China HAS problems….
(Covid Quarrintine ‘Zero Tolerance’ protests)
Forget Taiwan…
And the Biden admin tries to handle things whiule dealing with Russia and the Ukraine at the same time….
The US is has also move to cut Chinese chips from America in a attempt to bring American manufacturing back from China by the Biden admin, something Trump was NOT able to do….
The Biden administration is responding cautiously to weekend protests across China, reflecting in part a U.S. desire to stabilize a vital but increasingly adversarial relationship with Beijing.
There were no statements or tweets on the protests from President Joe Biden, who met with Chinese leader Xi Jinping this month on the sidelines of the G-20 in a bid to ease tensions. Secretary of State Antony Blinken and national security adviser Jake Sullivan also avoided comment, and their official spokespersons didn’t issue any statements by name.
Rather, in response to reporters, an unnamed National Security Council spokesperson offered slightly critical comments early Monday focused mainly on what appeared to spur the demonstrations: anger over China’s zero-Covid policy, which has led to severe lockdowns and which many protesters blame for the deaths of several people in a fire in Xinjiang province.
“As we’ve said, we think it’s going to be very difficult for the People’s Republic of China to be able to contain this virus through their zero Covid strategy,” the spokesperson said in the statement, adding that measures such as boosting vaccination rates were more useful. “We’ve long said everyone has the right to peacefully protest, here in the United States and around the world. This includes in the PRC.”
During the White House press briefing later in the day, NSC communications strategist John Kirby said Biden had been briefed on the events in China. Kirby acknowledged that Biden has warned that the world’s democracies face challenges from autocratic movements, but he declined to go beyond the NSC comment that the U.S. supports the right to peaceful protest.
Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) and Rep. Chris Smith (R-N.J.) called the administration’s stance on the protests “cowardly.” The two lawmakers accused Biden of failing to “stand up to the CCP and stand in solidarity with the Chinese people,” in a statement issued Monday…..
A historical look at protest in the modern era China…….
Something has definitely changed in the mood of the Chinese nation and it does not bode well for Xi or the CCP. This is not just pent-up frustration from three years of COVID lockdowns and a moribund economy. It is the consequence of a decade of steadily worsening repression, following two decades (the 1990s and 2000s) of relative loosening.
It is also the result of a propaganda and information control system that has been all too successful, until now.
Every historical injustice at the hands of foreigners is drilled into young minds from kindergarten while libraries, schools and the internet are purged of all mention of the tens of millions who perished thanks to CCP policy.
I was once approached on a reporting trip by a slightly confused six-year-old who plucked up the courage to ask me why I had burned down the Summer Palace in Beijing — as a member of the Anglo-French occupying forces in 1860. He definitely had never heard of the Cultural Revolution or the Tiananmen massacre…..
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It was almost comical this weekend to watch Chinese state media tie itself in knots trying to blame the protests, which can’t be mentioned directly, on “Western media,” which is almost entirely blocked in China.
Since they have little or no knowledge of past atrocities, young Chinese mostly believe the motherland loves them and would never really harm them.
But the same applies to Xi and his minions. By turning the Chinese internet into a giant, sanitized, intranet, and without the ultimate barometer of public opinion — elections — they deny themselves proper intelligence on the mood of the masses.
So they start to get high on their own supply….