China has expanded its crackdown on protesters over the government’s authoritarian measures to control Covid, including arresting and beating a BBC reporter. The crackdown follows comments last week from World Economic Forum (WEF) founder Chair Klaus Schwab who declared China to be a “role model” in how to handle the virus.
Last week, Schwab told a Chinese media outlet in Bangkok, Thailand, that “the Chinese model is certainly a very attractive model for quite a number of countries.”
What Schwab calls “an attractive model” includes the denial of free speech and associational rights as well as brutal confinement conditions for millions. That approach also included the failure to promptly notify the world of the outbreak and the refusal to share information on the origins of Covid 19.
This was not the first such crackdown over China’s zero tolerance policies, which has include forced confinements and arrests.
Schwab is not alone. The Washington Post’s Taylor Lorenz have swatted back critics of the Chinese crackdown and defended the regime as “choosing not to kill off millions of vulnerable people (as the US is doing).”
The Schwab statement is reminiscent of the article by Harvard Law School professor Jack Goldsmith and University of Arizona law professor Andrew Keane Woods declaring that “China was right” on the need for censorship of the Internet. They declared that “in the great debate of the past two decades about freedom versus control of the network, China was largely right and the United States was largely wrong.” (Recently, Professor Goldsmith insisted that I misrepresented the article and that he does not support censorship in any form, a position that I continue to question).
Schwab’s praise before the recent crackdown fulfills the stereotype of those who criticize globalist relativism in praising China for its economic power while ignoring human rights and environmental problems. Likewise, the zero tolerance policy is praised for its firm response to the pandemic without considering the cost in civil liberties.
For the students, reporters, and protesters being beaten in the streets of cities like Shanghai, the “attraction” clearly remains in the eye of the beholder.
Apple has morphed from a company that does business in a dictatorship, China, to one actively supporting tyrants oppressing their own citizens.
First Apple disabled various Apps that were used by Chinese citizens to circumvent China’s censorship. Now it has hobbled its AirDrop function (only in China) — a crucial tool that was used by protestors to communicate.
The companies that did business in and supported Nazi Germany are, today, widely denounced. Yet when history repeats itself — crickets.
If you support Apple — if you buy so much as a single cable — you are supporting the butchery of innocent Chinese citizens.
Klaus Schwab, a Nazi, through and through.
China cracks down on reporters and protesters. Sounds like Canada.
According to a recent Federalist article, citing an article in Quartz, Apple’s November update made it more difficult for users to share information through Airdrop, but only in China.
“China has expanded its crackdown on protesters over the government’s authoritarian measures to control Covid . . .”
Communist China’s forced house arrest of an entire citizenry has nothing to do with Covid. Covid is merely the rationalization for a tyrant’s MO: Decree that there’s an “emergency” or a “disaster.” Then use that “emergency” as a pretext to enslave your own citizens. We saw the same usurpation of rights in the U.s., though not at brutal.
Some claim that Western leaders (e.g., in the Biden administration, MSM, at Apple) are “appeasing” China’s dictatorship, and thus are turning a blind eye to the plight of Chinese citizens. However, those Western leaders are *not* appeasing China. They are cheering China on. Like embraces like.
Schwab — a real-life Bond villain.
The left, the Democrats and the media, the three heads of the apocalypse, will only support protests when they hurt our country or our allies. Have the Saudis kill a reporter, shut down relations and call them monsters…have the CCP beat a reporter, it isn’t our business. Remember Arab risings in Egypt? Support the overthrow of a supporting country. Protests in Iran…crickets.
The NBA and Hollywood boycotted NC because they wanted men and women to use different bathrooms but they won’t say a word about China using slaves and beating protestors. Iran kills gays and women and the left says nothing. Where the hell is Obama? He loved Iran and his remaining partisans that moved into the Biden team are pushing the same damn agenda.
Want to drill here? Biden said TWO WEEKS AGO that drilling in America is done but yesterday he said Chevron can drill…IN VENEZUELA. Please note that Venezuela is our enemy.
The left wanted to end our nuke power in the 80s while ignoring the Soviets, today they want to end our coal and gas while ignoring China. It is always against America and in favor of our enemies. Just ask Ed Markey, the guy that demanded that we rid ourselves of nukes unilaterally while ignoring the Soviets during Reagan’s time in office. He wanted nuclear power banned and now he wants gas, coal and oil banned. As well as Twitter.
The left hates America, plain and simple.
Now we will have Svelaz comment 200 times because he gets paid by the asinine comment. He must be getting rich.
People like Taylor Lorenz, a very wealthy fascist, want to make sure that she and only she can comment, that she is guaranteed safety due to some real or imagined illness even if it means the entire country needs to shut down, mask up and vaccinate every 3 months. She wants to be able to dox anyone who disagrees with her as she cries when anyone confronts her writings.
That old fool needs a permanent dirt nap for the evil he has created.
Is it even ethical to buy Apple products?
Not really, but we do. That and a whole host of other products, many of which (e.g., antibiotics) we cannot live without. When the plague hit in early 2020, I read that the USA no longer produces antibiotics. If true, we are in deep doo doo (technical term) in the long term.
I have never owned a thing by Apple and I am proud of it.
Back in the late 70’s when I was in Junior High I had an Apple 2, back when they were made in California. Haven’t had anything from them since. No Mac, no Ipod, no Ipad.
I don’ like the way they work. Despite what everyone says compared to Windows, Linux, or Android I find them incredibly difficult and confusing to use and I hate the lack of user customization and control.
Being Chinese now is just the final straw.
Only if you support dictatorships and slave labor to make your spy phones.
The Chinese are risking harsh incarceration, torture and death for a tiny taste of freedom.
We can’t come together enough to demand decency from our institutions.
They don’t care anymore, we’re the Oxford definition of lazy, selfish and apathetic.
It’s exciting to watch the Chinese people cry out for freedom. To watch a people who have never known freedom actually vocalize that aspiration in the clearest possible terms is amazing. There has to be something universal there, but…
The same generation that protested in Tiananmen Square just voted Xi into absolute power. The Party feeds the army and police, and that same army and police have all the guns. This covid protest was over before it started.
History has shown it may be easy to win wars, but it’s almost impossible to pacify armed resistance. The French Resistance, Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan (twice) all proved it. Ukraine, too. The Chinese people have no arms to defend themselves. They are the exception that proves the rule. They will be pacified, no matter how insanely the Party behaves.
I see a lot of insanity in the U.S. now. I see shameless censorship, hiding bald-faced corruption and incompetence.
I saw Xi’s covid policies carried out in Canada with brutal force and little compassion (and even less science), and that petty dictator is still in power.
I’m keeping my guns. I don’t plan to be pacified.
I applaud your efforts to be a subject in training exercises in urban flanking technique.
Bring it.
“To watch a people who have never known freedom actually vocalize . . .”
And who are they quoting? — an American founder, Patrick Henry: “Give me liberty or give me death!”
Of course they have. Young people in the US have no idea this is what they are voting for here. Neither do older folks that haven’t paid attention for twenty + years, and that is precisely how China ended up this way. This is NOT the time to be personally petty. It’s a big world, we are a part of it, and this *does* matter to the most prosaic life stateside, I don’t care if one owns their land and has a 2A stockpile. It can happen, and in the absence of constitutional law, the rest doesn’t matter much. Don’t let it get so bad you have no literal choice but to pay attention, because that is generationally very, very hard to fix. It isn’t just American law or incidence we should be concerned with.
Totally agree…when Clinton’s gave them “most favored” nation….Clinton screwed the world. Now the world is on defense…bc. Technology….now….when the reasoning was then: bring them free markets. …they’ll’ll value freedom more than fascism or communism! Well that spreading of democracy backfired. Now people like Pelosi say we need the China model.. ?…really the one where people have literally nothing else to lose….but up rise.!! Because what difference does it make?….unfortunately the ppl today uprising in China will be exterminated. Pol pot. ..
Pray to God for their brave souls….but does it really take bravery….when your choice is slavery or death?…Pray for our fellow human beings in China. And if you can; make your dollars matter…..don’t buy slave labor stuff…you can’t take it with you anyway.
Do you really need that? If you don’t need it…don’t buy it. Save a fellow human from slavery….
“when Clinton’s gave them “most favored” nation”
And Gingrich.
A substantial segment of our public health, national security, media, corporate and academic establishments now consistently advocate for what are in effect Chinese policies on lockdowns and censorship. Hence they cannot unreservedly criticise what is happening there without undermining their own positions.
Case in point
Uncle Klaus remind me of great grandfather Adolph. He has everybody’s interests at heart s as and he has final solutions for all the problems that bother us. He seems like the father figure we all want. What could possibly go wrong.
I’d say more like Blofeld. World domination vis-à-vis world government is the goal so China truly is their model.
I’m still waiting for proof that Covid came from an animal. We should not forget that anyone who said it might have come from a lab was banned from Twitter, Facebook, MSNBC, CBS, NPR, ABC, AP. and I don’t have enough time to list all the others. There are those on this blog who told us that Covid did not come from a lab. You know who they are.
So, Merry Wokesters… now that uncle Klaus has removed his mask, would you like to modify your “opinions”? (which _do_ have consequences?)
He removed his mask long ago. Anyone who has observed the WEF’s evolution over the past decades could see that. The spotlight is only now on him beyond the elite.