12\/22<\/p>\n\n\n\n [4]<\/sup><\/a> The protests in China may change the way Xi Jinping runs the country, says Minxin Pei; in: The Economist; https:\/\/www.economist.com\/by-invitation\/2022\/11\/30\/the-protests-in-china-may-change-the-way-xi-jinping-runs-the-country-says-minxin-pei?utm_content=article-link-8&etear=nl_today_8&utm_campaign=a.the-economist-today&utm_medium=email.internal-newsletter.np&utm_source=salesforce-marketing-cloud&utm_term=11\/30\/2022&utm_id=1406016; 01\/12\/22<\/p>\n\n\n\n [5]<\/sup><\/a> Leaving here the understanding of bourgeois and communist aside<\/p>\n\n\n\n [6]<\/sup><\/a> Pottinger, Matt\/Johnson, Matthew\/Feith, David, November 2022: Xi Jinping in His Own Words What China\u2019s Leader Wants\u2014and How to Stop Him From Getting It; in: The Economist; https:\/\/www.foreignaffairs.com\/china\/xi-jinping-his-own-words; 04\/12\/22<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" current developments in China and some geo-political aspects, reflected in reporting of Western mass media a personal intervention by Peter Herrmann Obviously, it is difficult to assess from outside the situation of anti-Corvid policies in China[1] as it is equally difficult to develop an unbiased approach to the current polity and policy developments abroad. With this … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-387","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"post_mailing_queue_ids":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hrug.legal\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/387","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hrug.legal\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hrug.legal\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hrug.legal\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hrug.legal\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=387"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.hrug.legal\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/387\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":388,"href":"https:\/\/www.hrug.legal\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/387\/revisions\/388"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hrug.legal\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=387"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hrug.legal\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=387"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hrug.legal\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=387"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}\n
Ad 1: Fighting Corvid<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
Ad 2: Maintaining public health in general<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
Ad 3: A general shift in economic orientation\/performance and the meaning of socialism with Chinese characteristics<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
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