Germany is nothing like China. It's a liberal democracy. They have a large and vocal Covid-sceptic faction too. It's a country with heavily devolved power to it's regions. A Berlin court recently overruled central government on Covid restrictions.
Corona policies in Germany were nowhere as rigid as in some Eastern Asian states. And they weren't always as coherent as it may look from the outside.
I hear what you’re saying, but at some point, personal freedoms might not have to be the paramount consideration. We could be on the cusp of an existential crisis that demands a different take on things & that take might mean that some further personal liberties are suspended than they are.
Disagree largely, although personal freedom is of course the sacrifice. Look at things like the NHS, every time a new government comes into power from the other party, the NHS funding and policymaking changes to reflect that parties ideology. New schemes are started and then abandoned, staff levels are increased or decreased not based on pure efficiency but on political positioning. It's all wildly inefficient.
Yeah, and the idea that western people don't have the same mindset is delusional really. It was only really halfway through the last century with the shock-waves of several huge wars in succession that a proportion (and still a minority in reality) of people started to rebel against the concept of obedience to the state. Even then all they did was replace leadership by politicians with leadership by whatever public figure ended up appealing to them, which is exactly why we keep hearing musicians, actors and 'influencers' getting asked for and sharing their political opinions. We literally have a situation where the political opinions of Kim Kardashian or Cardi B carry more weight than those of the world's leading economists or healthcare experts.
Corona isn't a conspiracy, the more you break the chain of spread the better you fare. It's a fair virus regardless of nation's ideology. I fail to see how a nation's ideology has any bearings on COVID protocols, It doesn't have to be.
More like from the second half of the 18th century.
The Chinese revolution increased standards of living greatly and thus for the average chinese person it is a much easier trade-off. Better life for conceding some freedoms. In Iran (and many other authoritarian regimes) the trade-off is freedoms for nothing. Most times it is a double negative in the sense that with less freedoms you also get less economical benefits because the leaders' aim is not to enrich the economy and create a sustainable environment (which China aims for, too).
The trade-offs were repaid decades after the revolution. So the concessions were in the absence of any immediate benefits, same as you got in other revolutions all over the developing world.
That's what happens when you build trust into the people's minds. They trust their leaders to be doing the right thing for them (in general) and the nation, and thus are accepting the concession of freedoms.
If covid happened under Obama the republicans and fox news would still have created division. You'd have had the same arguments but hopefully less impact without the orange one.
Aus isn't coping well with Covid compared to NZ.
Interesting observation, including the difference you noted. Maybe a closer comparison would then be the sentiment inside the societies of the Warsaw Pact, about 10 years from their demise. Which I understand more as a reflection of the failures of their own societies than realistic expectations about a post-system-change future. (The same goes for any current appeal of Chinese authoritarianism, really.)
I don't think that's a realistic possibility anyway. Any Western authoritarianism of the future will be a genuinely Western one. (*) A look at 20th century history shows why intact identity wouldn't be much of a remedy in such a scenario.
Quotng my own post, but -
They're just humans, like humans everywhere else in the world. They're ruled by a leader (either via fates, monarch, judges, warlords etc). They're never rebelling about being controlled / led but they will rebel if their leader treats them like shit. England is a monarch, they're never rebelling against the king, they're only rebelling against a bad king. If you treat them well, they'll obey and pay taxes. If you dont at one point they'll rise and revolt.
It certainly helps, but I'm not sure it relies on it. There was speculation long before the pandemic that a collectivist society under authoritarian leadership would respond to a crisis like this more effectively, and questions about whether that also maps onto some other existential threats on the horizon. The evidence so far just adds a bit of meat to that discussion, but of course there's good reason to question the data.
I'm not even sure that is the reason for success. Hong Kongers hate their government, but followed the instructions because they made sense.
It's possible, but remember this is an very authoritarian state. They could just as well create the perception of normality as part of a propaganda campaign.
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too big, too many foreigners and foreign journalists living there, too much communication and trade outside. this isnt DPRK or even 70s USSR. they can cover up, say, an industrial accident or slower-than-expected growth, but not create a "perception of normality." the video in the OP has many thousands of people.
Yes? Those are probably the terms used in the media. The reference to how much he is helping the economy by spending on hotels and street food in Wuhan is also the obsession of the media - every holiday is reported as YoY changes in shopping, hotel, and travel expenditure. I know some people (far from Wuhan) who went through (and disliked) weeks of very strict lockdown and are now back to their usual work. Even in the covid thread here people whose families/friends are in China have posted about it."Wuhan is probably the safest place"
"It's a hero city"
Sounds genuine to me.
Most of this seems pretty misinformed. There was little the Chinese could have done to "warn us" faster. Their "repression" of doctors is a very dubious thing. The most noteworthy case certainly wasn't repressed in the way most people in the west think. He was essentially a poorly-informed whistleblower rushing ahead. Not wise in public health emergencies, whether they're happening in China or Liberalandia. You really want to know what you're talking about before you go public. Told to quiet down by some local bureaucrat, returned to work and died as free as any chinese can be.
That was a contribution, but my guess is that a far bigger reason is that in Covid control it's more important to act soon than to act strong. They did both. Countries who just did the former also did quite well.
Vague enough to prevent a rambling essay from me. Well done.
As the first country to get it they may have acted fairly quickly, but they still reached a case load more akin to a slow acting country like the UK (10s of thousands in the early months)
Hear, hear! You've got a unique viewpoint with your UK background (I think) living in the states as an officer of the court. Curious what your views are on US govt and constitution.
Yes, definitely.
Lack of resources/Wealth gap etc.
They do hate their government, but it's bred into them to follow rules. They hate the people in power but they still defer to the institution of government. It's a totally different mindset to the West, the US and UK in particular. I could never see the West being able to do what they do.
