Trump might be right about China - Printable Version
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Trump might be right about China - Mick - 04-06-2020
The Atlantic thinks so anyway, and that the knee-jerk reaction to reject everything he says and does may work against us w/respect to China.
https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2020/04/consider-possibility-trump-right-china/609493/ . Blind pigs, acorns and all that.
If you don't want to read it: yes, Trump's a boob and his administration fundamentally mishandled the pandemic. But he's right about China.
RE: Trump might be right about China - 2006alum - 04-06-2020
Mick, FWIW, we obviously don't agree on a lot, but if there's one area of foreign policy where I've been gratified (in the broad direction, if not always the specific implementation), it's the Trump Administration's pivot on China. Just as it took Nixon to open China, I think it had to take someone outside the political mainstream to make that pivot. So in a broad sense, 100% agree with you.
That being said, here's what galls me: per Fox News, 40,000 people have flown from China to the U.S. since the travel ban was implemented. It's one thing to declare a travel ban, it's another to execute it. IMHO, if Trump et al. had not tried to use the "China Virus" as a blatant rally-around-the-flag technique, then the Administration would have more credibility in arguing that the ban was motivated by public health best practices and not xenophobia and scapegoating.
But even in mid-February, I was seeing stories from folks who travelled from Asia back to the US and who said that US Customs was doing zero screening - no fever checks, no inquiries about every prior travel stop, etc. They compared their experiences having been in Hong Kong, Singapore, and South Korea, where there was abundant attention to this, fever checks everywhere, and constant advisories about handwashing, mask wearing, etc.
So what good, ultimately, did the travel ban do? And it's not like the virus was only going to come from China. And it's pretty freakin' clear it didn't stop the virus from decimating the U.S. anyway.
RE: Trump might be right about China - 82 Card - 04-06-2020
(04-06-2020, 08:14 AM)Mick Wrote: The Atlantic thinks so anyway, and that the knee-jerk reaction to reject everything he says and does may work against us w/respect to China.
https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2020/04/consider-possibility-trump-right-china/609493/ . Blind pigs, acorns and all that.
If you don't want to read it: yes, Trump's a boob and his administration fundamentally mishandled the pandemic. But he's right about China.
Just a partisan defense of the administration. Sure. Chinese govt. is evil. Even article admits that's not a new revelation. But that's not an excuse for withdrawing people on the ground that could have provided us with early warning and being asleep at the switch.
RE: Trump might be right about China - Genuine Realist - 04-06-2020
(04-06-2020, 09:55 AM)82 Card Wrote:(04-06-2020, 08:14 AM)Mick Wrote: The Atlantic thinks so anyway, and that the knee-jerk reaction to reject everything he says and does may work against us w/respect to China.
https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2020/04/consider-possibility-trump-right-china/609493/ . Blind pigs, acorns and all that.
If you don't want to read it: yes, Trump's a boob and his administration fundamentally mishandled the pandemic. But he's right about China.
Just a partisan defense of the administration. Sure. Chinese govt. is evil. Even article admits that's not a new revelation. But that's not an excuse for withdrawing people on the ground that could have provided us with early warning and being asleep at the switch.
The Atlantic Monthly in its present reincarnation is not sympathetic to Trump - to put it mildly.
RE: Trump might be right about China - BostonCard - 04-06-2020
Being "right" about China is of little comfort when there are 350,000 cases and 10,000 deaths due to coronavirus in the US. Trump deserves as much credit for being right rhetorically as Obama does for his "pivot to Asia", which was also "right" strategically but was executed poorly. Trump's supporters often said to take what Trump says "seriously but not literally"; here's a case where we are being asked to take him literally but not seriously.
AS even the article notes, skepticism of China's conduct has been going on over the last three administrations in a bipartisan way:
Quote:For the decade and a half prior to 2017, Republican and Democratic leaders publicly worried about China’s unwillingness to play by the rules, but were reluctant to deal head on with China’s authoritarian government and statist economy. The bipartisan U.S.-China Economic Security Commission has consistently called out China’s unfair practices. In 2010, President Barack Obama lambasted China before the G-20 for its currency manipulation. The need to compete effectively with the policies of the Chinese Communist Party is one of the few points of agreement between Trump and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.
It is also worth noting that China's conduct has become more brazen since Xi Jinping took office in 2013. For example, Chinese repression of the Uighers started in April 2017. Xi has consolidated power in a way that his predecessors have not (for example, by getting rid of term limits). China's economic and military might has risen. There is an alternative universe in which China followed a different path. Thus, a harsher response is more appropriate.
So, sure, let's give Trump a golf clap for his rhetoric, but the executive branch has to, you know, execute.
BC
RE: Trump might be right about China - oldalum - 04-06-2020
(04-06-2020, 08:56 AM)2006alum Wrote: And it's not like the virus was only going to come from China.The WaPo article referenced in another thread, about what happened during the lost 70 days of the administration's response, says that a travel ban for travel from other hot spots like Italy was recommended to the White House, but Mnuchin persuaded Trump not to do it because of the economic impact. So the travel ban from Europe was late--another example of economics trumping public health in the short term.
(and BTW, as the article mentions, Trump then botched the Oval Office announcement. He said ALL travel from Europe would be banned, when he should have said all travel from Europe by non-Americans. This led to instant panic among Americans in Europe who had stayed up to watch the announcement, including my daughter. Massive booking Europe-wide of expensive next-day flights home.)
On China, their refusal to share samples of the virus is just . . . well, I don't have the words. Especially since our delay in ramping up testing had such far-reaching impact on our response.
RE: Trump might be right about China - burger - 04-06-2020
(04-06-2020, 10:10 AM)oldalum Wrote:(04-06-2020, 08:56 AM)2006alum Wrote: And it's not like the virus was only going to come from China.The WaPo article referenced in another thread, about what happened during the lost 70 days of the administration's response, says that a travel ban for travel from other hot spots like Italy was recommended to the White House, but Mnuchin persuaded Trump not to do it because of the economic impact. So the travel ban from Europe was late--another example of economics trumping public health in the short term.
(and BTW, as the article mentions, Trump then botched the Oval Office announcement. He said ALL travel from Europe would be banned, when he should have said all travel from Europe by non-Americans. This led to instant panic among Americans in Europe who had stayed up to watch the announcement, including my daughter. Massive booking Europe-wide of expensive next-day flights home.)
On China, their refusal to share samples of the virus is just . . . well, I don't have the words. Especially since our delay in ramping up testing had such far-reaching impact on our response.
China's delay in sharing virus samples was a bad thing, but that WaPo article and others have pointed out that the failure to develop tests was due to 1) screw ups by CDC, 2) failure to engage private companies and universities early on, and 3) rejection of the WHO test (not the physical tests themselves but the methodology) or others developed in other countries who were all a month ahead of us.
So I doubt that a couple of weeks of earlier sequence data or samples from China would've helped much given that the relevant agencies were either ***** things up or outright being told to do nothing (like when Azar told FDA to back off on testing because Azar wanted HHS to be in control).
RE: Trump might be right about China - oldalum - 04-06-2020
(04-06-2020, 10:16 AM)burger Wrote: China's delay in sharing virus samples was a bad thing, but that WaPo article and others have pointed out that the failure to develop tests was due to 1) screw ups by CDC, 2) failure to engage private companies and universities early on, and 3) rejection of the WHO test (not the physical tests themselves but the methodology) or others developed in other countries who were all a month ahead of us.Yep, but the timetable for all of that would have been advanced a couple of weeks if we had the virus earlier. We would have had a head start of two weeks on our screw-ups.
RE: Trump might be right about China - Genuine Realist - 04-06-2020
(04-06-2020, 10:16 AM)burger Wrote:(04-06-2020, 10:10 AM)oldalum Wrote:(04-06-2020, 08:56 AM)2006alum Wrote: And it's not like the virus was only going to come from China.The WaPo article referenced in another thread, about what happened during the lost 70 days of the administration's response, says that a travel ban for travel from other hot spots like Italy was recommended to the White House, but Mnuchin persuaded Trump not to do it because of the economic impact. So the travel ban from Europe was late--another example of economics trumping public health in the short term.
(and BTW, as the article mentions, Trump then botched the Oval Office announcement. He said ALL travel from Europe would be banned, when he should have said all travel from Europe by non-Americans. This led to instant panic among Americans in Europe who had stayed up to watch the announcement, including my daughter. Massive booking Europe-wide of expensive next-day flights home.)
On China, their refusal to share samples of the virus is just . . . well, I don't have the words. Especially since our delay in ramping up testing had such far-reaching impact on our response.
China's delay in sharing virus samples was a bad thing, but that WaPo article and others have pointed out that the failure to develop tests was due to 1) screw ups by CDC, 2) failure to engage private companies and universities early on, and 3) rejection of the WHO test (not the physical tests themselves but the methodology) or others developed in other countries who were all a month ahead of us.
So I doubt that a couple of weeks of earlier sequence data or samples from China would've helped much given that the relevant agencies were either ***** things up or outright being told to do nothing (like when Azar told FDA to back off on testing because Azar wanted HHS to be in control).
When an actual history of these events is written, some decades from now, the $64.00 question about the inadequate CDC response will be the extent to which it reflected an institutional and regulatory culture that had grown up over decades. The WaPo article and others don't address that. Certainly it doesn't cite any recent regulations. My intuition is that it was decades in the making. I am told that the WHO always volunteers test kits, or protocols, and the US always declines, believing - nearly always correctly - that our own home developed stuff is better. The red tape that inhibits use of private institutions has a Democratic feel, not Republican. I don't think the Administration acted in the area. If it did, the tendency would be to deregulate.
Criticisms of a hesitancy to ban travel run into a problem with hypocrisy, since the Democratic PArty and the MSM was highly critical of what bans WERE put in place.
In fine, politicizing this phenomenon, playing a blame game (other than with the CCP) seems to me to be beside the point, maddeningly irrelevant - as meaningless as investigating why Hickam Field wasn't better defended on December 6th. What we had was a peacetime army unfit for war, and that's about all there is to say to that. Stuff happens. I intended to vote for a moderate Democrat (Biden) and will regardless. However, if this crisis is handled well from this point on, and that helps Trump to a second term, so be it. My sense is that for many in the Democratic Party and the media, the evils are reversed. They would far rather undercut every effort, cast doubt on official good faith, see the virus run wild, than have Trump win a second term.
Which seems to me contemptible.
RE: Trump might be right about China - teejers1 - 04-06-2020
(04-06-2020, 08:56 AM)2006alum Wrote: IMHO, if Trump et al. had not tried to use the "China Virus" as a blatant rally-around-the-flag technique, then the Administration would have more credibility in arguing that the ban was motivated by public health best practices and not xenophobia and scapegoating.
Your quote brought up a question I've been meaning to ask: why is using the term "the Wuhan virus" so taboo? Strikes me as a perfectly adequate and accurate name.
Is it because we don't want to "offend" people by calling it that? I mean . . . seriously?
RE: Trump might be right about China - burger - 04-06-2020
(04-06-2020, 10:39 AM)Genuine Realist Wrote: My sense is that for many in the Democratic Party and the media, the evils are reversed. They would far rather undercut every effort, cast doubt on official good faith, see the virus run wild, than have Trump win a second term.
Which seems to me contemptible.
This bullshit again? ***** off with that. There isn't a democrat alive who wants people to die from this virus. You may have forgotten this amid the pandemic, but one party wants to expand access to healthcare and make it cheaper or even free, and the other party has fought for 50 years to limit health care options for the poor, retired, etc. I think you know which party is which in the previous sentence.
What's contemptible here is how the utter failure of the Trump administration on this is bringing out projection in republicans. "The real villains here are the democrats who want everyone to die so Trump loses." I've seen this 3 times already on this board. ***** that and ***** anyone who believes that.
RE: Trump might be right about China - 2006alum - 04-06-2020
(04-06-2020, 10:45 AM)teejers1 Wrote:(04-06-2020, 08:56 AM)2006alum Wrote: IMHO, if Trump et al. had not tried to use the "China Virus" as a blatant rally-around-the-flag technique, then the Administration would have more credibility in arguing that the ban was motivated by public health best practices and not xenophobia and scapegoating.
Your quote brought up a question I've been meaning to ask: why is using the term "the Wuhan virus" so taboo? Strikes me as a perfectly adequate and accurate name.
Is it because we don't want to "offend" people by calling it that? I mean . . . seriously?
I'd turn the tables on you: since both the virus (SARS-COV-2) and the disease it causes (COVID-19) have broadly accepted scientific names, what is the purpose of pushing to call it the "China virus" or the "Wuhan virus"? What utility does that provide?
I'd suggest that just about everyone interested in calling it that has a motivated interest in doing so, and it's not scientific precision. The same seems to be true on this board. Me personally, I think the whole thing is a distraction. But Our Elected Leader loves partisan-fueled distractions, because he is much better at stoking and managing those than he is in managing a pandemic.
RE: Trump might be right about China - g1313 - 04-06-2020
I tend to think of these questions as upside and downside.
Upside of not calling it "China Virus": There are known instances of people who appear to be Chinese being assaulted in the United States. If we can prevent even one of these attacks from happening by an ignorant person through using a different name, that feels like a good outcome to me.
Downside: we appear to be too politically correct? I don't know.
(04-06-2020, 10:45 AM)teejers1 Wrote:(04-06-2020, 08:56 AM)2006alum Wrote: IMHO, if Trump et al. had not tried to use the "China Virus" as a blatant rally-around-the-flag technique, then the Administration would have more credibility in arguing that the ban was motivated by public health best practices and not xenophobia and scapegoating.
Your quote brought up a question I've been meaning to ask: why is using the term "the Wuhan virus" so taboo? Strikes me as a perfectly adequate and accurate name.
Is it because we don't want to "offend" people by calling it that? I mean . . . seriously?
RE: Trump might be right about China - chrisk - 04-06-2020
The Atlantic article seems to be a lame attempt to defend Trump’s inaction.
Taiwan, which has no formal relationship with China, knew what was going on in Wuhan from the beginning. It took quick steps to act and has the virus well-controlled (only several hundred confirmed cases and 5 deaths).
Can we assume that America’s vaunted intelligence operation did not have the same information or that the administration could not easily get this information from its tight partner, Taiwan?
It seems much more likely that Trump and his cronies willfully ignored the information right in front of them. If they really believed that Obama had left the pandemic cupboard bare, they had 3 years to fix the problem.
Taiwan learned from the SARS epidemic. What evidence is there that the US has learned anything?
RE: Trump might be right about China - Genuine Realist - 04-06-2020
(04-06-2020, 10:46 AM)burger Wrote:(04-06-2020, 10:39 AM)Genuine Realist Wrote: My sense is that for many in the Democratic Party and the media, the evils are reversed. They would far rather undercut every effort, cast doubt on official good faith, see the virus run wild, than have Trump win a second term.
Which seems to me contemptible.
I hope you're right. I'm more confident about the Democrats, not so much about media.
The basic point is that this isn't about Trump - and to the extent that it becomes about Trump, you lose the thread.
This bullshit again? ***** off with that. There isn't a democrat alive who wants people to die from this virus. You may have forgotten this amid the pandemic, but one party wants to expand access to healthcare and make it cheaper or even free, and the other party has fought for 50 years to limit health care options for the poor, retired, etc. I think you know which party is which in the previous sentence.
What's contemptible here is how the utter failure of the Trump administration on this is bringing out projection in republicans. "The real villains here are the democrats who want everyone to die so Trump loses." I've seen this 3 times already on this board. ***** that and ***** anyone who believes that.
(04-06-2020, 11:14 AM)chrisk Wrote: The Atlantic article seems to be a lame attempt to defend Trump’s inaction.
Taiwan, which has no formal relationship with China, knew what was going on in Wuhan from the beginning. It took quick steps to act and has the virus well-controlled (only several hundred confirmed cases and 5 deaths).
Can we assume that America’s vaunted intelligence operation did not have the same information or that the administration could not easily get this information from its tight partner, Taiwan?
It seems much more likely that Trump and his cronies willfully ignored the information right in front of them. If they really believed that Obama had left the pandemic cupboard bare, they had 3 years to fix the problem.
Taiwan learned from the SARS epidemic. What evidence is there that the US has learned anything?
I do know that the superior South Korean response was caused by a disastrous embarrassment that its health services suffered with respect to SARS in 2015. This caused its legislature to thoroughly review and update its response. Also, it dealt at the outset with a single cluster.
The US was not embarrassed at all by SARS. I think both of the last two Administrations - Trump and Obama - had a confidence in the CDC that was unwarranted.
The better question is where was Congress in all this? The real Constitutional crisis we face is the total paralysis of Congress, now in its third decade.
(04-06-2020, 10:46 AM)burger Wrote:(04-06-2020, 10:39 AM)Genuine Realist Wrote: My sense is that for many in the Democratic Party and the media, the evils are reversed. They would far rather undercut every effort, cast doubt on official good faith, see the virus run wild, than have Trump win a second term.
Which seems to me contemptible.
This bullshit again? ***** off with that. There isn't a democrat alive who wants people to die from this virus. You may have forgotten this amid the pandemic, but one party wants to expand access to healthcare and make it cheaper or even free, and the other party has fought for 50 years to limit health care options for the poor, retired, etc. I think you know which party is which in the previous sentence.
What's contemptible here is how the utter failure of the Trump administration on this is bringing out projection in republicans. "The real villains here are the democrats who want everyone to die so Trump loses." I've seen this 3 times already on this board. ***** that and ***** anyone who believes that.
Do you think there are REPUBLICANS who want people to die? Or who ever have?
I doubt that, too.
RE: Trump might be right about China - 2006alum - 04-06-2020
(04-06-2020, 11:18 AM)Genuine Realist Wrote: Do you think there are REPUBLICANS who want people to die? Or who ever have?Trump is literally on video saying he didn't want cruise ship patients transferred to land to be treated because he "like[d] the numbers where they are. I don't want them to go up." I'm not sure he wanted people to die, but he clearly cares/d more about how he is perceived than doing everything possible to save lives. In legal parlance, it was gross negligence of the highest order.
(04-06-2020, 10:39 AM)Genuine Realist Wrote: The better question is where was Congress in all this? The real Constitutional crisis we face is the total paralysis of Congress, now in its third decade.I'd encourage you to read this piece from 2016, "The Victory of No." TL;DR, Mitch McConnell and Congressional turned Congress into an obstruction machine.
Here's a piece that shows how there are over 400 bills the House has passed since January 2019 that Senate Republicans refuse to even give a hearing.
And then there's that whole Merrick Garland thing.
Congressional paralysis has been the keystone in the GOP's political plan since Obama was elected.
RE: Trump might be right about China - Genuine Realist - 04-06-2020
(04-06-2020, 11:46 AM)2006alum Wrote:(04-06-2020, 11:18 AM)Genuine Realist Wrote: Do you think there are REPUBLICANS who want people to die? Or who ever have?Trump is literally on video saying he didn't want cruise ship patients transferred to land to be treated because he "like[d] the numbers where they are. I don't want them to go up." I'm not sure he wanted people to die, but he clearly cares/d more about how he is perceived than doing everything possible to save lives. In legal parlance, it was gross negligence of the highest order.
(04-06-2020, 10:39 AM)Genuine Realist Wrote: The better question is where was Congress in all this? The real Constitutional crisis we face is the total paralysis of Congress, now in its third decade.I'd encourage you to read this piece from 2016, "The Victory of No." TL;DR, Mitch McConnell and Congressional turned Congress into an obstruction machine.
Here's a piece that shows how there are over 400 bills the House has passed since January 2019 that Senate Republicans refuse to even give a hearing.
And then there's that whole Merrick Garland thing.
Congressional paralysis has been the keystone in the GOP's political plan since Obama was elected.
I'm not going to fall into the same trap as poisoned the CEB and Thunderdome. You're entitled to your opinion. I don't believe in Manichaean politics, one side good and the other evil. All it leads to is whataboutism, which gets you nowhere.
The fact is that Congress hasn't passed a budget in 27 years now, since 1993. Maybe if the interminable energy spent investigating Obama and then Trump has been used to review the actual functioning of the CDC, it might have functioned a but better 90 days ago.
I lived through one hagiography-demonology already (Kennedy/Johnson-Nixon.) All it did was obscure the complexity of actual policy making. Obama was no saint, and Trump is no devil. Let's talk about problems as if solutions are possible, and every one is in good faith. I'll leave it at that.
RE: Trump might be right about China - burger - 04-06-2020
(04-06-2020, 11:18 AM)Genuine Realist Wrote: Do you think there are REPUBLICANS who want people to die? Or who ever have?Way to change the subject and not respond to my comment.
I doubt that, too.
Your obfuscating question doesn't even deserve an answer, but I'll nominate the Wisconsin republican party. They are insisting on holding an election tomorrow against the advice of everyone with a brain and/or a conscience. Every other state has postponed their elections, but Wisconsin republicans are doing everything possible to keep tomorrow's on schedule even though it puts the lives of poll workers and voters at risk. The Republicans there care more about winning a supreme court election than the lives of their constituents.
And how about Trump's repeated statements that he is against voting by mail because of made up bullshit about fraud or something? Trump knows that lower turnout favors republicans. He would rather voters have to risk coronavirus than be able to vote by mail to help keep turnout low.
RE: Trump might be right about China - OutsiderFan - 04-06-2020
"The US was not embarrassed at all by SARS. I think both of the last two Administrations - Trump and Obama - had a confidence in the CDC that was unwarranted."
My understanding is The CDC was the #1 Disease Control authority in the world until the current POTUS started weakening it. It was well-funded, highly prioritized, and always led by people with impeccable credentials. Dr. Redfield was not near the most qualified guy to lead it, though I must admit, he's at least a Virologist, as opposed to the OBGYN who led it before him. The CDC has changed directors 4 times in 3 years. Most of them have served more than 3 years each, and most 4+ years over the near 80-year history of the organization.
The CDC was masterful in its handling of Ebola. Let's remind everyone that the CDC was dispatched to Africa to fight Ebola, as part of a pandemic response strategy aimed at helping to fight infectious disease outbreaks where they first occur, to prevent spread to U.S. The current administration eliminated its China response team, (maybe others?) leaving no U.S. CDC capability to address SARS-CoV-2 in China. Maybe if it was still there, it wouldn't have made a difference, but it had no opportunity to make a difference after being eliminated.
I don't know of any instance the CDC ever demonstrated any reason not to trust it until this year. There may be one, but I'm not aware of any. If there is, I'd guess it involved AIDS in the 1980s.
RE: Trump might be right about China - 2006alum - 04-06-2020
(04-06-2020, 12:19 PM)Genuine Realist Wrote: I'm not going to fall into the same trap as poisoned the CEB and Thunderdome. You're entitled to your opinion. I don't believe in Manichaean politics, one side good and the other evil. All it leads to is whataboutism, which gets you nowhere.
I find your invocation of whataboutism rather on the nose considering the discussion of who's responsible for Congressional gridlock began when you attempted to shift the blame from Trump to Congress:
(04-06-2020, 11:18 AM)Genuine Realist Wrote: The US was not embarrassed at all by SARS. I think both of the last two Administrations - Trump and Obama - had a confidence in the CDC that was unwarranted.
The better question is where was Congress in all this? The real Constitutional crisis we face is the total paralysis of Congress, now in its third decade.
A definition of whataboutism:
Quote:Whataboutism, also known as whataboutery, is a variant of the tu quoque logical fallacy that attempts to discredit an opponent's position by charging them with hypocrisy without directly refuting or disproving their argument.
Over and over, in thread after thread, those uncomfortable with criticisms of this administration have sought to point fingers elsewhere at targets presumed to be sympathetic to those criticizing the administration: at Democrats, at Blue state governors like Whitmer, at China, at experts, and so on. So accusations of whataboutism read, to me, like gaslighting of the highest order.
When many of us have fretted about the failure to take the virus seriously, some have responded by criticizing the lockdowns as economic suicide. I (and others) have repeatedly asked those who criticize the lockdowns as "committing economic suicide" to provide a coherent alternative approach. Silence.
Some have asked why it's offensive to call it the "China virus" or to discriminate against Asian Americans. I (and others) have asked those who want to call it the Wuhan/China virus what they think doing so contributes to the conversation, or why they think it's a useful strategy to imply it should be acceptable to avoid people of a certain ethnicity when the virus is utterly race-blind. Silence.
Some feel that the federal government should not be criticized and that we need to all unite together. I (and others) have then noted that Trump thrives on disunity and picking petty fights with anyone who dares to criticize or refute him, so such unity will be relatively impossible without a change of tone and rhetoric at the top. Silence.
Whataboutism indeed.