China’s losing the soft power war

While China avoided losing its trade war with America, it is shooting itself in the foot when it comes to the war of ideas.

China recently resumed broadcasting NBA games, after a long hiatus sparked by an obscure tweet by an official who works for the Houston Rockets.

If China had not responded, no one would have paid any attention to the tweet on Hong Kong. After their hysterical overreaction, the international news media focused even more attention on China’s crackdown in Hong Kong. Not only did China look bad for its actions in Hong Kong, now it also looked bad for trying to squelch free speech in the US. Even if China were to win a limited victory by pressuring a specific group to remain silent, they lose far more by triggering much more negative commentary by the broader international community.

China uses these tactics against many countries. In the end, the Chinese government generally caves in and ends their boycotts. But the price is a steady erosion in public support throughout the world. Polls show that the public in many countries has shifted toward a much less favorable view of China in recent years. Xi’s policy is not working.

I don’t know whether this policy was Xi Jinping’s idea, or if he was advised by people in the Chinese government. But the attempt to pressure foreign countries has backfired badly, and China is losing the soft power war.

When countries do things that are clearly not in their interest, many people look for some sort of rational explanation, some sort of sophisticated and subtle strategy at work. As I’ve gotten older, I’ve come to realize that even great power governments are not very smart. If a country is acting foolishly, the simplest explanation is that its government made a mistake.


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35 Responses to “China’s losing the soft power war”

  1. Gravatar of Skeptical Skeptical
    13. October 2020 at 15:58

    Real soft power is the size of the consumer (and for 1-3 countries the industrial goods) market. Especially with respect to export oriented economies like Germany.

    China will soon be the world’s largest consumer market and favorability polls will matter as much as they always have, absolutely none. And unlike the West the CCP will have no compunction about using market access as policy veto over the ‘non-middle’ kingdoms.

    Tl;dr the real soft power balance is the balance in market power. China is on a pointlessly long path with its SOE nonsense and rampant corruption, but on the path it remains

  2. Gravatar of ssumner ssumner
    13. October 2020 at 16:00

    Skeptical. You can define terms as you wish, but that’s not what this post is about.

  3. Gravatar of Lizard Man Lizard Man
    13. October 2020 at 16:03

    From those charts, it looks like it could just be Westerners upset about the coronavirus. Not upset in a rational way, but now whenever anyone thinks of China, they think of the virus, which is not a positive association.

  4. Gravatar of Carl Carl
    13. October 2020 at 16:51

    The recent disasters that have struck America may have been the worst thing that could have happened to China. Deng was able to muzzle the radicals even after he died because it was clear that the CCP had much to learn from the West. With America now looking completely inept, Xi is clearly feeling less constrained by the model of the West and has taken to reviving aspects of Maoism. It makes sense that China’s appeal is dropping for everyone except despots. Maoism isn’t very appealing.

  5. Gravatar of Skeptical Skeptical
    13. October 2020 at 18:23

    Scott,

    Fair enough, if you wish to define soft power as ‘favorability’ I readily and immediately concede my point.

    Link for posterity to the data so everyone can read the article: https://www.pewresearch.org/global/2020/10/06/unfavorable-views-of-china-reach-historic-highs-in-many-countries/

    Hilariously and easily predictable enough the sharp turn in favorability is all about Corona-Chan, not crushing Hong Kong nor the genocide against the Uighers. Even less about the NBA….

    China’s soft power, if so defined, has massively declined but only because of the global Corona-chan outbreak and not any of the actual sins of the CCP. To be quite honest I see this is as sour grapes – the CCP bungled the initial response but life in the mainland as per my relatives is almost completely back to normal.

    China’s soft power is declining because they’re an easy scapegoat for the incompetence of others, as it turns out no one ever actually cared about the Uighers or HKers’ desire to not live under the boot.

    Anyways the link has much more about the actual turn in opinion, which is clearly due to Corona-chan

  6. Gravatar of Cartesian Theatics Cartesian Theatics
    13. October 2020 at 18:52

    “I’ve come to realize that even great power governments are not very smart. If a country is acting foolishly, the simplest explanation is that its government made a mistake.”

    Maybe another contributing factor is the fact that power multiplies the consequences of mistakes.

    I thought this was an interesting article also arguing China’s carefully cultivated relationship with Africa may be unwinding in the wake of coronavirus:
    https://www.politico.eu/article/coronavirus-ends-chinas-honeymoon-in-africa/

    The US approach of sowing discontent and negative counter-narratives seems to still be most effective (look at Nigeria). China is still winning influence in Latin America, but I wouldn’t be surprised if that starts to falter soon as well.

  7. Gravatar of Michael M. Michael M.
    13. October 2020 at 21:21

    It’s not just one mistake, it’s one after another after another, all in the same pattern. The most recent is the controversy over Korean music group BTS; they’ve managed to lose all younger South Koreans, and for what? It’s just stupid, but because the same thing keeps happening with relations with so many countries, it’s hard to just call it an error

  8. Gravatar of Jason Jason
    13. October 2020 at 21:26

    FINALLY some good news about China! All I keep hearing is
    We’re entering a new age of human rights darkness as the 21
    Century becomes the “Chinese century.” (China is going to eat our
    Lunch… etc) It’s comforting to know that even if America has its problems, so does China!

    And China still hasn’t politically liberalized.
    In fact it’s worse than ever. Xi has tightened his grip, and is
    Actively committing a genocide against the Uighurs. So much for the false
    Promise of the past three Presidents.

  9. Gravatar of Michael M. Michael M.
    13. October 2020 at 21:47

    There’s actually a logical explanation. Imagine if the most rabid supporters of the right-wing demonstrators in Charlottesville were allowed to post their views on Facebook and see them printed in the newspapers, but if all the other views on American political issues ranging across a whole spectrum were censored all the time. You would get the same adverse selection that tilts and distorts China’s messaging toward the xiao fenhong (little pinks). President Trump has done some damage to America’s soft power but thank goodness we have freedom of speech and the wiser, gentler tone will ultimately prevail. In China’s current environment, maybe it is not the same for them and they will keep shooting themselves in the foot

  10. Gravatar of ssumner ssumner
    13. October 2020 at 21:48

    Lizard, HK and Xinjiang also play a role.

    Jason, You said:

    “It’s comforting to know that even if America has its problems, so does China!

    No, that’s not “comforting”.

    “And China still hasn’t politically liberalized.
    In fact it’s worse than ever.”

    Worse than ever? Umm, have you ever considered reading a book on Chinese history? Human rights were at least 10 times worse in the 1950s and 1960s, probably 100 times worse.

  11. Gravatar of Mark Z Mark Z
    13. October 2020 at 22:47

    I favor the constructivist take on foreign policy: that it’s largely determined by domestic politics – the values and attitudes of the electorate – not by national interest. Maybe Xi wanted the Chinese to see him as defending China’s national honor, but ultimately they got tired of not being able to watch basketball, so he relented. I think much of foreign policy is just posturing for the electorate back home.

  12. Gravatar of Christian List Christian List
    14. October 2020 at 01:45

    Scott,

    a very good post, which I can support very much. It names the two main factors Xi and Hong Kong.

    The contrast to a certain post of yours from September 2019 is stark, at that time you still talked about “anti-Chinese hysteria”, which was suppossed to come from Western politicians and Western media, hence the change of mind in the American public opinion.

    This did not make sense already back then, because Xi and Hong Kong fitted way better to the graphs, not to mention that it’s kind of weird to separate these things (it has the same root cause), not to mention that it was a worldwide phenomenon, not limited to the US. A world conspiracy against China? Of course not. It’s Xi, Xi, Xi and his strongman politics worldwide.

    Your change of mind really has to be praised. One has to consider the strong contrast again, alleged “anti-Chinese hysteria” in September 2019, but now in 2020, first your assessment that the CCP is a fascist regime. And now in October 2020 this post. GOOD! I really like it. It has become a rather rare gift that someone adapts his opinion. I suspect your answer, you will say that you have always thought that way, even in September 2019, okay, okay, okay, think what you want.

    Of course there is also a bit of wishful thinking from our side, we would like to see that the peoples of the world are very interested in freedom values, therefore China’s downturn, but as was already said in the comments, if one only looks at the graphs, one has to assume that the corona virus also plays an important role. BUT: Here Xi’s politics are also evident, maybe it’s even the core of his politics, one just has to think of his dealings with countries such as Australia.

    And of course the massive intransparency and the cover-ups. In the beginning, of course, but the intransparency still persists. CCP China is still a huge black box, for example there are no Western research groups in the country to determine the origin of the virus, not even today. It is completely unclear whether serious and open-ended investigations are carried out at all. After all we know about Xi and the fascist regime in China we must strongly assume that there is only so much room for “open” results.

  13. Gravatar of Mark Mark
    14. October 2020 at 04:32

    This seems to be due to COVID, which was blamed on China by Western media and governments in a way that no other pandemic has ever been blamed on the country where it originated. China objectively gave more warning of COVID and got a handle on it faster than Mexico did of the 2009 swine flu, yet the 2009 swine flu was never blamed on Mexico. COVID disrupted a lot of people’s lives, so they understandably want someone to blame, and their governments directed the blame onto China. In most countries, the negative views of China in these graphs increased suddenly in 2020 with no trend before that. China is kind of a “soft” target where most people had no strong views before and people’s views are fairly malleable such that governments are easily able to manipulate people’s views of China.

    In the US, negative views have been increasing for a few years, but largely because our own government and media has been demonizing China. Even the NBA thing was really blown up by our media and government. I remember around the same time reading that the Polish government had forced Netflix to change a show about the Holocaust it was doing (https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-11-14/netflix-agrees-to-amend-devil-next-door-after-poland-complains), yet that wasn’t covered in major media outlets beyond Bloomberg and didn’t cause a decline in the public’s opinion of Poland. China shouldn’t have tried to censor the NBA, of course, but it is far from the only country that tries to change how foreigners talk about it, and yet it was singled out for it. And now apparently Chinese military media isn’t even allowed to cover the US elections lest it be accused of election interference: https://www.scmp.com/news/china/military/article/3104270/chinese-military-media-told-steer-clear-us-election-stories. Remember the Director of National Intelligence report that said public criticism of Trump by China would be considered election interference, whereas other countries are not accused of election interference when they criticize our leaders.

    But the flip side of China being a soft target is that views are also potentially malleable in the other direction, as one study found in talks with swing voters in Pennsylvania and Michigan: https://justiceisglobal.org/averting-a-new-cold-war. In this sense, the Great Firewall is really the biggest obstacle to Chinese soft power as it prevents people in the West from hearing the Chinese side of the story and also prevents people in China from learning about Western culture and how to act in a Western context. This is why our government is going after Chinese social media, to further isolate the Chinese people and thus make them easier to demonize internationally.

  14. Gravatar of ssumner ssumner
    14. October 2020 at 08:24

    Christian, Not once in your entire life have you been able to quote a single line of any of my posts in support of your claim that I’ve changed my mind. Ask yourself why that is? Is it just possible you can’t cite a single line in support of your claims because I actually never made the claims you say I made? Is it possible that you consistently misinterpret my posts? Or is it that you are simply to lazy to find previous statements that support your arguments? Which is it?

    I have other readers who don’t seem to have trouble understanding what I say. Why do you have so much trouble?

    To answer your question—yes, there’s still an enormous amount of anti-Chinese hysteria. Look how China’s being blamed for Covid-19. Or for our trade deficit.

    You said:

    “for example there are no Western research groups in the country to determine the origin of the virus”

    Still peddling those Chinese lab conspiracy theories, eh?

    Mark, Good comment. A breath of fresh air after Christian’s meandering nonsense.

  15. Gravatar of copans copans
    14. October 2020 at 08:41

    What event early in the century that caused both Japan and South Korea to change so drastically? Or is it likely a change in the survey protocol?

  16. Gravatar of copan copan
    14. October 2020 at 09:05

    Rereading the graphs, it was Germany which had the similar pattern to Japan. There were the South China Seas incursions but but why would that make such a difference for Germany?

  17. Gravatar of Greg Greg
    14. October 2020 at 09:47

    This so-called China vs NBA incident was made to sound like China is a monolithic entity. Rockets GM Daryl Morey’s tweet on Hong Kong was picked up by Chinese netizens and triggered immediate strong and widespread negative comments in China. The negative feeling was made worse by the fact that Houston Rockets had been one of the most favored NBA teams (along with Lakers) in China even long after the former Rockets Center Yao Ming retired from the team. The Rocket profited considerably in China because of the relationship. That CCTV resumed its broadcasting of NBA games is not because it succumbed to popular viewer pressure, but because NBA has quietly made a lot of friendly efforts in China. Of course, it’s been one year now after the ban and NBA has probably lost hundreds of millions of dollars in revenue. It’s time for a new start, as similar incidents before suggest.

    The incident had been blown out of proportion, simply because it’s China and the US establishment hates China (for its arise). It’s hard to maintain a common sense perspective in such an environment, as Lebron James did but was promptly forced to back down in the US. It has been framed as freedom of speech, within the context of Hong Kong fighting for “freedom, democracy and human rights” as is usual with everything China.

    Leave out China, things become clearer and less emotionally charged.

    In 2014, Clipper’s owner Donald Sterling was forced to apologize for some of his racist comments in a private recording released by someone. NBA launched an investigation and Sterling was banned for life from NBA and was fined for $2.5 million by the league. That was not enough, he was forced to sell his stake in Clipper a few months later. Clearly, Sterling’s “freedom of speech,” even in private, had got in conflict with the “political correctness.” Business had to suffer, as a result.

    Morey’s Hong Kong statement was politically incorrect in China, and NBA’s business there had to suffer. It’s simple as that. Anything beyond that, it’s geopolitics.

    As for the latest Pew Research survey. It’s clearly pandemic related and will be transient. Countries won’t make their China policy based on that. Plus it’s amplified by China’s ever stronger presence in the world and the prevailing demonization of China in major western countries – the survey is done in major western countries, not globally or “the rest of the world,” just to remind.

  18. Gravatar of Cartesian Theatics Cartesian Theatics
    14. October 2020 at 10:12

    Mark,

    “which was blamed on China by Western media and governments in a way that no other pandemic has ever been blamed on the country where it originated.”

    My understanding is this was partly because China threatened to withhold medicine because Trump called it the “Wuhan virus”. If true, that’s a very serious threat that warrants a response. Top government officials seem to be pretty suddenly united against China in the West, irrespective of political affiliation. Makes me wonder if there may be more to the story than what we see.

  19. Gravatar of Jason Jason
    14. October 2020 at 10:40

    “ To answer your question—yes, there’s still an enormous amount of anti-Chinese hysteria. Look how China’s being blamed for Covid-19. Or for our trade deficit.”

    The Chinese government SHOULD be blamed for COVID-19. The lockdowns have been a economic disaster around the world.

    “No, that’s not “comforting”.

    Yes it is. Xi is a monster.

    “Worse than ever? Umm, have you ever considered reading a book on Chinese history? Human rights were at least 10 times worse in the 1950s and 1960s, probably 100 times worse.“

    Mao was leader for life. And Xi has had term limits removed.
    In terms of human lives lost, then yes you are right. Mao clearly wins. But Mao’s China was much, much poorer than it is now, the second most powerful economy in the world!

    It depends on how you measure evil. If you measure it by lives lost, than Stalin and Mao are the most evil in history. If you measure by threat projected OUTSIDE BORDERS, then Nazi Germany was. And China today is a hundred or a thousand times as threatening to the world. It will force its totalitarian values on the rest of the world to such an extend that all the Noam Chomskys who WHINE incessantly about American imperialism will look back at the Pax Americana with fondness.

    In the 1990s even Chinese intellectuals admired the West. Now, with that Winnie the Pooh monsters clampdowns, the prospect of political liberation is farther than ever. With what happened to Hong Kong, and what has happened to the Uighurs, admit it Scott. The whole prospect of trading with China in the hope that it would politically liberalize- has failed.

    In fact, it’s made China that much more dangerous.

  20. Gravatar of Mark Barbieri Mark Barbieri
    14. October 2020 at 11:16

    How do those of you that think this is all COVID-based explain the fact that in 2017, over half of the countries had less than 50% favorable ratings and by 2019, all of the countries had majority unfavorable ratings? Things definitely got worse for China in 2020, but it’s favorability was definitely dropping before then.

  21. Gravatar of Michael Rulle Michael Rulle
    14. October 2020 at 12:02

    I always had the sense that China “was running out of time”. Meaning they would peak early and low –then fade. When Xi proved he might just be a mental case with his “Philosopher King” take over, I believed he was in panic mode. When it became clear his belt and road initiative or “debt trap diplomacy” will be a failure as defaults of “collateralized” loans will just be losses (think Citibank and South America–1970s) its not suprising they are disliked. They still cannot grow enough food. I fear they could become dangerous. While Covid may have just been bad luck–their reaction to it–disappearing doctors, for example—and not releasing data is not exactly helpful.

    I really do think China is a tragedy. Imagine if they were like Taiwan. The ethnic Chinese have done great in almost all of Asia. Its only half Communist—-but they will fail fully. After all these years (5000), you would have hoped they could have gotten it right. I have a hard time believing he has great devotion by military—but the party aparatchiks pobably make huge amounts.

    Still no good. They had HK and Taiwan as models—and we get Mao.

  22. Gravatar of Christian List Christian List
    14. October 2020 at 12:46

    Christian, Not once in your entire life have you been able to quote a single line of any of my posts in support of your claim that I’ve changed my mind.

    Scott,

    You say that like it’s a good thing. Kind of amazing. I hope for the opposite for myself. I hope that you will find many quotes from me that prove that I am able to change my mind.

    You still don’t find that September 2019 entry embarrassing. Okay then, that decision is of course entirely up to you.

    Obviously there is an anti-CCP world conspiracy going on after all. All graphs run like this, not just the US one. Look at all this hysteria in all these charts. OMG. Poor Xi. Scott, you’re onto something here.

    which was blamed on China by Western media and governments in a way that no other pandemic has ever been blamed on the country where it originated.

    Mark,

    for your statements, which Scott of course loves like nothing else, there is no evidence at all.

    Because you mention the Mexican flu: It’s easy to find papers on Google that say that there has been considerable hostility towards Mexico and Mexicans.

    You make this non-sense claim that CCP China was blamed like no other country ever before. The poor CCP. However, it’s just a claim without merit.

    What we know already though is that there hasn’t been such a massive pandemic for at least 100 years, not to mention that we have economic damage well beyond imagination. Do you remember this stuff from the Mexican flu? Don’t think so.

    The swine flu cannot be compared to Covid-19. You are comparing a small cough to a world that is currently to 30-50% on intensive care. Our world right now is divided into “before 2020” and “after 2020”. BC and AD have lost their original meaning, how about renaming them into “Before Covid” and “After Disease”.

    In addition, Mexico has worked quite closely with the US, and teams have been flown in to investigate the origin, so that the source could actually be found.

    There is close to free research in Mexico. Do you even know what that means? The fact that you guys seriously want to compare these conditions with CCP China says it all. Shame. Shame. Shame.

    Jason,

    do not paddle back on this point. Political freedoms are actually evaluated, and it really is true that CCP China has not improved politically in recent years. Their score in political freedoms is as bad as ever and because it even got worse, the scale had to be extended in part even into the negative range, if I remember correctly. When even Scott claims that it’s fascism, you know what must be going on over there.

  23. Gravatar of Carl Carl
    14. October 2020 at 16:15

    Regarding the theory that a couple of commenters have put forth that this is all about the coronavirus: I think the raw data is helpful: https://www.pewresearch.org/global/2020/10/06/unfavorable-views-of-china-reach-historic-highs-in-many-countries/pg_2020-10-06_global-views-china_0-05/
    It looks like attitudes towards China declined steeply between 2018 and 2019 and then again between 2019 and 2020 in North America and Europe. So, coronavirus may have been a large part of the story, but only the second half of the story.
    It seems more likely that the Hong Kong protests, the coronavirus, and perhaps the increasing revelations about the Uighurs all factored in.

  24. Gravatar of xu xu
    15. October 2020 at 08:15

    Chinese global hatred has much to do with Chinese tourism. When you shit on street corners outside shops, write graffiti on national monuments and religious sites, yell and scream, run people over with your luggage, open airplane emergency doors during boarding (apparently for fresh air), fight each other over products in short supply (Korean woman gets beat over distribution of samples), throw food on the floor at restaurants, cut lines, so on and so forth, then you are not going to have many friends.

    The CCP is a criminal organization, spewing nationalistic propaganda. But somehow, someway, United State Economists advocated for outsourcing to this criminal organization. The results: consumer prices for goods and services have risen while costs of production have declined. In other words, over the past thirty years those at the top netted extraordinary profit margins while those at the bottom lost their jobs.

    It has become politically untenable — EVEN ON THE CORRUPT LEFT — in recent years to support these policies. Hence, the change in rhetoric.

  25. Gravatar of ssumner ssumner
    15. October 2020 at 08:52

    Cartesian, You said:

    “Top government officials seem to be pretty suddenly united against China in the West, irrespective of political affiliation. Makes me wonder if there may be more to the story than what we see.”

    Don’t use government officials believing something as evidence that it is true.

    The Trump administration publicly stated its complaints about China’s behavior in the crisis, and the statements (by Trump and Pompeo) turned out to be a pack of lies. It’s not complicated.

    There’s good reason to be highly critical of China (Xinjiang, HK, etc.), and that’s why so many people all over the world are increasingly critical of Xi Jinping. But China actually handled the coronavirus better than the US. It’s government was if anything less dishonest than the US government on this particular topic.

    Jason, You said:

    “The Chinese government SHOULD be blamed for COVID-19. The lockdowns have been a economic disaster around the world.”

    But China doesn’t have lockdowns right now! Their economy is back to normal, with stores and movie theatres and restaurants packed with customers. Ditto for Taiwan, which never had lockdowns. It’s stupid Americans and European, who totally mishandled the crisis, who are suffering the economic fallout. So that’s China’s fault?

    Christian, Of course I still believe there is widespread anti-Chinese hysteria. Look at all the claims that the virus came from a Chinese lab. Look at all the people who want to blame China for the inept response to Covid by Trump.

    You said:

    “Because you mention the Mexican flu: It’s easy to find papers on Google that say that there has been considerable hostility towards Mexico and Mexicans.”

    LOL, The Mexican flu created widespread hostility to Mexico??When an argument gets that pathetic, there’s no point in even continuing the conversation. You’ve all but admitted that you have no case to make.

    Again, I challenge you to find just one example. Just one. It can’t be that hard, can it? Just one.

    Xu, Thanks for disproving Christian’s claim that there is no anti-Chinese hysteria. Your comments are always welcome here, as they prove my point.

  26. Gravatar of Jason Jason
    15. October 2020 at 11:20

    “But China doesn’t have lockdowns right now! Their economy is back to normal, with stores and movie theatres and restaurants packed with customers. Ditto for Taiwan, which never had lockdowns. It’s stupid Americans and European, who totally mishandled the crisis, who are suffering the economic fallout. So that’s China’s fault?”

    Yes it is! It started in China! This is China’s “gift” to the world. America hadn’t experienced a pandemic of this magnitude since 1917-1918. Plus we are run by idiots. (not only Trump. Remember, Biden called the China travel ban xenophobic, and Nancy Pelosi said “come to Chinatown!” Plus Dr FAUCI recommended nationwide lockdowns)
    Taiwan and Japan had their previous experience with SARS, bird flu, etc. it is a sad feature of the human condition everywhere that we don’t learn from the experience of others. Only our own experience. And sometimes, not even that.

  27. Gravatar of Christian List Christian List
    15. October 2020 at 15:16

    The Mexican flu created widespread hostility to Mexico??

    Scott,

    my point was that the disapproval must be quite proportional, meaning that it’s not a Chinese peculiarity. The extent of the hostility simple depends on the size of the disaster and the reaction of the host country, in this case, the politics by Xi.

    It is not an extraordinary hatred of the Chinese, or in other words, if Covid-19 had come from Mexico, then Mexico would be blamed in a similar fashion, minus of course the facts that Mexico got not CCP, that it is not fascist, that it cooperates with the West, that it is more transparent, much more open than CCP China, and it’s not a bully such as CCP China.

    Of course I still believe there is widespread anti-Chinese hysteria.

    Not quite my point. My point was that your entry from September 2019 was wrong, and even worse, cynical, sadistic, and tasteless, and that it looked like you wanted to correct that mistake, but that is not the case. All right, then.

    I challenge you to find just one example. Just one.

    Okay one example then:

    “Latino immigrants from that country, and others, were often pronounced guilty by association. Soon, Mexican nationals and the products they produced were shunned across the globe; in the United States, some talk show hosts portrayed Mexican immigrants as disease vectors who threatened the health and security of other citizens.

    Our study has attempted to explain the ways in which two separate strands of concern about disease, and the “exotic others” who threaten to spread it, came together in the spring of 2009 to make it seem as though Mexican and other Latino immigrants were largely responsible for the spread of H1N1 onto US soil.”

    https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3907032/

  28. Gravatar of dtoh dtoh
    15. October 2020 at 16:04

    Scott,

    Xi does what’s best for Xi not necessarily what’s best for China.

    You said, “But China actually handled the coronavirus better than the US.”

    In what way did it do better? Fewer cases? If so that’s a meaningless statement as there is no definitive causal relationship with policy.

    If you meant that China had a better policy response, please define by what criteria? And at what cost?

  29. Gravatar of Greg Greg
    15. October 2020 at 19:16

    Daryl Morey stepping down as Houston Rockets GM

    https://www.espn.com/nba/story/_/id/30120824/daryl-morey-stepping-houston-rockets-gm-sources-say

  30. Gravatar of Thomas Hutcheson Thomas Hutcheson
    16. October 2020 at 05:26

    Maybe you are right; I hope so. But the proof is not in polls in rich liberal countries, but politics in poor and less firmly liberal countries. How do the Turkeys and Saudi Arabias and Hungarys and Indias behave? Do they become more or less liberal for watching China’s behavior?

  31. Gravatar of ssumner ssumner
    16. October 2020 at 09:11

    Jason, That’s like saying that the Congo is to “blame” for AIDS because AIDS started there. It’s a meaningless claim.

    You said:

    “Biden called the China travel ban xenophobic”

    What China travel ban? The whole thing was a lie. Trump never put a ban on travel from China. My wife is flying from China to the US next month, despite this “ban”. You need to rely on different news sources.

    dtoh, I didn’t mean better in some overall welfare sense, just way fewer cases, deaths, etc. So many fewer that it can’t just be fake data. I was responding to a commenter who blamed China for America’s Covid problems, which is absurd.

    I view Taiwan, South Korea, Australia, Germany, etc., as better models, if you want examples. China is too totalitarian for my taste.

    Thomas, The whole world is becoming more authoritarian right now. China’s not the cause of that trend, it’s a symptom.

    I will say that China’s not winning any friends in places like India, where polls would show the same thing as in rich countries. Yes, India’s just one country, but it’s one with 1.4 billion people.

  32. Gravatar of ssumner ssumner
    16. October 2020 at 09:12

    Greg, It’s about time. His strategy failed big time.

  33. Gravatar of Christian List Christian List
    16. October 2020 at 17:23

    Do they become more or less liberal for watching China’s behavior?

    Thomas,

    This is actually my thesis since a few years. The wave of authoritarianism worldwide is hereby, at least in large parts, very well explained.

    Authoritarianism was not very successful in certain decades of the 20th century, roughly speaking 1970-1990. At the same time the radiant power of the West was all the greater at that time. But the trend became negative.

    An important turning point is certainly Nixon, who opened up China but fatally abandoned political liberalization completely, so a state could emerge that became a world power economically, but never liberalized politically.

    Other turning points from the same period are Vietnam and Carter’s reaction after the Iranian terrorist attack on the American embassy in Tehran. Both turning points have proven that the democratic world power USA is vulnerable, mortal, and incapable (or in Carter’s case probably unwilling) to promote Western values worldwide on a permanent basis.

    The rise of CCP China has of course an immense role model function for other authoritarian states. Maybe for the first time ever there is a state that combines economic success and totalitarianism, so what we actually see in a lot of countries is authoritarianism by certain politicians/elites through imitation of CCP China.

    The second trend is authoritarianism as a counter-reaction to CCP China by different politicians (and by the peoples). This development at first sounds counter-intuitive, but in reality, it is logical. We even have at least one historical precedent in the 20th century, the 1930s and 1940s, when Western states became more and more authoritarian, mostly due to Hitler and Stalin. Churchill and FDR were probably the most authoritarian presidents both countries ever had, at least in the 20th century. This is hardly a coincidence, but rather the reaction to the rise of Nazi Germany and the USSR.

    So don’t be fooled, the rise of authoritarianism is really not the mystery that certain “intellectuals” and other commentators always make of it. Sure, it is a “mystery” if one ignores two or three 800-pound gorillas (Russia, Iran, Turkey) and a giant elephant (CCP China) in the room.

  34. Gravatar of mpowell mpowell
    17. October 2020 at 06:08


    Morey’s Hong Kong statement was politically incorrect in China, and NBA’s business there had to suffer. It’s simple as that. Anything beyond that, it’s geopolitics.

    This is partly true, but it misses something very important. Worldwide is mostly sympathy for Morey’s HK statement. It is the fact that it is politically incorrect in China that leads to such a negative opinion of China. It seems that China’s government or maybe even the people as a whole, have a much different value system than most of the western world and much of the western world regards these aspects of the Chinese value system as abhorrent. I don’t know how that’s not going to be an ongoing source of friction and conflict.

  35. Gravatar of Otiose Otiose
    18. October 2020 at 10:22

    “While China avoided losing its trade war with America,…”
    Just a nit to pick. China lost the trade war with America badly. The main goal of the trade war from our side was to change capital investment behavior by raising the perception of the risk profile (among other things) of investment/manufacturing in China. A part of this change would be a lessening of the IP theft that China had their way on until Trump’s trade war. I doubt Trump’s goal was to get an agreement to stop IP theft (because they don’t admit to it and wouldn’t stop anyway) but what he has achieved is a global change in investment patterns which have shifted away from China. This post reinforces why that will likely continue. The Chinese government’s reflexive use of threats (e.g. against Canadian citizens in China most recently) only reinforces the shift as corporate managements decide to place new investments elsewhere.

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