W*****B
发帖数: 4796 | 1 For the coronavirus-stricken West, blaming China is a dangerous waste of
time
Consigning the problem to the Chinese regime and culture – ‘the other’ –
has just bred negligence and hubris in the West, which contributed to
delays in containing the outbreak and wasted the precious head start China
won with its draconian lockdowns
Thursday, 9 April 2020, 6:00:AM
US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has used “Wuhan virus,” and, until
recently, President Donald Trump often used “Chinese virus,” to refer to
the novel coronavirus. These terms contribute to the discrimination against
East Asians in America and Europe. Their use has also been criticised as an
attempt to cover up the failure of the American government’s responses to
the outbreak.
A more serious problem is that the idea implicit in these terms – that the
outbreak is a Chinese problem – and the negligence and hubris associated
with it, contributed to a Western failure to properly respond to the
outbreak. The danger is that humanity learns the wrong lesson and blindly
awaits the next disaster, after paying a terrible price this time.
For some, the origin of the pandemic is the problem of “the other”, in
that the outbreak originated in the “weird” and “backward” eating habits
of Chinese. But anyone with just a basic knowledge of the history of
pandemics should know that the main sources of contagion are livestock and
other animals (such as rats) that have been with us since humans became
settled farmers.
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We have had many diseases from these animals in the long history of agrarian
life and, as a result, have developed either immunity or treatments. The
real danger of eating exotic meat is to introduce a new source of contagion.
But increased human exposure to nature through economic activity and tourism
also brings new sources of contagious diseases, such as the Zika virus and
Lyme disease. The focus on the meat of exotic and wild animals is thus
misleading.
Moreover, the danger of consuming exotic meat does not come from the
occasional eating of game by a hunter or a wealthy man in an isolated area,
but from the large demand from China’s fast-growing middle class for what
were once rare delicacies for the wealthy or the isolated few. This demand
leads to problems of how to regulate the raising, transport and slaughter of
these “wild” animals as well as “normal” livestock.
Therefore, if there is a cultural issue, it is about a fast-growing middle
class in an industrialised country, in a globalised world, that still holds
on to the attitudes of its agrarian and relatively isolated past. The focus
should be on the regulation of the whole process of bringing meat to
consumers, and of human encroachments on nature: a pressing political
problem in this globalised and industrialised world.
Some people also believe that the cause of this pandemic is the Chinese
regime, “the other” to the Western liberal democratic regime. It is true
that although the Chinese government failed to regulate wet markets and
people’s mouths, in terms of what they eat, it has succeeded in shutting
people’s mouths in terms of what they say.
Some people then conclude that this outbreak must be a failure of “the
other” regime, as well as “the other” culture. However, partly due to the
complacency of such thinking, many Western democratic countries have failed
to respond to the outbreak properly.
To be sure, other countries’ failure to respond is different from China’s
failure to kill the spread in its infancy. But could liberal democracies
guarantee that they would be able to suppress a similar outbreak?
Chinese leaders suppressed information because they thought the spread was
under control, and if they had known what would happen, they would probably
have taken drastic action earlier to control the spread, although they may
still have silenced people.
But since the Wuhan lockdown on January 23, in spite of possible government
suppression of information, the terrible power of this new virus has been
obvious, yet many Western democracies still failed to respond properly, in
spite of the weeks of preparation time China won for the West through its
draconian lockdowns.
Trump claimed that the summer heat would kill the virus (and the threat to
his re-election), and politicians in the West had all sorts of reasons to
ignore the threat. One cannot help but wonder, is it necessarily the case
that a free and democratic society could do better?
It should be common knowledge among political observers that effective
governance is not necessarily the strong suit of liberal democracies. Rather
, the true merits of a liberal society are its freedom of the press and
information, and its rule of law. This does not guarantee a timely response
to a virus outbreak, but at least whistle-blowers would not have been
harassed by the police, and people’s anger would not be suppressed online
through permanently blocking their accounts in an arbitrary manner.
But are we doomed to choose between dying with our anger suppressed or dying
with our emotions vented? Can we not combine effective governance and free
speech? Singapore tolerates far more freedom of information than China, and
South Korea is a liberal democracy.
Their responses to the pandemic have been relatively successful so far,
although their situations have not been as dire as in China’s Hubei
province. As I argue in my book, Against Political Equality: The Confucian
Case, the democratic part of a liberal democracy contributes to the
ineffectiveness of governance and may even threaten the “liberal” part.
The solution is a hybrid regime that combines the voice of the people
through popular elections with more decision-making power given to the “
meritocrats”, people such as Dr Anthony Fauci, which is firmly built on the
protection of rights and the rule of law.
Coronavirus has exposed the diseased heart of the global economy
Globalisation blurs the boundaries between the self and the other, and the
dilemma is that this process of transcending nations is led by nation states
. International organisations such as the World Health Organisation and the
United Nations are toothless.
The solution, then, may be an alliance of the humane (the Confucian idea of
ren) and great powers that police the world under the banner of “humane
duty overrides sovereignty”. Unfortunately, given the obsession with
blaming “the other”, the future of humanity remains uncertain.
Bai Tongdong is a professor of philosophy at Fudan University in China and
the author of Against Political Equality: The Confucian Case
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reserved. | f********g
发帖数: 32 | 2 美国人的国民性，就是不干事，指责别人。
against
【在 W*****B 的大作中提到】
: For the coronavirus-stricken West, blaming China is a dangerous waste of
: time
: Consigning the problem to the Chinese regime and culture – ‘the other’ –
: has just bred negligence and hubris in the West, which contributed to
: delays in containing the outbreak and wasted the precious head start China
: won with its draconian lockdowns
: Thursday, 9 April 2020, 6:00:AM
: US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has used “Wuhan virus,” and, until
: recently, President Donald Trump often used “Chinese virus,” to refer to
: the novel coronavirus. These terms contribute to the discrimination against
| f******t
发帖数: 19544 | | h***1
发帖数: 2263 | 4 该浪费的时间还是要浪费。
against
【在 W*****B 的大作中提到】
: For the coronavirus-stricken West, blaming China is a dangerous waste of
: time
: Consigning the problem to the Chinese regime and culture – ‘the other’ –
: has just bred negligence and hubris in the West, which contributed to
: delays in containing the outbreak and wasted the precious head start China
: won with its draconian lockdowns
: Thursday, 9 April 2020, 6:00:AM
: US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has used “Wuhan virus,” and, until
: recently, President Donald Trump often used “Chinese virus,” to refer to
: the novel coronavirus. These terms contribute to the discrimination against
| d******0
发帖数: 3640 | 5 指责中国的目的不是为了浪费时间，而是为自己的失职找借口，进而可以继续占据国家
机器。看看民主世界，除了东方文化的日本有人自杀外，有几个因疫情扩散而下台了，
有没有? 这就是为何它们要不停地指责中国了，一句话，就是为了证明自己还配戴头上
的乌纱帽。 |
|
