Biden's playing dominoes
Featured contributor Prof. Josef Mahoney on #bloomberg about Biden's decision to add #tencent and #catl among others to military blacklist and international media hype about HMPV in China.
Parting Shots
The Biden Administration has been steadily advancing its anti-China agenda in its waning days. It remains to be seen whether this is toTrump-proof Biden's decoupling efforts, or to contribute overall to anAmerican strategy that some argue has it roots in the late Obama Administration, with Trump having previously played as role as well, previously, or whether Biden's simply adding to a bag of negotiables that Trump will then have at his disposal when seeking a deal with #beijing.
Given Trump recently asking the Supreme Court to delay a decision on #tiktok, it seems the first approach is most likely. Of course, Trump can reverse Biden's course or his own easily but would be more likely to play the hand he's dealt, and happily.
However, it's possible that Biden's real strategy here is to create pressure in Congress, which is solidly anti-China, which in turn could pressure Trump to maintain a harder line against Beijing if he wants to advance his legislative priorities. We're already seeing those efforts might be frustrated in many respects despite Republicans controlling both chambers.
It's likely Biden wants to create a tit-for-tat, provoking a response from #china to sour Trump coming straight from his inauguration, who would then be pressured to respond. In short, Biden's playing dominoes.
For the moment we have to acknowledge this is a clear sign that #decoupling is still moving forward and perhaps accelerating. We'll have to see whether this strategy is revised significantly by the incoming Trump Administration. Conventional wisdom indicates it won't be, but there are some compelling reasons to change course.
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2025-01-07/us-blacklist-of-china-s-tech-giants-risks-even-faster-decoupling
WHO: “HMPV is seasonal”
Featured contributor Prof. Josef Mahoney was interviewed by Abhishek G Bhaya with #trt for his new piece on international media hype about an uptick in #metapneumovirus #hmpv cases in #china.
There's no real cause for concern. The virus has been around for decades, and outbreaks wax and wane in the winter months. The virus has been found worldwide since at least 2001, when it was first detected in the #netherlands. There's no indication that it originated in China.
Some of the more sensationalistic Western and India media are hyping Chinese cases of HMPV. It's long been observed that some international media rarely hesitate to portray China in the worst light, perhaps due to ideological differences and Orientalist clickbait business models.
However, in this case a number of leading platforms appear to be exercising restraint, including #bbc, the #guardian, among others.
The irony is that the world comes to know about an outbreak in China only through routine official announcements by the Chinese authorities, but then some media create an alarmist narrative. Might this discourage Chinese authorities from announcing such outbreaks in the future?
Not at all. On the one hand, China has shown its commitment to dealing with public health concerns in an open way, and this goes back to earlier outbreaks, including #sars, #birdflu, #covid, and so on. Above all transparency improves public health practice within China, which is the chief concern of policymakers, as opposed to what Chinese naysayers make of it.
On the other hand, it's virtually impossible to keep outbreaks secret, especially if they start to spread. Hospitals and public health systems need to be able to communicate and share data with each other and the public, otherwise greater social risks are incurred. Furthermore, contact epidemiology is very capable of tracing infections and spreads, so even if the entire matter could be securitized, it wouldn't take much scientific sleuthing to work out an outbreak had occurred, and then one encounters the bigger problem of failing to report reliably, which would incur both domestic and international political risks on top of public health risks.
The bottom line is Chinese disease tracking and reporting have improved. That doesn't mean that cases are worse than normal or that they're worse in China compared with other places. In short, we have a clear understanding of this outbreak in China and that information is being shared publicly. And because of this we know that it's not a serious public health threat, that it's being well-managed.