There are forces of nature. There is the power of science. But nothing can override Leninist target-setting. Loyalists declare that Beijing is giving Hong Kong two months to get the Covid outbreak under control.
While Hong Kong officials and media grovel in gratitude for a shipment of voodoo quack TCM, Singapore authorities dismiss the stuff…
Chinese medicine Lianhua Qingwen is not approved for the treatment of COVID-19 symptoms, said the Health Sciences Authority (HSA) on Wednesday (Nov 17), adding that such claims are disallowed.
…”We strongly advise members of the public not to fall prey to unsubstantiated claims or spread unfounded rumours that herbal products can be used to prevent or treat COVID-19″…
More unflattering info on Lianhua Qingwen here.
Some mid-week reading…
Good Atlantic piece on Hong Kong Journalists Association chair Ronson Chan and the decline of press freedom in the city.
Al Jazeera looks at the quasi-Great Firewall coming down over the Hong Kong Internet.
From France 24, whispered threats and mysterious phone calls – the murky figures who scare Hong Kong activists and media into silence.
And from HKFP, a nice basic intro to Cold War II from HKEdU’s Michael G Harris…
Another flaw in China’s strategy is that it relies on unreliable partners. Some of the world’s most dastardly regimes and autocrats, many of them with precarious holds on power and precious little public support, form the edifice of China’s alternative, authoritarian world order. As the United States learned many times during the Cold War, supporting autocratic and unpopular regimes can create more problems than it solves.
I was just thinking of this last point this morning as I flipped through the local Chinese rag.
I’m assuming that strategic thinking that is not really that strategic is often used to replace the critical thinking that is driven out of the government and even the populace. And then I started to get a bit worried. I notice on Twitter that so many assertions seem to be made without any obvious evidence of real historical activity. For example, did you know the Anglo-Saxons rule Australian maritime policy? I didn’t know that either.
@Donkey – what have the Romans ever done for us, eh?
@Donkey
How is that not true? Australians are Anglo Saxons or have you not heard of AUKUS?
This little gem of a comedy sketch should jog your memory perhaps
From Wikipedia, for all of the people who can’t be arsed to think historically rather than how ever the hell you are thinking now. The Anglo-Saxons were a specific cultural group from the Middle Ages. Not the descendants of said group, who don’t speak Anglo-Saxon, or any of the similar language groups.
“The Anglo-Saxons were a cultural group who inhabited England in the Early Middle Ages. They traced their origins to settlers who came to Britain from mainland Europe in the 5th century. … Many of the natives, over time, adopted Anglo-Saxon culture and language and were assimilated.”
Lianhua Qingwen sounds to my uneducated ear like ‘chloroquine With Chinese Characteristics’
Obviously it will be a ‘Dynamic Two Months’ deadline to get rid of COVID.
The assumption that white Australians are all of Anglo-Saxon ancestry, even excluding recent inflows from all over the world, ignores the considerable over-representation of Scots in Britain’s imperial expansion. To many tenant farmers driven off their crofts by the Highland Clearances, the colonies must have seemed an attractive alternative to penury in Britain.
“”As the pandemic has been receding, the SAR government and the society have been letting down their guard. As the pandemic suddenly worsened, the SAR government was really caught off guard and caused unnecessary chaos,” Tam said.”
In order to “let one’s guard down” something needs to change. From what I can see, the HKSARG has been stubbornly pursuing the same xenophobic voodoo policies all along. If anything, they re-intensified the arbitrary restrictions as the omicron wave came ashore.
I “humbly” suggest that the policies were stupid and ineffectual to begin with. Putting your guard up does nothing if you are facing the wrong direction…
@Chris oh now don’t suggest that! they’ll come and find you!