The Worse the Pandemic, the Better for China
Though it will hurt my China distribution, I’d like to remind you that China regularly disappears religious believers of unfavorable sects by sending them to work camps, and we still pay them to make our phones and our enamel pins. This is not a moral condemnation of my favorite phone makers and pin makers; it’s just worth noting what the score is: China has carved out a place for itself in the world of trade and commerce in which it gets to behave pretty much however it wants, and keep our business anyway.
You could look at this kind of like I look at Uber vs. Lyft.
Uber is the more sustainable company strategically, because they have “being an asshole” priced into their market cap already. This means that as they continue being, not really an asshole, but just a corporation, consumers won’t have that uncanny discomfort that consumers get when a brand acts out of accordance with what consumers thought were its values. Meanwhile, when LYFT does the exact same thing, which it must, eventually, under the pressure of time and whatever time brings as a publicly traded corporation, consumers will feel a sort of disgust — So Lyft’s current market cap and success rate does NOT price being an asshole into the equation as it should.
Or it’s like the difference between somebody cheating on you and somebody lying about it. Uber is always cheating on us and that’s just priced into our relationship, but at least they are honest about it. Lyft is the Nice Guy with another family on the other side of the city.
Is my metaphor fragmenting? What I’m saying is that China is Uber, and thus they are not going to trigger revolt among their population by treating that population like individual liberty matters less than the collective good of the state in a pandemic. That’s like, a communist value.
Oh, I figured out how to say it: China can beat the pandemic without stepping on its own Values. The Values of Totalitarian states are in line with the values necessary to beat a pandemic. The US cannot.
Uber can be a successful corporation without stepping on its own values. Lyft cannot.
The US is not at all strategically aligned from a cultural perspective to beat a pandemic. There are many thoughtful, influential, likable people in this country who believe individual rights are more important than collective cohesion, safety, or comfort. They exist on the right (see: 2nd amendment) and the left (see: gender identity). There are even valid arguments that protecting individual rights is ultimately the only way to protect the collective long-term.
So, owing to its values, China wins the pandemic race against the US. China will be able to lock itself down and manage the continued recurring outbreaks better than the US will, giving it a quicker route to recovery. The next 24 months in China will be dedicated to more than squashing the virus, while the US could be mired in mostly that.
What will China be doing with all of its relative time? Presumably pushing some version of their Belt and Road initiative on countries worldwide who find themselves in dire need owing to the Coronavirus. This initiative is China’s way of taking control of small countries with loans and lending — not so different at a high level from US’ aid to other countries.
Leaders rise out of crises. It’s impossible for that not to happen. Mostly this is because the needy folks in crisis suspend their more stringent criteria for good leadership (see the suddenly popular Andrew Cuomo). I imagine if China leads on Coronavirus, it will be treated as leader by nations worldwide for some time to come. Where does that put the United States? The EU? Japan? North Korea? Russia?
This should be interesting.