That’s a single policy. Perhaps that’s a good one?

Imagine a world where China and the U.S. were on better terms, start of the health crisis China helped provide huge amounts Of PPE required. Drs and epidemiologists from China with experience could have helped drs in the US. Instead they were coming off the back of a trade war over soy beans and hiding information from each other.

Globalisation has effects that expand beyond the economy.

As for citations: the US has just passed the second, largest stimulus package in its history beating or the first from a couple of months back. Are we’re ignoring this gorilla so much that people need citations?

> As for citations: the US has just passed the second, largest stimulus package in its history beating or the first from a couple of months back. Are we’re ignoring this gorilla so much that people need citations?

I'm going to push back on the tenuous link between the US being protectionist and the stimulus package. It's not like protectionist policies directly led to the economic problems the US - and a lot of the world - are experiencing thus requiring the stimulus package.

Your argument is that if the trade war didn't happen China would have been far more likely to help us. That's not an unreasonable argument but even if they did do that how would that have prevented the economic damages caused by all of the lockdowns the US - and China - went through?

A reasonable argument could also be made that even if the trade war didn't happen China would not have done what you described anyway. China and the US have always had a tumultuous relationship. Plus let's not forget the panicked free-for-all when it came to PPE during the early days of the pandemic which many, many countries participated in.

So I would say the US's bungled response to the early days of the pandemic are what lead to the stimulus package, not any sort of protectionist policies. If the US were on better terms with China perhaps it would have been slightly less severe due to Chinese supplied masks during the shortage and all that; but given how difficult its been to make people wear masks in general I'm not so sure.

> I'm going to push back on the tenuous link between the US being protectionist and the stimulus package. It's not like protectionist policies directly led to the economic problems the US - and a lot of the world - are experiencing thus requiring the stimulus package.

The trade war didn't improve the US economy. COVID actually squeezed the Stockmarket up (as interest rates hit 0 or negative) from stimulus (around the world).

I think you are probably right that it wasn't protectionist policies directly. But the US governments "Me, and Mine" (America First) approach has wilfully ignored good advice, policy and approach that has lead to its current situation.

It wasn't a bungled response to early days... it's consistent bungling from the first day until right this minute. (A pandemic with no generally available vaccine, wide spread infection, and no nationally coordinated mitigation = bungling, whatever excuses you make about US gov structure etc...).

China and US have always had a tumultuous relationship exactly because they don't try to resolve it, they see each other as rivals, and a threat.

I don't buy that. it's not reality.

To me it's two fold: - The US would not have a relationship say similar to Britain/US because of the fundamental differences and problems with CCP's behavior - Vis a vis the CCP's habitual covering up of anything embarrassing and Xi's / CCPs singular focus on maintaining and growing their own power. see COVID, SARs and the many examples from business to free speech & 'press.'

It's circularly not possible.

CCPs behavior must fundamentally change, (or scarily the US becomes like CCP)

The hiding was squarely on CCP. Maybe you could argue if COVID popped up in US first it would have been the same.

But if the tables were turned I don't believe there would be any attempts to hide facts and not offer support beyond Trump's own incompetence and pathological personality disorder wishing it would 'magically go away' so he could get elected again.

--

And to the parent parent there are plenty of facts both ways but it's impossible to separate effects of policy from the HUGE negative pain caused by Trump's abdication of responsibility. Trump has undeniably left us in a horrible place, far greater than any gains from policy.

The shoe IS on the other foot, and the US DID hide the facts. Their administration purposefully suppressed CDC information and pursued a herd immunity strategy without expressing it. You can't say "beyond trumps own incompetence and personality" without also saying "without Xi's incompetence and personality"... I don't think that is intellectually fair.

I'm happy to criticise china for the things it could do better:

- It's fast approach to full blown dictatorship, the death of the party, the rise of Xi

- Or its suppression/persecution of people actually trying to improve things for the Chinese people (Wuhan reporters, Rights activists etc)

But "Forced labour"... while developed nations like the US have prison labour? Persecution of Uighers, while Guantanamo is still a thing. Fix the things in your own back yard, which you have control over then from the moral high ground try and fix further abroad, otherwise no one (including the Chinese) pay no attention to what they see as just agg-prop. HN loves to jump on the latest china bashing and just make excuses/justifications US based domestic problems

Every single China thread on HN turns into a false equivalence 'no the US has far worse history / false whataboutism'

A couple Trump political appointees attempted to do that. The system worked and the US didn't jail the NYTimes and the press for reporting the facts. Their stupidly half assed political crap didn't work and they lost the election.

I wouldn't call Xi incompetent but instead scarily so. The power of Trump versus Xi & CCP are not even in the same ballpark

It's pointless to engage but sometimes I can't help it

You are right, but it's because people are generally not willing to enter a proper debate on the issues in China. Take the Uigher issue, it is ALWAYS reported with a lack of context.

No mention of the bombings, the mass killing events, the huge domestic terrorism issue it has caused China for the last 20 years. Instead we just get reports of China "randomly" persecuting these people for seemingly no reason.

When you have people showing up at one of the largest train stations[0] in the country openly representing an ethnic minority and randomly stabbing men, woman and children of Han decent... what is the correct government response?

This isn't even the debate that we have. We don't ask this question at all, we instead publish photos of prisons, and reeducation camps, but no one ever seems to ask "Why is china doing this?" because the assumption that Western Media would like you to make is "Because they are just evil communists".

It would be like reporting on Guantanamo as an "off shore prison where America kidnaps people from foreign countries and keeps them there for no reason, most have never even been the the US" --- There would be uproar if news was reported that way. But when it's China, everyone is happy to have their blinders on, and not understand or explore the full context of a difficult issue.

[0] https://time.com/88941/not-again-knife-attack-at-train-stati...

There are plenty of terrorist attacks in the US too, from the wiki below China does have a few years with big numbers but the US page doesn't include a bunch of mass shootings by far right white MAGA and single white men wackos.

And despite those numbers the US isn't rounding up millions of our own citizens into 're-education camps.' I'm sure the 'whatabout' is the stupid wars in the middle east which are undoubtedly horrible and should fairly be condemned (and definitely are). But the US is not waging an ethnic genocide on our own citizens.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terrorism_in_China#Terrorist_i... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terrorism_in_the_United_States...

I agree that is the debate to be had.

So what are they suppose to do though, if they have a state of their country trying to seperate and harming civilians to do it?

Xi thinks forced re-education and subjugation is the answer. Historically, other countries have taken that approach as well.