China sneezes 2023

I cannot find the post to which you refer. Maybe another thread? We cross over subjects like globe trotters!

As for Sinovac, it is odd how slow and behind they were on the vaccine.

A final investigation by WHO is now being abandoned. Early refusal by China to allow WHO inspectors to Huanan market nor the lab in Wuhan may skew research into the source.

https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-023-00283-y

China may know but the rest of us may never.

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@Susannah it’s a general thing @John_Scully has said on other thread(s), with which I fully concur.

Like me, albeit John operated at a much more senior level, John used to take the American shilling but now has seen the light :slight_smile:

Sorry for not saying it wasn’t on this same thread

You’ve hit the nail on the head Karen. Manufacturing started moving out of the US to lower cost countries in the fifties and sixties but in the late nineties it was the risk of IP theft in China that worried me. It’s not their sweatshops and virtual slave labour that has allowed China to leapfrog to their current high tech position, it is IP theft. Only now is the US trying to shut the stable door by banning the sale of chip manufacturing equipment (the most important of which is Dutch anyway :thinking:) and US corporations are scrambling to transfer manufacturing to India, good luck with that :roll_eyes:. Sadly, I have zero confidence in the them being able to put the lid back on this Pandora’s box.

Good point about the vaccine, I guess the Wuhan Institute of Virology is better at creating viruses than vaccines :face_with_hand_over_mouth:

:face_with_hand_over_mouth: There are so many things I admire about the US. It has a can-do spirit, it encourages and rewards people doing the best they can. It is the opposite to the traditional class based English structure which is pitifully obvious in Government today.

However, the inept US foreign policy scares the hell out of me.

Quite. It seems amazing that so much tech has been quite literally given away to the Chinese in full awareness that assurances IP would be protected weren’t worth the electrons used to generate the emails. In some ways they are admirable, but their view of property and ownership is different to that in the west.

Their foreign policy is a natural extension of all things American. I also read recently that shooting is now the most common cause of death for American school-age children.

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This is slightly funny

The point being that despite

Xi Jinping, called for China to become more self-reliant through its own innovations in science and technology in a speech earlier this week.

China still struggles to distinguish original innovation from outright imitation.

The irony is that historically (as far as I understand) China invented things and the Japanese later technologically developed many of these inventions to an incredible degree of sophistication or refinement. I’m thinking in particular of paper making relief printing, but also building techniques, textiles, blade making…

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This article is spot on. Slow change in China is what we must hope for.

What is a little concerning just now, is the Taiwan issue. China has learned much from political manoeuvres elsewhere and well understands the tactic of distraction. What better way to reign in patriotic apathy while achieving a longed for goal? Xi may well be contemplating use of China’s large, fully prepared armed forces for ‘repossession’ of Taiwan while the US is already juggling its own internal issues and funding Ukraine’s defence. Let’s hope not.

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Well said! Lacquer work. Woodblock art. Silk woven textiles. Bronzes… Still so much from which we may learn and emulate. The use of sustainable bamboo for products being one.

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I am sure you know it well but for many and the sake of mankind’s future, there is much we could learn from the Japanese art concepts of Wabi-Sabi 侘寂 and Kintsugi 金継ぎ.

Appreciating imperfections, preserving and seeing the beauty in everything. It is a philosophy I love. Especially as it embraces craftsmanship! :wink:

More reading

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Kintsugi is a technique rather than a concept surely, but in accordance with concepts relating to acceptance of imperfection etc.

True! I should better have said the concepts behind Kintsugi wares.

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