Seems like a power move to me. Painting a picture for the world of struggling U.S. institutions needing a Chinese billionaire's help to weather a crisis.
Indeed. On it's own, it looks like .. I'm not sure "willy-waving" translates into American well.
But once you realise they're sending them everywhere, it makes it look more like they've ramped production up to stupifying numbers (which is China's speciality afterall), and have realised their value in goodwill is far beyond their dollar value.
(or, yes, propaganda - there's not a lot of real difference between PR, propaganda and goodwill. Ultimately, doing something good because the optics benefit you, is still doing something good.)
I’m sure it helps that doing something good also makes them look good and shifts public perception of China from oppressive to we just helped save the world from an epidemic.
There’s no way the leadership has thought out all the angles.
I have no doubt his intention really is to save lives, but a secondary motive is surely also PR. Perhaps the Chinese state had some role in this, as well. I'm not much of a conspiracy theorist, but I could see a possible benign conspiracy like them using Jack as a proxy to distribute these.
If they did it officially, it could be trusted less and the motive would seem more blatant. And Jack of course has enough money to do this himself, but such a big international move might require the approval of the government.
Is it? If the American government were doing this, I would think the exact same thing. And America has in fact done similar things many times in the past.
Of course it's PR. It's always PR, probably regardless of what superpower's government is involved. The only difference here is that the Chinese government has more control over and knowledge of what private citizens are doing, so it can be difficult to disentangle private and governmental action.
Do you feel the same way about Bill Gates' philanthropic work?
Is what Gates does also "always PR"?
Both of these men could afford to retire to a private island (or chain of islands) and never be heard from again. You think they do what they do primarily for PR reasons?
This "us vs them" mentality with strong whiff of paranoia. Conceiving ulterior motive and talking as if that was the most important motive. Somehow more true than all other parallel motives. I don't see this kind of thinking much out of US and perhaps Russia. Maybe it's taint of cold war. Maybe it runs even deeper in the culture.
>...so it can be difficult to disentangle private and governmental action.
It's near impossible to disentangle private and government[al] action in China. It's also not a uniquely American way to think about it. Every country uses private proxies where it makes sense in order to project power.
It definitely shifts the message somewhat from "look, the Americans need our help" to "we're prosperous enough to be a world leader", which depending on your perspective may be preferable
I've noticed China is promoting the medical response teams they've sent to those countries on WeChat. I don't want to be so cynical that I reduce Chinese goodwill to a propaganda move, but it definitely is good PR.
If somebody helps me out of the potentially deadly hole, I do not give a flying feck about the motives. And that somebody can have all the good PR s/he wants from me as a token of appreciation.
The CPC are the ones who dug the deadly hole in the first place. It's great that one of their billionaire members has some money to spare to help people out, but let's not forget they are directly responsible for this pandemic.
Yeah right, they had willfully concocted the virus and diligently sprayed it all around on their streets.
It is very convenient blaming your adversaries/competitors for your own f..ups. We could've easily shut the borders at first sign and be protected and safe. Have somebody to blame for that hole?
Plenty of other governments have made mistakes in dealing with this outbreak, but that does not absolve the CPC from responsibility.
The CPC knew about this virus for over a month before they took any action to contain it. In fact, they arrested people who were sounding the alarm. Xi is claimed to have been steering the ship for weeks before any lockdowns were put into place in Hubei province. The CPC own this global crisis. If it was not for their epic mismanagement, there would not be a pandemic.
It can be a political move and be sent to many other countries as well. That makes it more subtle. Jack Ma is really just a CCP puppet, this is a blatant political move. The US doesn’t even need test kits right now!
Because thats what matters to you? Were europeans sending aid to China a power move? It’s acceptable to send aid to each other, no matter who you appear to represent.
The EU sending aid is definitely a political flex. It is still a good gesture, but sending aid is a sign that a country is in a 'superior' position.
Jack Ma doing this is also a political move. I'm sure that part of the motivation is just to help, but it seems clear to me that this is also intended to show that China is in a position to help the US, and the optics of that are that the countries are on equal footing. Remember, China as a country does have a bit of a complex about their status, which is completely understandable considering the rapid changes they have been through. This aid shows that, rather than being a 2nd-class citizen, the country is in a position to help America with something.
That being said, this is a great thing, these are much needed supplies for which there isn't a large domestic manufacturing capacity (as it was offshore). However charitable acts can also have additional political motivations, and that does seem to be a factor here.
> The EU sending aid is definitely a political flex. It is still a good gesture, but sending aid is a sign that a country is in a 'superior' position.
When countries from around the world sent urban SAR specialists to Christchurch following the earthquake, was that a signal that, say, Taiwan, thinks they're superior?
When we send our victim identification specialists or rural firefighter volunteers to countries that need them, is that flexing? Or is it just, I dunno, countries helping each other?
In the case of COVID 19 testing and preparation China today is undoubtedly in a much superior position.
You can even ignore how badly the US government has bungled it. The simple reason is that China is the second largest economy in the world and has had more time to deal with and tackle the virus.
The problem is that the US federal government has so thoroughly messed up the situation that this looks really bad. If the US government hadn’t done such a bad job of testing this donation may have maybe added 50% or doubled the number of available tests and it would simply look like a generous donation, rather than also shining light on the embarrassing US response.
America has the yugest complex around; with Biden as the frontrunner we now have two old men running for the president, both trying to Make America Great Again, only slightly disagreeing on the methods and period of time we have to go back to recover our greatest Great-ness.
That's why when Cuba is struck with a hurricane, they reject American aid [1], despite being a relatively poor country who could obviously benefit from it.
There is no "appear". China's capitalist leaders are in the pocket of the CCP, whether they want to be or not.
I'm not saying it's unacceptable, I'm saying that China and the U.S. are direct rivals in a way that China and Europe are not, and that it will appear a certain way to the world, and that the way it appears will be advantageous to the CCP.
No one needs to paint a picture of our institutions struggling to the world... we've been doing a fine job of that ourselves. Had a U.S. company made the same gesture to another country, our media would be covering it as humanitarian aid or building goodwill. The fact is that we currently have an inadequate supply of masks and test kits so I think an appropriate response would be 'thank you' regardless of any potentially less than altruistic motives.
Sure, but there's no way one of their billionaires would be allowed to take an action like this without discussing it with the CCP first. For all we know it was their idea.
I'm not saying it's evil or that we shouldn't accept it, I'm just observing the optics and the fact that there's no way the CCP didn't consider it from this perspective beforehand, regardless of any other motives.
For whatever reason, the US lacks the ability and/or the capability of responding effectively to this crisis.
The assistance is valuable and should be respected and appreciated accordingly.
And if people in the US feel uncomfortable about what this assistance implies about the US -- well, there will be time to consider why that is so and what can be done about it at a future date.
Be that as it may, we should accept, and thank him for it. This is not the time for dick measuring contests, and our institutions that were supposed to deal with this (CDC/FDA) have objectively failed.
The right of free transit have been denied in every country with enough infections, why would you particularly demonize China for it? You are in quarantine, you cannot leave, period.
The drones seem if anything quite a lot less privacy-intruding than other possible measures, assuming they're just wandering around looking for people without masks. It would be embarrassing to be on the receiving end but with no real lasting effect or privacy loss, which is ultimately a pretty ideal result on a societal level.
US ability to make and distribute medicine and medical supplies is falling apart and it’s a direct result of consolidation of supply chain and factories that make it. 4 power buyers buys control over 90% of generic drug for US. And probably similar percent for medical equipments.
Good news is that now all eyes are on the medical supply chains, and introduction of the medical supply drug act bill, we should see some supply chain move back to US.
Painting? That's the reality, The US response is a disaster that will likely surpass Italy. We have done close to nothing. Maybe he's trying to help because we are too fucking incompetent to test on our own. The question is, will the US take the help or be the too proud asshole it's always been and ignore it like they did with the WHO test?
It's concerted effort by Chinese establishment to whitewash their handling of the whole thing. They even want to pretend that the virus didn't even originate in China!
You should see what some of my Chinese relatives/friends are forwarding in WeChat-
1. CIA created the virus and released the virus in China as a test.
2. (In Chinese there's no word for 'flu', only 'cold', or 'transmissible cold'.) The 'cold' virus originated in US last year and killed more than 10k Americans before US sent special force to Wuhan to infect us Chinese! Even the head of CDC admitted it (see article).
3. A 5 member US special force went to Wuhan in November. They returned to US and all died in suspicious circumstances.
4. Now all the western countries are sending infected agents into China to blow the epidemic again.
You might notice a common theme that US is the enemy, and they are the originator of all bad things that happened to China. This is not a coincidence.
Look I know this is dumb and all. Other Chinese relatives/friends (usually oversea) are trying to combat all these fake news. But 2 things-
1. WeChat is heavily patrolled and monitored by the PRC censors. If the PRC doesn't want these rumors to circulate, these rumors would not last more than a hour (or seconds. It's very enlightening to see the sensitive terms get filtered in real time.)
In fact, in the last week or so, I've been getting more conspiracy forwards. The spread of rumors on this topic on WeChat is speeding up.
2. I don't see US' Secretary of State accusing China of intentionally creating the virus.
> If the PRC doesn't want these rumors to circulate, these rumors would not last more than a hour
Reddit tries to stop conspiracy theories with quarantines and bans. But they're rapidly spreading anyway.
> 2. I don't see US' Secretary of State accusing China of intentionally creating the virus.
It really is symmetric: Tom Cotton, Senator from Arkansas, has been on Fox saying exactly this.
Fox also has other people on saying it was a joint North Korean and Chinese bioweapon, made solely to attack America, but released initially in China as a decoy. Fox is the most watched cable news channel in America.
Why does every criticism of China have to have a corollary accompanying US criticism? Can we not just talk about one issue at a time instead of muddling up the waters?
In an ideal world, everyone criticizes things they know the most about and can do the most about, which is whatever is happening in their own country. When this is inverted, there is usually some ulterior psychological need and the criticism ends up not being anything genuine or actionable but a pissing contest. Anything goes in a pissing contest. Why are you surprised?
Use of the phrases like these, exemplifying the tu quoque logical fallacy, was an attempt to deflect criticism of the Soviet Union by referring to racial discrimination and lynching in the United States.
Look at it from the other angle. If you are to blame someone for doing XYZ I assume that you are sparkling clean. If however you are doing the same thing simply get lost. You have no moral right to blame someone for doing exactly the same thing you do.
It is not "Classic Chinese / Soviet tactic (TM)". It is a friggin natural sense of justice that normal people possess.
You can't just declare everything that any low-ranking Chinese bureaucrat does to be an "effort by Chinese establishment". This is nationalistic flame-bait.
For context, there's a growing number of Chinese diplomats from younger generation who want China to reciprocate the rhetoric of the current US administration. Expect a lot more ridiculous clap backs like this, especially on Twitter where Chinese diplomats have been cultivating a following since HK. This is probably a direct response to folks in US administration using Wuhan/Chinese Virus. Chinese international messaging has been predicable and fairly mellow, western MSM likes to blow it out of proportion, but looks like they're about to fully embrace post-truth twitter drama.
You do realize that the MSM and current US administration are completely at odds right? Just by using that term, MSM, would get most people flagged as a Trump supporter. The US drama is mostly internal and has little to do with China.
You do realize that's all marketing bullshit, right?
They're so at odds they agreed to give the Pentagon $100B more this year than last, in addition to loosening accounting rules so they can hide even more of their shenanigans from the taxpayer. They're so at odds that Gitmo is still open, we're still fighting in a dozen nations, we're undermining the democratic governments of several more, and they just gave the next appointed coup leader a unanimous standing ovation at the state of the union ("it's not good!") speech. They're so at odds that to contest an election with a loud-mouthed incoherent corrupt old person with shady Ukraine connections, they've chosen... a loud-mouthed incoherent corrupt old person with shady Ukraine connections.
They're so at odds that when the government decided they needed to destroy a journalist for doing journalism, for revealing to the USA voter and tax payer the evil shit done with their votes and taxes, not a single journalist anyone had ever heard of spoke up in his defense. Oh yeah, that MSM is speaking "truth to power" now. Good grief.
I really don’t think you understand how government works: the media is run by private industry and doesn’t have power to give the pentagon anything. They also don’t run Gitmo, they don’t fight wars, etc...
Yes, the American media isn’t perfect, but deriding it as “fake news” while CCTV a somehow put on a pedestal just seems really wrong. The fact is that it is at least independent of the government and doesn’t have to act in the interest in the ruling executive (and in fact, depending on who is president, there will always be plenty of media that isn’t friendly to their agenda).
The first thing authoritarians do when they gain power is to try and delegitimize the free press so they can get rid of it. That is exactly wha it is going on now, and whenever someone uses the term MSM, that is what I know their agenda is.
Re-read your Chomsky, and pay attention. You've fallen far behind. You're talking about authoritarians and the "trial-by-drone" guy left office years ago. I haven't mentioned CCTV. It is a pale imitation of the much more distracting Western news business. We are endlessly terrorized about bullshit, yet somehow nothing I mentioned above was even covered. They don't focus on the vast areas of agreement between the two faces of the status quo political party.
For all that they caterwaul about surface controversies like is it worse to arrange corrupt positions at foreign firms for one's children or is it worse to investigate such positioning, Fox and MSNBC agree about everything important to the rich bastards who own both the media and the government. For instance, China: we're told constantly by both (all) news firms to fear China. In this very thread there is evidence of a widespread derangement stemming from that constant gaslighting. ("What if the masks are pre-impregnated with virus?!%?") After all, China is an independent nation with a military! USA military-industrial complex might make a lot of money losing a war with China! They must all be evil bastards bent on destroying us! Oh but they're not as bad as Russia! Or Iran! Or Venezuela! Or some random goat enthusiasts in some desert somewhere! When the topic is a war into which we haven't yet blundered, there is unanimity in the war media. (Since you're language policing, tell me: is "war media" better or worse than "MSM" that you derided upthread? On the one hand, it's evocative and focused on the bottom line. On the other, it is one more syllable... I can't decide!)
By they, I meant official Chinese diplomatic messaging - elements have started to post bellicose and post-truthy rhetoric in tit-for-tat response to current official US messaging. China is letting loose their own Pompeos and hawkish voices, mostly for domestic Chinese audiences as well. See how western MSM has manufactured anti Chinese consent over the last few years - understand that China hasn't let anti-US sentiments devolve that far via domestic censorship controls. Well signs indicate that's about to stop. It's looking like China is positioning itself to go full Trump which is dangerous as hell.
Jack Ma cannot be trusted. He swings high and low, doesn't know where the ball is. He once hit a Alibaba home run and thinks he is a hotshot. It's hard to trust Jack Ma with undertones of the CCP propaganda in this humanitarian aid.
Edit: I am not defending the United States. Just look at what our president said this afternoon. Couldn't even string a cohesive sentence together. If Jack Ma is genuine and wants to help - who knows? To me it feels like a huge power move as the OP said - it feels "correct" to me. This news is trending big time on Twitter.
National security threat is US military not owning aircraft carrier worth of medical supplies while at the same time owning multiple actual aircraft carriers.