All things: China

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Grifman
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Re: All things: China

Post by Grifman »

Isgrimnur wrote: Thu Oct 20, 2022 4:52 pm If China tries, their economy goes poof.

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All decisions aren’t rational. Xi may assume that the world needs China as much as China needs the world.
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Re: All things: China

Post by Isgrimnur »

Then hopefully he learns from his buddy Vlad’s escapade.
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Re: All things: China

Post by Blackhawk »

Grifman wrote: Thu Oct 20, 2022 9:32 pm All decisions aren’t rational. Xi may assume that the world needs China as much as China needs the world.
If this had happened before we saw the writing on the wall, before the chip are rare metals shortages, and before the COVID shutdowns, before the shipping chaos, he might have been right. But those factors have all had companies (and nations) looking for (and finding) alternatives.
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Re: All things: China

Post by Alefroth »

So long, Hu.
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LordMortis
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Re: All things: China

Post by LordMortis »

He looked more disoriented than reluctant. Though I wouldn't deny reluctant, either. I buy unwell, but I could be persuaded.
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Re: All things: China

Post by Alefroth »

LordMortis wrote: Sat Oct 22, 2022 2:16 pm He looked more disoriented than reluctant. Though I wouldn't deny reluctant, either. I buy unwell, but I could be persuaded.
If it was unplanned and he was unwell, I would have expected a little more interest from others. Instead, they all stared straight ahead and tried to act like nothing was happening. He did seem confused, at least.
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Re: All things: China

Post by Unagi »

LordMortis wrote: Sat Oct 22, 2022 2:16 pm He looked more disoriented than reluctant. Though I wouldn't deny reluctant, either. I buy unwell, but I could be persuaded.
There certainly seemed to be some attempt at ‘convincing’ him to get up, and direction to head out.
It didn’t look entirely voluntary to me, and he seemed capable of waking himself out of there.

Interesting.
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Re: All things: China

Post by LordMortis »

Guess it was likely not being disoriented. I have been easily persuaded. :)

https://foreignpolicy.com/2022/10/24/ch ... hu-jintao/
With the naming of the Standing Committee—a powerful, elite group of seven politicians inside the larger Politburo, China’s key policymaking committee—it is now clear who will be charged with executing this vision of absolute control.

Alongside Xi, six loyalists will now make up the Standing Committee. Four of the members are new; all are 60 or older and clear Xi allies. None of the men are expected to be threats to Xi’s potentially endless reign, since their various credentials and ages don’t position them to be his successor. In the larger Politburo, it will be the first time in more than two decades that a woman has not been named to the body.
A highly choreographed event, the Party Congress is meant to be seamless—but that was disrupted on Saturday, when officials escorted Hu Jintao, Xi’s predecessor, out of the room. Video footage of his removal sparked confusion online, although it was quickly censored and state media insisted he was “not feeling well” and had been led out “for a rest.”
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Re: All things: China

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Reports of crowds protesting in China over Covid restrictions:

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Re: All things: China

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Tolerance is the virtue of the man without convictions. – G.K. Chesterton
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Re: All things: China

Post by Grifman »

Things are happening in China:

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Re: All things: China

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If Xi abandons his Smoove_B covid policy, the virus will rampage through a huge population that has very little protection. China's vaccine is inferior to ours and the Chinese have no natural immunity. This is a lose/lose situation for China, Smoove, and the global economy.
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Re: All things: China

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A thread:

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Victoria Raverna
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Re: All things: China

Post by Victoria Raverna »

Kraken wrote: Sun Nov 27, 2022 11:27 pm If Xi abandons his Smoove_B covid policy, the virus will rampage through a huge population that has very little protection. China's vaccine is inferior to ours and the Chinese have no natural immunity. This is a lose/lose situation for China, Smoove, and the global economy.
Are you sure their vaccine is inferior to US's? Moderna and Pfizer seem to be superior in their trials but in Indonesia which used more Sinovac vaccine than Moderna and Pfizer, the COVID-19 cases and death are still better than US. So maybe the lesser vaccines are still good enough to reduce severity of COVID-19.
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Re: All things: China

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Victoria Raverna wrote: Mon Nov 28, 2022 1:58 am
Kraken wrote: Sun Nov 27, 2022 11:27 pm If Xi abandons his Smoove_B covid policy, the virus will rampage through a huge population that has very little protection. China's vaccine is inferior to ours and the Chinese have no natural immunity. This is a lose/lose situation for China, Smoove, and the global economy.
Are you sure their vaccine is inferior to US's? Moderna and Pfizer seem to be superior in their trials but in Indonesia which used more Sinovac vaccine than Moderna and Pfizer, the COVID-19 cases and death are still better than US. So maybe the lesser vaccines are still good enough to reduce severity of COVID-19.
My limited reading says that because China doesn't have mRNA vaccines, they can't keep up with evolving variants. Sinovac is a delta vaccine in an omicron world. That's why Xi can't abandon the Smoove_B Protocol without a big surge in hospitalizations and death. I'm sure that the Chinese are a whole lot better at masking and related measures than the West is, but their population is more vulnerable. Being better than the US is a low bar.
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Re: All things: China

Post by malchior »

It looks like the Chinese government spammed Twitter with porn to hide news about protests from spreading/trending.
Twitter’s radically reduced anti-propaganda team grappled on Sunday with a flood of nuisance content in China that researchers said was aimed at reducing the flow of news about stunning widespread protests against coronavirus restrictions.

Numerous Chinese-language accounts, some dormant for months or years, came to life early Sunday and started spamming the service with links to escort services and other adult offerings alongside city names.

The result: For hours, anyone searching for posts from those cities and using the Chinese names for the locations would see pages and pages of useless tweets instead of information about the daring protests as they escalated to include calls for Communist Party leaders to resign.

It is not the first time that suspected government-connected accounts have used the technique, according to a recently departed Twitter employee. But in the past, it was used to discredit a single account or a small group by naming them in the escort ads.
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Re: All things: China

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Kraken wrote: Sun Nov 27, 2022 11:27 pm If Xi abandons his Smoove_B covid policy, the virus will rampage through a huge population that has very little protection. China's vaccine is inferior to ours and the Chinese have no natural immunity. This is a lose/lose situation for China, Smoove, and the global economy.
Yeah, you nailed it....

News about lockdown protests dominate CNBC this morning. Protests are growing into anti censorship protests.

https://www.cnbc.com/2022/11/28/protest ... china.html

This is from 10 hours ago, the current news is a bit more "This is the largest protest in China ever."
Kraken wrote: Mon Nov 28, 2022 3:32 am My limited reading says that because China doesn't have mRNA vaccines, they can't keep up with evolving variants. Sinovac is a delta vaccine in an omicron world. That's why Xi can't abandon the Smoove_B Protocol without a big surge in hospitalizations and death. I'm sure that the Chinese are a whole lot better at masking and related measures than the West is, but their population is more vulnerable. Being better than the US is a low bar.
This morning CNBC said China talked to Moderna about purchasing the IP for MRNA and were turned down. Conversely, Biontec has trying to get China to accept the possibility of using the Pfizer vaccine and it was approved for use by "foreigners" but that has been stalled and reduced to "European Foreigners" and still awaits a program start.
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Re: All things: China

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The type of vaccine is part of it. They also have poorer vaccine uptake than you'd expect. The final piece is that they're trying to aggressively control the virus while the rest of the world has seemingly gone all-in on "let it rip". As we continue to encourage uncontrolled spread, they need to go into insane lockdowns to try and resist the outbreaks that pop up.

To be clear, the ship on COVID Zero sailed long ago; I'm not a proponent.

Above and beyond the death this current outbreak will potentially cause in China, the bigger concern is going to be the potential for the next variant to spawn from mass infection.

Again, I like thinking about the political/cultural elements as they relate to a pandemic. I don't like living in a timeline where it's currently happening.
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Re: All things: China

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Smoove_B wrote: Mon Nov 28, 2022 10:59 am
To be clear, the ship on COVID Zero sailed long ago; I'm not a proponent.
I was just teasing you. We might have had a shot at covid zero when we locked down in March '20 if the whole world had taken China's totalitarian approach, and again if we had forced universal vaccination when the vaccines became available, before the virus could evolve around them. But it's clear now that even if science produces a miracle vaccine that blocks transmission, we won't take it.
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Re: All things: China

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Kraken wrote: Mon Nov 28, 2022 11:39 am if we had forced universal vaccination when the vaccines became available, before the virus could evolve around them.
I think it was too late by this point (although we would have been in a much better position had we done a better job). Some of the variants (eg, Delta) had appeared as early as 2020. And while we could have done a better job in terms of getting more people vaccinated, I don't think we could have vaccinated the whole world very quickly - we only had enough doses for ~5 billion people by the end of 2021 (by which point immunity would have waned for those who got vaccinated early, meaning the virus would likely be spreading among them) There are also some areas of the world where it would have been difficult to deliver/store the vaccine due to a lack of infrastructure.
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Re: All things: China

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Smoove_B wrote: Mon Nov 28, 2022 10:59 am Above and beyond the death this current outbreak will potentially cause in China, the bigger concern is going to be the potential for the next variant to spawn from mass infection.
What's another billion people when there are 8 billion in the world? And does that even matter? Since current vaccines don't prevent you from getting the virus, can't another variant pop up in even a completely vaccinated population? Or am I missing something?
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Re: All things: China

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Defiant wrote: Tue Nov 29, 2022 1:02 am
Kraken wrote: Mon Nov 28, 2022 11:39 am if we had forced universal vaccination when the vaccines became available, before the virus could evolve around them.
I think it was too late by this point (although we would have been in a much better position had we done a better job). Some of the variants (eg, Delta) had appeared as early as 2020. And while we could have done a better job in terms of getting more people vaccinated, I don't think we could have vaccinated the whole world very quickly - we only had enough doses for ~5 billion people by the end of 2021 (by which point immunity would have waned for those who got vaccinated early, meaning the virus would likely be spreading among them) There are also some areas of the world where it would have been difficult to deliver/store the vaccine due to a lack of infrastructure.
All valid points. We probably couldn't ever have stomped this virus out even if we'd really REALLY tried, but we blew two opportunities to knock it back in a big way. If we'd imposed China-level lockdowns everywhere until the vaccines came out, and then vaccinated the hell out of everyone we could reach as quickly as possible, Smoove might be taking victory laps today. :wink:
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Re: All things: China

Post by Smoove_B »

Grifman wrote: Tue Nov 29, 2022 1:32 am What's another billion people when there are 8 billion in the world?
Math. The answer is always math. Any time there's a new infection, there's a unknown % chance of that person spawning a variant. Increase the number of people experiencing a new infection and you're looking at large scale near simultaneous events (i.e. outbreaks) that could end up kicking off another new variant.
And does that even matter? Since current vaccines don't prevent you from getting the virus, can't another variant pop up in even a completely vaccinated population? Or am I missing something?
The vaccines do decrease chances of you getting the virus at a population level because vaccinated people are less likely to have severe symptoms. With reduced symptoms, a population of vaccinated people (city, county, neighborhood) are less likely to spread it. But because it's not 100% effective (or even 90%), the virus can still spread (and make people sick).

I don't think we're at the point yet where we understand what's driving variants, but all the stuff I've read seems to suggest it's our mixed levels of protection that are fueling it - people with 0 to (N) vaccinations and all the combinations in between. There's also been suggestions that there are people (like Typhoid Mary) that might have mild symptoms but are cranking out viral variants. There's also been work trying to figure out how much animal populations might be influencing the process, meaning are we giving it to animals and are they then capable of generating mutations and giving it back (like how it works for annual influenza).

Regardless of all the above and what we know and don't know, there's no equation where uncontrolled spread is a good idea. In the modern history (post 1850) of communicable diseases, I'm at a loss to think of another disease that we (1) identified as pathogenic and then said (2) cool, cool, let's just see what happens if we allow uncontrolled spread as a policy decision? Maybe mpox? That follows in a post-COVID-19 world.

Bringing this back on topic, China is another page in the great COVID-19 experiment we're all part of. All their specific features (political, social/cultural, scientific, demographic, etc...) are now coming together as the virus surges there. They were doomed from the start as soon the majority of global nations decided to "live with it"; there was no way China could hold out against the world. Now we get to see (maybe) how whatever variant is circulating through China impacts the globe.
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Re: All things: China

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Kraken wrote: Tue Nov 29, 2022 2:54 am All valid points. We probably couldn't ever have stomped this virus out even if we'd really REALLY tried, but we blew two opportunities to knock it back in a big way. If we'd imposed China-level lockdowns everywhere until the vaccines came out, and then vaccinated the hell out of everyone we could reach as quickly as possible, Smoove might be taking victory laps today. :wink:
Initially it did seem possible, but now that we know it infects other animal species, I'm not exactly sure how things would look if we did crazy lockdowns and had aggressive masking.

I do know that if we could get people to just wear goddamn masks in public places, at schools, on mass transit, etc... it would absolutely make a difference in circulating levels and perhaps give us some breathing room. I've long given up living in a world where COVID-19 isn't around. But the path we're on now has us at this crazy sloshing "steady state" of ~300 weekly deaths in the United States. No idea how long that will last but I don't think we're anywhere near a "annual COVID-19 vaccination" that will have us living like it's the flu. The only questions now (for me) is how low will the average weekly death rate go and what can we expect to see during the Fall/Winter each year when the virus presumably surges?
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Re: All things: China

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Life insurance payouts are up 11% for 2021. COVID is changing our life expectancy on a national level.
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Re: All things: China

Post by Isgrimnur »

CDC
Life expectancy at birth in the United States declined nearly a year from 2020 to 2021, according to new provisional data from the CDC’s National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS). That decline – 77.0 to 76.1 years – took U.S. life expectancy at birth to its lowest level since 1996. The 0.9 year drop in life expectancy in 2021, along with a 1.8 year drop in 2020, was the biggest two-year decline in life expectancy since 1921-1923.
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Re: All things: China

Post by Smoove_B »

And I maintain that China is actively taking the position that America (and other nations) will pay a price in 5 or 10 years by following a "let it rip" philosophy.

Perhaps I'm giving them too much credit and they're just authoritarian goons, but standing back and letting us chip away at the the health of our population (setting us back to the early 1900s, pre-WW1) while still doing everything they can to manufacture and sell us stuff might really work out for them.
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Re: All things: China

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Smoove_B wrote: Tue Nov 29, 2022 9:35 pmPerhaps I'm giving them too much credit and they're just authoritarian goons, but standing back and letting us chip away at the the health of our population (setting us back to the early 1900s, pre-WW1) while still doing everything they can to manufacture and sell us stuff might really work out for them.
It REALLY won't.

COVID is a drop in the bucket next to other demographic challenges. We can (and do) successfully import people by the millions - whatever our problems, we are very, VERY good at turning immigrants into Americans. For a variety of reasons, China can't do this, meaning they rely on native babies - and they stopped having those 20 years ago. China is staring down a demographic cliff, and they only have 5-10 years before they start to tip over it.
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Re: All things: China

Post by malchior »

Little Raven wrote: Wed Nov 30, 2022 12:36 pm
Smoove_B wrote: Tue Nov 29, 2022 9:35 pmPerhaps I'm giving them too much credit and they're just authoritarian goons, but standing back and letting us chip away at the the health of our population (setting us back to the early 1900s, pre-WW1) while still doing everything they can to manufacture and sell us stuff might really work out for them.
It REALLY won't.

COVID is a drop in the bucket next to other demographic challenges. We can (and do) successfully import people by the millions - whatever our problems, we are very, VERY good at turning immigrants into Americans. For a variety of reasons, China can't do this, meaning they rely on native babies - and they stopped having those 20 years ago. China is staring down a demographic cliff, and they only have 5-10 years before they start to tip over it.
This is a huge debate right now - especially in the natsec community - and this makes it sound far more settled than it is. They aren't necessarily 5-10 years away from any tipping point. China has stopped growing it's population but that was a policy choice they made. It looks like it went farther than they wanted it to but they still have opportunity. They have twice the rural population of the average advanced economy. China is ~40% rural population right now. The US rural population is ~17% as an example. In Europe, it ranges from 7-27% for most of the advanced economies there. That means even sitting at replacement level they still have a potential population of something between 100-200M folks on the sidelines to tap. It will take education/training but there is a lot of room for growth if they can continue to modernize their economy.

Meanwhile, on the home front economists have been sounding an alarm about demographic changes in our labor force. The participation rate has been declining for decades. And it looks like we've now seen another inflection downward after the pandemic. Something like 3 million less people are working right now as just prior to the pandemic. It is a significant driver of wage inflation right now. Is it due to long COVID? Too early to say but it's a decent candidate.
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Re: All things: China

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malchior wrote: Wed Nov 30, 2022 1:21 pm Meanwhile, on the home front economists have been sounding an alarm about demographic changes in our labor force. The participation rate has been declining for decades. And it looks like we've now seen another inflection downward after the pandemic. Something like 3 million less people are working right now as just prior to the pandemic. It is a significant driver of wage inflation right now. Is it due to long COVID? Too early to say but it's a decent candidate.
Powell was just talking about this. He didn't go into specifics about retirees not returning and youth not entering not about reduced immigration but did estimate that 1,000,000 workers were lost to the pandemic by death (as if it's in the past) and there are 1.7 jobs per 1 job applicant today.
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Re: All things: China

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LordMortis wrote: Wed Nov 30, 2022 2:58 pm
malchior wrote: Wed Nov 30, 2022 1:21 pm Meanwhile, on the home front economists have been sounding an alarm about demographic changes in our labor force. The participation rate has been declining for decades. And it looks like we've now seen another inflection downward after the pandemic. Something like 3 million less people are working right now as just prior to the pandemic. It is a significant driver of wage inflation right now. Is it due to long COVID? Too early to say but it's a decent candidate.
Powell was just talking about this. He didn't go into specifics about retirees not returning and youth not entering not about reduced immigration but did estimate that 1,000,000 workers were lost to the pandemic by death (as if it's in the past) and there are 1.7 jobs per 1 job applicant today.
A significant portion of those million deaths were not workers.

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Re: All things: China

Post by malchior »

By death is probably the wrong measure. Still about 250K workers probably died. There is a fairly large population of those folks who also did not return to the labor pool. There isn't a split for 50+ unfortunately to match the health data for clear correlation but 55+ labor force participation data shows many 55+ folks left the workforce at some semi-permanent level. Either dead, sick, or refusing to return.
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Re: All things: China

Post by Max Peck »

Zero-COVID seems to be over.

China abandons key parts of zero-Covid strategy after protests
China is lifting its most severe Covid policies - including forcing people into quarantine camps - just a week after landmark protests against the strict controls.

People with Covid can now isolate at home rather than in state facilities if they have mild or no symptoms.

They also no longer need to show tests for most venues, and can travel more freely inside the country.

Citizens have expressed relief but also concern about the sudden changes.

"Finally! I will no longer worry about getting infected or being taken away as a close contact," one person wrote on Chinese social media.

Another said: "Can anyone explain to me what's happening? Why is the change all of a sudden and so major?"

The sweeping changes indicate China is finally moving away from its zero-Covid policy and looking to "live with the virus" like the rest of the world. This comes as the country is grappling with its biggest wave of infections - over 30,000 each day.
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Re: All things: China

Post by Smoove_B »

Well...I guess we're all going to see what happens next.

/retreats deeper
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Re: All things: China

Post by Grifman »

I pray this war never happens:



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Re: All things: China

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WHO presses China for more data after COVID death tally leaps from 37 to 60K
China is now reporting that nearly 60,000 people had died of COVID-19 since early December when the country abruptly abandoned its zero-COVID policy and omicron subvariants began ripping through its population. The new death toll is a stark revision from China's previously reported figure for that period, which was just 37. But experts remain skeptical that the new, much larger tally is a complete accounting, and the World Health Organization continues to press the country to release more data.

In a Saturday press conference in Beijing, the Medical Administration Director of China's National Health Commission (NHC), Jiao Yahui, told reporters that the country recorded 59,938 COVID-related deaths between December 8 and January 12. Of those, 5,503 deaths were specifically linked to respiratory failure, and 54,435 were associated with underlying conditions, such as cancer and cardiovascular disease.

The new figures double the country's tally of COVID-19 deaths due specifically to COVID-19 respiratory failure, bringing the pandemic total to 10,775. Previously, those deaths—the ones due to COVID-19 respiratory failure or pneumonia—were the only deaths that China counted as caused by COVID-19, which drew criticism from WHO officials, who called the classification "too narrow."
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Re: All things: China

Post by Unagi »

While visiting a website that is in China (for HOTAS controllers), I learned that FedEx-China will suspend operation for the next 9 days.
While FedEx China will suspend operation from January 19, 2023 to January 28, 2023 (Beijing, HK time) (January 18, 2023-Juanuary 27, 2023 EST), it is recommended that customers place orders in time. During the FedEx China vacation, our online store will keep running and warmly welcome aviators to our store, however, please be kindly noted that all products purchased in this period have not to be shipped until FedEx China resumes business and we will spare no effort to deal with all orders within 3-5 days.
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Re: All things: China

Post by stessier »

Unagi wrote: Wed Jan 18, 2023 12:22 pm While visiting a website that is in China (for HOTAS controllers), I learned that FedEx-China will suspend operation for the next 9 days.
While FedEx China will suspend operation from January 19, 2023 to January 28, 2023 (Beijing, HK time) (January 18, 2023-Juanuary 27, 2023 EST), it is recommended that customers place orders in time. During the FedEx China vacation, our online store will keep running and warmly welcome aviators to our store, however, please be kindly noted that all products purchased in this period have not to be shipped until FedEx China resumes business and we will spare no effort to deal with all orders within 3-5 days.
Do they suspend operations every year? That lines up with the New Year and all our contacts are shutdown during that time.
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Unagi
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Re: All things: China

Post by Unagi »

stessier wrote: Wed Jan 18, 2023 12:42 pm
Unagi wrote: Wed Jan 18, 2023 12:22 pm While visiting a website that is in China (for HOTAS controllers), I learned that FedEx-China will suspend operation for the next 9 days.
While FedEx China will suspend operation from January 19, 2023 to January 28, 2023 (Beijing, HK time) (January 18, 2023-Juanuary 27, 2023 EST), it is recommended that customers place orders in time. During the FedEx China vacation, our online store will keep running and warmly welcome aviators to our store, however, please be kindly noted that all products purchased in this period have not to be shipped until FedEx China resumes business and we will spare no effort to deal with all orders within 3-5 days.
Do they suspend operations every year? That lines up with the New Year and all our contacts are shutdown during that time.
You are probably right. I took 'vacation' as a euphemism - but it's probably a New Year thing.
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LordMortis
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Re: All things: China

Post by LordMortis »

This is apparently a thing. CNBC reporting Blinken cancelling trip to China over it.

https://www.cnbc.com/2023/02/03/china-t ... lloon.html
Chinese authorities said Friday that a suspected Beijing-operated spy balloon spotted hovering over sensitive U.S. airspace was in fact a civilian airship intended for scientific research.

China’s Foreign Ministry said in a statement that westerly wind had caused the airship to stray into U.S. territory, describing the incident as a result of “force majeure” — or greater force — for which it was not responsible.

“The airship comes from China and is of a civilian nature, used for scientific research such as meteorology,” according to a Google translation of a statement on the foreign ministry’s website.

“Affected by the westerly wind and with limited self-control ability, the airship seriously deviated from the scheduled route,” it said.

“China regrets that the airship strayed into the United States due to force majeure. China will continue to maintain communication with the US to properly handle the unexpected situation,” it added.

The statement comes hours after Beijing urged Washington to remain “cool-headed” amid its investigation into reports that the balloon had been hovering over sensitive airspace in the northern U.S.

The U.S. accused China on Thursday of operating what it said was a possible surveillance balloon over locations that house nuclear weapons, further escalating tensions between the two superpowers and prompting U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken to cancel a scheduled trip to Beijing this weekend.
Story continues....
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