BonesOne thing is certain - China only thinks of itself and no other.
Everything they've done before and are doing now towards that end is what they honestly believe in for themselves - "Manifest Destiny" and will spare no cost or consequence to that end.
Cheaply made products is but one way to achieve it, knowing folks everywhere will buy what is cheapest and they have the manpower to make it happen while taking away one's abiliy to manufacture in the process by their own willing hand.

Simply put - If you don't manufacture and sell you don't profit because you can't constantly buy stuff with no means to manufacture yourself, it creates a trade and economic balance in favor of the one that's doing the manfacturing - Which is China by their own design.

Without income of some kind while still buying, one can only go deeper into the debt hole to them and they know it.

Nuff said.

Obviously but this is what all countries do, the US being front and center of that movement in the purest sense of the word. The Chinese merely copied their trade and they did it well, so well even that now the US is following and China leading. Military dominance is not quite as important as economical dominance, it just so seems, and the US is still looking for an answer to that. Where China has its Manifest Destiny, the US has its Full Spectrum Dominance...;) The problem with the latter is that you can't just go around nuking the world. We don't like it. But selling product everywhere? Why not.

Its about picking sides and it always has been. For China, for the EU, for the US, and for everyone else. Neutrality isn't working out for most and ambivalence in policy, which the US seemed to start doing since Trump, is also not really working out too well for them; all the power gained by the Putins and Jinpings of this world is power lost to the US. The current China US spat for example... all China has to do now to swing the banhammer is stop medical shipments to the US. That'll be an interesting one, I'm dying to see the loud mouth of POTUS at that point. What will really happen now though is that in the eyes of the world, China is going to be playing the good guy 'giving out help and resources'..... to its happy partners. This can explode rapidly.

And now its a political discussion after all... :p I guess its trade related, huh.

Vayra86And while I agree on all of those things, there is still a place and a time for it... You even say so yourself, and yet...

So why respond? Lol, sheesh! Get over it pal.

JalleRWHO DOSN´T NEED 1000 ROLLS OF TOILETPAPER!!!.... :D

Save the trees, use a cup.

I think the absolute most important thing right now is for everyone of us, including tech companies, governments is to focus and manage this situation with as little casualties as possible. I don't think shipments of hardware equipment is more important that the lives of the people that use these products, so as I see it, it could very well be that Asus start making respiratory help medical devices and Foxconn start making health equipment. Screw everything right now, the lives of people are more important than the economic implications of this. And thinking about it, the better the fight we put now towards this outbreak the faster it will end and the faster things will get back to normal. Think about that.

TurmaniaClosed societies like these are always known to never point the blame at themselves, if it rains it is US fault, if there is an earthquake US must have drilled a hole! and etc. they will never change..

Never is a long time, and I am not sure it is that simple.

TurmaniaTheir way of living and by that mostly we are referring to what they eat. which I will not judge. Is completely different to ours, and is causing these viruses and bacteria we are not ready for and actually them not ready for as well.

And yet that comment IS judgemental.
People have been eating anything that walks, crawls, swims or flies since the beginning of time, it's not specific to one nation.

Within 2 decades this is the 3rd deadly virus that came from there, this is a repeat behaviour with dire consequences, it simply can not continue..

Turmaniait simply can not continue..

You are so right, racist attitudes must stop now!

Caring1And yet that comment IS judgemental.
People have been eating anything that walks, crawls, swims or flies since the beginning of time, it's not specific to one nation.

Not wrong about that! I could argue that many meats we eat domestically are really no different in that regard. Most of the common ones aren't contagious, but they can put you in life-threatening condition pretty easily if the meat is mishandled or you don't cook it right. It's all crawling with nasties. But because everything is very controlled and kept up to a certain standard, we can eat all sorts of things.

Sushi is another example. The ocean is full of parasitic nematode larvae that go from burrowing into fish food, to being transferred to the fish, which are then caught to be eaten before its life cycle is complete. They basically tranfer from being eaten by the littlest things, to the things that eat them, to the things that eat them, all the way up the food chain. Most fish at your local market has them. Almost all fish in general do. If you were to eat one, you could have serious, serious problems and major pain. With certain complications, you could die. They're used to living in fishes' stomachs, not humans. So they kind of freak-out and start burrowing into your GI tract. But they can't get through and wind up dying inside, triggering a sustained immune response that screws up everything in there. Tissue damage both from the worm itself and the immune response. It's called anisakiasis, and a seriously huge proportion the fish you eat carry the parasite. The reason you don't get it from eating sushi is because of the freezing. The freezing temperatures kill it. Of course, so does proper cooking... but fucking up one of those two things can kill you.

A lot of animals have parts you can't eat, or have to be given special treatment to be safe. We all eat weird shit that shouldn't be possible for humans to eat. To be a fly on a wall when the first man gutted and ate a fuckin lobster, man... how did he not die or get terribly sick? And yet that is a delicacy, now. If people really want to eat something, they will usually find a way to make it work. Much of what we eat, our bodies cannot naturally tolerate.

TurmaniaTheir way of living and by that mostly we are referring to what they eat. which I will not judge. Is completely different to ours, and is causing these viruses and bacteria we are not ready for and actually them not ready for as well.

From what I've heard (and maybe someone else who's spent time there can comment - I only have press on the matter and anecdotes from people I've talked to who have experience,) a big part of the problem may not be so much in the food itself, but the handling. Refrigeration is supposedly a major problem for them... not only does it tend to be prohibitively expensive, but even if you do have it, if you're in an area with brownouts you're boned anyway. Hard to imagine that here, but obviously if you could have access to refrigeration, you'd take it, right? It would be stupid not to, but maybe it's not all ignorance. Takes a lot of juice to run commercial refrigeration, and in these markets that are hot spots for KWH, poorly-kept units with shitty power probably go down a lot, for too long... and then the food festers. Mix this in with poor handling and generally poor storage, and maybe issues with the way it is prepared (and further, stored after prep) and a lot of nasty things can happen. In these markets, both raw and prepared food is often transported egregiously improperly, before being stored and displayed improperly. Poor handling and nonexistent sanitation practices. That's what I've seen most.

I don't think it's a cultural thing. It being the norm is arguably a fairly large social issue. There might be some ignorance... some people probably legitimately don't know, but I'm betting for most it's just an unfortunate fact of life... it's a willing compromise. What they may not know is how sick you can really get. If you grew up in that culture, there's a good chance it'd be normal to you, too. People tend to downplay certain things more in favor of things they consider necessities. If we're talking trad/alt medicine, I can see that. And of course exotic foods always have a certain appeal too, but it's also 'buy the ticket, take the ride' type stuff. People eat fugu fish in Japan, in spite of the fact that one misstep means you get a fatal dose of one of the most powerful fast-acting neurotoxin occurring naturally.

A lot of people in China prize that stuff and it means a lot to them. But more than anything it is a problem of resources and economics. People can't afford the proper measures, if they have access to the stuff to follow them to begin with. People forget, the Chinese don't have the same socioeconomic framework that we take for granted. I think the government tried to ban it before, which obviously just creates a gray market with worse conditions due to the law constraining activity of people meeting persistent demands for the stuff. They would need to put together a lot of research and start mandating practices and standard for how its all done, which costs everyone money... so there ya go.

That's my take anyway. You can say I'm ignorant, but at least I'm trying to be fair :laugh:

Going further off, people always say "China must be stopped!" but really there are so many factors to China's issues... it's just like this whole situation... you kind of have to blame everybody. What have you got then? I don't think it's productive, but that's me. Blame games became useless the moment it became a pandemic. Captain hindsight can't save us now. Knowing who to pin it on wouldn't change anything. You could say 'coulda, woulda, shoulda...' for days and weeks and months, but the only thing that really matters is getting ahead of what we're dealing with now. Start looking at what can be done better. The time to reflect on who fucked who's dog is AFTER everything has settled and there is a clearer picture. Obviously, there is accountability to be dished out at some point, and the world needs to seriously re-think how they deal with China. I think if China doesn't want people outside wanting to come in and address their issues/see them addressed, then they can't be involved in our affairs either. You wanna play the "global" ...really anything game, that's just how it is. It's like, if you haven't showered in a couple of days and then went to a gathering with friends, you know you're not going over there like that without getting called out. Eventually they're gonna stop hanging out with you. If their government doesn't want to deal with things that we care about and affect us as much as them, that's a raw deal for us. If they want to let themselves go in isolation, that's fine. But you can't have it both ways.

But again, right now that is neither here nor there. I'm sure a lot of eyes have been opened, though.

There's never a wrong time to do the right thing, otherwise you have this situation ~

First they came for the Communists
And I did not speak out
Because I was not a Communist

Then they came for the Socialists
And I did not speak out
Because I was not a Socialist

Then they came for the trade unionists
And I did not speak out
Because I was not a trade unionist

Then they came for the Jews
And I did not speak out
Because I was not a Jew

Then they came for me
And there was no one left
To speak out for me

You know why this applies here? Because the vast majority of deaths were preventable, especially if China were open about this from the beginning!

You say it doesn't affect you, or even if it does it certainly doesn't affect you to the extent that it'll affect the most vulnerable in the society & the elderly? If you're not taking their side now, you'll unlikely stand by them tomorrow when it's over!

I say this applies equally when you're talking about the rich-poor divide as well. Clearly the time to be on the sidelines is over, you are either on the right side of history or not? As they say ~ there's no time like the present.

I've seen the same talking points being brought up for 50 years! I doubt this pandemic will change anything in the short to medium term, China will do what it does best & people will keep on raging about this being Xenophobic ~ no matter what happened in Tibet, Vietnam (Sino-Vietnam war) or South China Sea & more recently the Xinjiang "reeducation" camps. Because for the vast majority of them it simply doesn't affect'em nor registers on their radar, perhaps the pandemic will change that but I'm not too optimistic on that front.

Vayra86What will really happen now though is that in the eyes of the world, China is going to be playing the good guy 'giving out help and resources'..... to its happy partners.

Nah, there's about a billion plus here who don't see China as the good guy. Likely a billion others around the world. China isn't liked all that much around the world despite claims to the contrary. It's just that the US is hated slightly more, especially after 9/11 & the war in Iraq. You don't become a good guy by default, that ruse will never last. Now when it comes to China's economic might, yes that's a separate thing & probably a major reason why they're tolerated to the extent they are in Western Europe. Ask any of their regional neighbors how many skirmishes they've had over borders or resources even in the past decade or so!

Also in case anyone didn't notice, this will result in massive job losses across the globe probably dwarfing the great depression if it plays out the same way it is doing now. The precipitous fall in employment levels is going to be unparalleled, great depression played out what over a decade? This thing will do more damage in 2 years the rate at which it's growing! And I do not say this lightly, the vast majority of lives lost in this crisis were preventable for more reasons than one & the worst is yet to come :shadedshu:

R0H1TThere's never a wrong time to do the right thing, otherwise you have this situation ~
You know why this applies here? Because the vast majority of deaths were preventable, especially if China were open about this from the beginning!

You say it doesn't affect you, or even if it does it certainly doesn't affect you to the extent that it'll affect the most vulnerable in the society & the elderly? If you're not taking their side now, you'll unlikely stand by them tomorrow when it's over!

I say this applies equally when you're talking about the rich-poor divide as well. Clearly the time to be on the sidelines is over, you are either on the right side of history or not? As they say ~ there's no time like the present.

I've seen the same talking points being brought up for 50 years! I doubt this pandemic will change anything in the short to medium term, China will do what it does best & people will keep on raging about this being Xenophobic ~ no matter what happened in Tibet, Vietnam (Sino-Vietnam war) or South China Sea & more recently the Xinjiang "reeducation" camps. Because for the vast majority of them it simply doesn't affect'em nor registers on their radar, perhaps the pandemic will change that but I'm not too optimistic on that front.
Nah, there's about a billion plus here who don't see China as the good guy. Likely a billion others around the world. China isn't liked all that much around the world despite claims to the contrary. It's just that the US is hated slightly more, especially after 9/11 & the war in Iraq. You don't become a good guy by default, that ruse will never last. Now when it comes to China's economic might, yes that's a separate thing & probably a major reason why they're tolerated to the extent they are in Western Europe. Ask any of their regional neighbors how many skirmishes they've had over borders or resources even in the past decade or so!

Also in case anyone didn't notice, this will result in massive job losses across the globe probably dwarfing the great depression if it plays out the same way it is doing now. The precipitous fall in employment levels is going to be unparalleled, great depression played out what over a decade? This thing will do more damage in 2 years the rate at which it's growing! And I do not say this lightly, the vast majority of lives lost in this crisis were preventable for more reasons than one & the worst is yet to come :shadedshu:

I'm not a fan of the whole attitude that criticizing a country's decisions and general conditions is xenophobic. I can say for myself there's no hate... just disdain for the impact it has. They have real problems. I think in some ways they've gotten people conditioned to look the other way with them and it always seems to drag others down. They're like that really irresponsible friend. You want to be able to hang out with them and do good things for eachother, but you also know that if you keep hanging out with them, you'll eventually wind up in jail. And then there was that time they left scabies on your couch.

I see it as a country with a lot of major issues that it needs to sort out. And since it would rather deny a lot of them and try to keep people away, kinda gotta let em and keep more distance. Everybody has to play ball. Every nation has to look out for their own and any nation that compromises others doing that is not entitled to play in my book.

@robot zombie Man, if more people on the on the internet think like you do

robot zombieFrom what I've heard (and maybe someone else who's spent time there can comment - I only have press on the matter and anecdotes from people I've talked to who have experience,) a big part of the problem may not be so much in the food itself, but the handling. Refrigeration is supposedly a major problem for them... In these markets, both raw and prepared food is often transported egregiously improperly, before being stored and displayed improperly. Poor handling and nonexistent sanitation practices. That's what I've seen most.

At least in the eastern coastal cities and as far inland including Wuhan, electricity and fridges are non-issues. They dirt cheap or practically free. A lot of people do not put meat in the freezer though. There are enough stores and markets that sells fresh produce. I can go down the road to grab a chicken that was slaughtered like a hour ago so the freezer never comes into the equation. But has it been handled in the most sanitary way? TBH I don't know, and I have my doubts. At least I haven't been sick with eating meat in China yet.

robot zombieA lot of people in China prize that stuff and it means a lot to them. But more than anything it is a problem of resources and economics. People can't afford the proper measures, if they have access to the stuff to follow them to begin with. People forget, the Chinese don't have the same socioeconomic framework that we take for granted. I think the government tried to ban it before, which obviously just creates a gray market with worse conditions due to the law constraining activity of people meeting persistent demands for the stuff. They would need to put together a lot of research and start mandating practices and standard for how its all done, which costs everyone money... so there ya go.

There is a lot of stuff enforced by Chinese parents, and kids can't just say no because it's gross. On the bright side, the younger Chinese population, especially those born after '90, are horrified by the scenes at the wet market as much as you and I (i.e. people who grew up in Western countries). Eating those things are seen as snake oil level of crackpottery. Aside from the older, superstitious population, those weird shit are probably just for people on a fear factor challenge. We also need to remember that China has a huge population. 1 million people can be eating those weird things and it would still be a tiny minority, just need to be careful when we generalize. Aside from the issues you mentioned, they simply have more area on the roulette wheel and the virus mutation RNG landed on them twice this century, same family of virus as well.

They pinpointed the disease to a local sea food market in Wuhan, which sells almost everything then sea food! most of the animals are skinned and cut a live by them, like dogs and bats. this is known issue, and we have seen the consequences of these actions pretty well in last 2 decades. But I suppose it is easier for them to blame US soldiers who brought disease on purpose, and yet none here who gets offended when we say as it is against china as racist, goes ignorant when their agenda does not suit them. We put all our eggs in one bag, and that has to stop that is all what I`m trying to say.

TurmaniaWithin 2 decades this is the 3rd deadly virus that came from there, this is a repeat behaviour with dire consequences, it simply can not continue..

Ahem. You have missed some history here

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bovine_spongiform_encephalopathy >> Cows
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Avian_influenza >> Birds
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2009_flu_pandemic_in_Mexico >> Swine

'Get your facts straight. You're just parroting popular news outlets now. We don't need that, we've all read the sentiment ourselves. The gist of the above three links is: this can happen anywhere and already has happened in numerous areas of the world with different cultures and varying wealth.

R0H1TThere's never a wrong time to do the right thing, otherwise you have this situation ~
You know why this applies here? Because the vast majority of deaths were preventable, especially if China were open about this from the beginning!

You say it doesn't affect you, or even if it does it certainly doesn't affect you to the extent that it'll affect the most vulnerable in the society & the elderly? If you're not taking their side now, you'll unlikely stand by them tomorrow when it's over!

I say this applies equally when you're talking about the rich-poor divide as well. Clearly the time to be on the sidelines is over, you are either on the right side of history or not? As they say ~ there's no time like the present.

I've seen the same talking points being brought up for 50 years! I doubt this pandemic will change anything in the short to medium term, China will do what it does best & people will keep on raging about this being Xenophobic ~ no matter what happened in Tibet, Vietnam (Sino-Vietnam war) or South China Sea & more recently the Xinjiang "reeducation" camps. Because for the vast majority of them it simply doesn't affect'em nor registers on their radar, perhaps the pandemic will change that but I'm not too optimistic on that front.
Nah, there's about a billion plus here who don't see China as the good guy. Likely a billion others around the world. China isn't liked all that much around the world despite claims to the contrary. It's just that the US is hated slightly more, especially after 9/11 & the war in Iraq. You don't become a good guy by default, that ruse will never last. Now when it comes to China's economic might, yes that's a separate thing & probably a major reason why they're tolerated to the extent they are in Western Europe. Ask any of their regional neighbors how many skirmishes they've had over borders or resources even in the past decade or so!

Also in case anyone didn't notice, this will result in massive job losses across the globe probably dwarfing the great depression if it plays out the same way it is doing now. The precipitous fall in employment levels is going to be unparalleled, great depression played out what over a decade? This thing will do more damage in 2 years the rate at which it's growing! And I do not say this lightly, the vast majority of lives lost in this crisis were preventable for more reasons than one & the worst is yet to come :shadedshu:

The right side of history, yet history is written by the victor. There is a lot of wisdom in your posts, but this was never about liking anyone. Its about taking sides, and a lot of countries have no choice in the matter. They will accept Chinese help now as they have accepted Western help in the past. And just like that, the global power struggle has changed a little in China's favor. It already happens at large, the investments they do in other continents are massive. Look at 5G adoption. That's another big one where its not about who's nice, but about who has the deck of cards and who has nothing. The West literally has nothing. The fact that US officials are calling for a Western initiative (!!!) when China is ready to deploy similar tech is staggering.

Yes, deaths were preventable and yes you're right China could have done this better. But historically, that is irrelevant. Its just a statistic and we've forgotten this tomorrow.

Consider the EU and the US. We've seen each other as allies. And not just because we 'like each other'... but because there is mutual benefit. Its just business and in state politics, emotion barely comes into play. And when it does, its a means to do business (look at Trumps rhetoric).

I suppose there is one upside to all the economical damage: it hits globally, so we're still all in the same boat. That inspires a social and inclusive approach to recovery.