actually if you read wechat then you will find they actually bash US and democracy, a lot of silly cartoons are used for this purpose. they called freedom a weakness.

well the West is constantly providing material for the Chinese government to show off, you cannot blame them. Let's be open minded here and bring the competition to infinity and beyond.

Bravo - Trump is a useful idiot for the wealthy and white. Sadly the US is headed to very hard times and Trump leads the parade.

Unfortunately, there's a very real possibility that Trump will win again with a minority of the (popular) vote. Welcome to the Undemocratic United States, and our PoS electoral college voting system. We too are held hostage by the sociopathic douchebag Trump and his enablers the treasonous snakes McConnell and Barr. Sad bloody times here.

You think that someone who can take a minor NY construction company and grow it into a multi billion $ global brand is dumb? I wish i was that dumb.

The US is a Federation of States. The founding fathers could not have fully foreseen what states would later join the union and/or their future state populations but they did have the foresight to set up the electoral college (and the two senators per state) system to ensure future balance within the federal government. In countries like Brazil and India a handful of populous states control the federal government. The US is the beautiful and successful country it is today, in part, because of the Electoral College system. So, not a "POS" but a brilliant piece of foresight.

@stephenB: allowing the tyranny of the minority and gaming of the system. I call it PoS. You think it's beautiful. Stick around. We'll find out what happens.

How can it be the gaming of the system by a minority? The system was deliberately set up to represent a majority of states, not a majority of individuals. Same as the Senate was. Not gaming but conscious design.

Trump has its problems but the opponent is way worse. Maybe this will give birth to a legitimate third party in the United States.

X.....Xi?

ni hao wumao

Didn't expect to find 50 cent army members here.

President Xi just had a Chinese real estate billionaire jailed for 18 years simply because the latter voiced dissatisfaction with the handling of Xi over the Coronavirus issue. You would never see such an action from the U.S. government because it is a violation of the First Amendment, Freedom of Speech. That is one blaring key difference between the two governmental systems. I would think twice before you equate the two governments, and if you do, I would suggest you go try living there and voicing your opinions, and see what happens.

On an economic level there may be some truth to that but go ask the Uighurs how they feel about the system in China. Go ask the people who have had their organs harvested, the Tibentans who have just been forced into labour camps. At the end of the day personal rights and freedoms are respected in the USA and there is a system of checks and balances to ensure that if any leader does not follow the will of the people they will be removed at the next election. America is not faultless and they are by no means perfect but to equate the 2 is a grave mistake.

How so?

It serves China better to use North Korea by using them to carry out direct actions that they would like to, such as the firing of nuclear test missles, in order to study the reaction by other nations, especially the U.S. North Korea is just a pawn of China, but by leaving them looking independent, China can always claim it had nothing to do with N.K.'s actions.

The USA doesn’t need to avoid crisis in any way possible like China, as political legitimacy is derived from participation not performance. Even the Great Depression didn’t result in revolution in the USA

US gathers intelligence for national security, not economic gain. Plenty of books by authors who hate Trump who worked for US intelligence agencies, for example: Dawn of the Code War: America's Battle Against Russia, China, and the Rising Global Cyber Threat.

Thanks for your perspective Andras I, for context I’m a 15 year Hong Kong resident with lots of Chinese friends. I also know a bit about India as well having been there a few times including Bangalore and have some Indian friends. I was in HK at the beginning of covid and Chinese New Year. The response was in line with your experience. I agree that cultural and demographic differences need to be layered onto economic data to try to understand better the asymmetric outcomes and recovery process of different nations. Shortly after Chinese New Year I had to go to the USA and got stuck there but I went there screaming at folks to pay attention to what HK and China were doing to help stop the spread. It mostly fell on deaf ears to begin with. Classic case of heads in the sand and “it won’t happen to us” kind of attitude. To begin with I was looked at very oddly for wearing a mask out and about and talk of mad rush to the stores to get toilet paper were laughed at...I don’t need to finish this story for you to know what ensued in the weeks and months after that...

@Baldingsworld (assuming you don’t mean @profplum99)

Of course it's pre-planned. Like it should be in every country with that population density and history of pandemics. I'm pretty sure (one can hope...) most developed countries had their reaction pre-planned too, the brief was on the table, there were 2 (3?)months to prepare and failed/failing to execute on it - partially due differences in social behaviour and current political conditions. Fake numbers: the other day Jim Bianco was questioning how can China's and India's numbers be so different. Ok, probably the Chinese numbers are fake. Let's say an order of magnitude? Two? Still nowhere near what's happening in India that Bianco thinks is a similar country. Let me elaborate on this specifically. China (4 years living, 10+ years visiting) 1, China had a plan to prepare for this - it's pretty clear and like I said, I bloody well except a government to be prepared! Especially with the defense/intelligence budgets of the West! 2, Chinese citizens are pre-conditioned to obey these kind of situation, due to more exposure and recent experience. 3, Government action/communication: we went from "have you heard" to hard lockdown in a day. I still remember going out on Chinese New Year afternoon (on a fairly low traffic day) and not being able to leave the apartment complex the next couple of days. Temporary shops and food delivery were put in place within a couple of days. Very inconvenient - very effective (this is a provincial capital, not Beijing or Shanghai btw...) 4, Things recovered about 3-4 months ago (I cannot even remember anymore, somewhere around June?) - people continued wearing masks. I don't know if they make any difference but it just shows the response. 5. Cities still can (and occasionally still do) go into temporary lockdown for detecting 1-2 cases! It happens and is quickly dealt with. 6, The Chinese public/private health care system is in generally a good condition with both capacity and equipment. Yes, they had to build temporary hospitals in a very small location. But they could also "encourage" healthcare workers from all over the country to participate in Wuhan. ...could go on and on. 7, Tracking: implemented instantly. I wasn't exactly following what was happening in this, I just kept hearing about "Google maybe implementing and thinking about it" for a considerably longer time. I'm NOT saying public data should be handled lightly but it does help when the government owns/directly controls most of these large tech companies like Alibaba nd something needs to get done quick. People didn't seem to understand/mind, so obviously it's accepted much easier (although later on I've heard it in conversations with younger people, so there is some kind of awareness) Current situation: Like I said, I cannot remember when it all ended but now everything is fully open (even cinemas), there is very little effort in controlling the virus (there is a dude sitting outside the mall who doesn't seem to give a shit about what's going on anymore - you couldn't possibly get past him 2 months ago!) --- Now, India (first hand experience, 10 months living, 3 months traveling in the country): Public healthcare. I had to go to a couple of government hospitals. For admin reasons, against all my colleagues (from all over India) well intended warnings: "people go there to die!". One was tiny with pounded clay floors and no X-ray machine. The other was a large building from the colonial times, it had pigeons flying due to some of the walls crumbling down what looked like at least a couple of years ago, 20 patients crowding/overlooking others at the same time at the GP's office with a man with a stick sitting outside waving everyone in, they had issues with such basic things as taking a blood sample (finding a vein is hard), matching documents to test results. This was in a city called Bangalore that sees itself as the Silicon Valley of India, with all the major IT and automotive companies operating R&D and support facilities. I can only imagine the conditions elsewhere. I've also visited public healthcare facilities - it was awesome. But at a higher price (and probably lower capacity) than a similar service in China - who can afford it? Those who are anyways less exposed. Social aspects: While in general large families are rare in China (mostly only the core family, parents and a single child living together), in India (from what I've seen), it's more common to have 2 but even 3 generations living together - with living in maids who come and go and generally are living in much worse conditions. This obviously facilitates spreading the virus between different age groups. Not sure how to put this but Indian people are not exactly known to follow rules in general. Also, they haven't been so exposed to SARS and other similar pandemics, so there is less of a precedent to help this issue. Not even going to talk about shanty towns - not just the famous ones but a general village on the outskirts of all larger cities. Millions and millions of people. These kind of conditions simply do not exist in China anymore (I've travelled in all 31 Chinese provinces during the years, except Inner Mongolia, Heiliongjiang and Ningxia - not just famous sights) .... So why did I write all this? Because there are some important lessons - not just about the virus but about interpreting economic data and news without any experience with the local aspects of the country.

Agreed!

I'd pay for this to be free.

Well said "Among the government’s wilder Mitre orders: a prototype tool that can hack into smartwatches, fitness trackers and home thermometers for the purposes of homeland security; software to collect human fingerprints from social media websites like Facebook, Instagram and Twitter for the FBI" https://www.forbes.com/sites/thomasbrewster/2020/07/13/inside-americas-secretive-2-billion-research-hub-collecting-fingerprints-from-facebook-hacking-smartwatches-and-fighting-covid-19/#ff161c205202

Is this the same USA that is destroying Julian Assange?

Yes many of the politicians on the right are liars, as well as the left. Using a biased view that's negative in nature adds nothing to the discussion.

Both national parties have plenty of liars. The Republican national party has treasonous, tyrannical snakes.

Gun and ammunition sales are through the roof in the US (just look at Smith and Westerns quarter). However, i would argue that is because ordinary citizens have begun to fear that local politicians/judicial systems/police forces (particularly in Democratic run states/cities) are not there to protect them anymore. Nothing to do with Russia, nothing to do with white supremacists and everything to do with a breakdown of local administration.

I agree. I did a lot of business in China and reached that same conclusion. Every company had a "sponsor" somewhere in the shadows.

Thanks for speaking out.

Hmmm, Chinese students in Australia certainly represented the CCP last year during those protests!

lived in US >> 25 yrs = being brain washed by evil media >> 25 yrs. Wake up please! Do you really understand Democracy? like freedom of speech, freedom to shoot and riots, freedom to raise food cost, freedom to get rid of middle class, so the rich can be richer? these are so called democracy, this word has been used excessively to brain wash the naive.

Got the hoovering reference , great 👍

Agreed - mike or kb + pettis would be awesome.

Well, Ray Dalio just published a chapter With the argument "China will dominate the world " I am just wondering if timing of the book is related to dollar shortage and need to for foreign investors to pile capital into china to bail them out of financial crisis. Also totalitarian regimes ultimately kill creativity, and maybe CCP will become the enemy and obstacle exactly of what you praising them for ? Anyway best of luck with your investment in China

I'm not praising them in general, only pointing out a few things pertaining to the interview. Obviously this is not the whole picture. And I'm not investing in China - I'm not crazy. Does that confuse your black and white view?

@BaldingsWorld

It's probably just Zoom, it does that all the time.

Happy to be nobody is a great line in this discussion. DLS

I completely agree. Please keep giving us videos from Mike Green and Chris Balding! Loved the deep discussion of geopolitics in this video.