Thanks to Trump, China got better, America go sicker

  American Pulitzer Prize winner Thomas L.Friedman a column in the New York Times

When I watched Trump and Biden's first presidential debate, there was a sudden illusion in my mind: the Chinese must have gathered to watch the debate, and whenever Trump said something unreliable, The Chinese laughed and drank a whisky. In less than half an hour, the Chinese who watched the debate were drunk.

How could this not be possible? Chinese see something they have never seen before —— an incoherent u.s. president, constantly out of control in the camera antics. Trump has shown a clear picture of his eagerness to stay in office, as his failure to re-election could mean prosecution, humiliation, and liquidation.

No wonder the Chinese gloat! An epidemic that began in Wuhan and has been contained in China is still raging among the American population. This is not what we think!

The new crown outbreak should have been China's "Chernobyl" incident, but eventually became the Western countries "Waterloo ". That's what John Mickerswat and Adrian Woodridge put forward in their new book Alert: Why the epidemic exposes Western weaknesses and how to fix it.

According to Johns Hopkins University ,65.74 of every 100000 people in the United States die from the new crown virus, with a total of about 216000 so far. Only 0.34 of every 100,000 people in China died of the new coronavirus, a total of 4750. You can doubt China's data, but even if China's death figures double, China still does much better than the United States in protecting its people.

In fact, at the beginning of this month, when Trump was infected with the new crown virus, the White House became a super-transmission place, and millions of Americans dared not send their children to school, China's local transmission was almost zero. Hundreds of millions of Chinese poured into bus stations, railway stations and airports to celebrate National Day holidays all over the country.

 At the same time, the renminbi has shown unprecedented strength. October 1, bloomberg reported ," the yuan after 12 years of the best quarter, is being a haven of global concern ." China's exports and imports soared in september.

( Cnmoulding Note: RMB appreciation is unfavorable to Chinese foreign trade enterprises, including precision mould and automotive precision injection molding.)

This good situation of economic development should have appeared in the United States!

 Michael twat (Micklethwait), editor-in-chief of bloomberg news agency (Bloomberg News), told me :" we think, relatively speaking, the western government peaked in the 1960s, when the united states was busy sending people to the moon and the chinese were struggling with food and clothing ." Plus ," that was the last time three-quarters of Americans trusted their government ."

 But today we're headed for "a full reversal of history, starting 500 years ago, when china was equally well ahead —— accounting for a quarter of the world's economy, and when the chinese government was by far the most mature ," adds the economist's political editor, woodridge. We forget China's former glory, but China does not. This may be a crucial year for Asia to regain its lead 500 years ago, unless the West awakens ."

 In the face of the current epidemic, if the United States really wants to recover, it needs to develop a national plan to deal with the new crown epidemic. China did well: it deployed all the tools of its authoritarian surveillance system to track people infected with coronavirus and control its spread. Some facial recognition techniques in China are very good. You don't even have to take off your mask and scan your eyes and nose.

 The United States can not adopt this strategy, the United States government system is different from China. But our democratic system has failed to take effective measures to achieve the same epidemic control effect as China.

 This is frustrating!

 America confronted some countries in modern history —— Japan and Germany in World War II, Korea and Soviet Union in Cold War. At the beginning of the war, they always have an advantage: they can command their society to do things from top to bottom through a strong government system. But in the long run, the United States always wins, because although we are usually unprepared for war and start slowly, we always adapt quickly and unite to win the final victory.

 But this time, the United States failed to work together to meet the challenges of the new crown epidemic.

 On March 28 this year, in the face of the spread of the new crown epidemic in the United States, Trump announced that "our country is fighting an invisible enemy ", and he vowed to summon" all the strength of the American nation "to defeat it. But he didn't do it. With the exception of health workers, public solidarity and wartime willingness to sacrifice rarely or quickly disappeared.

 Why? And that's not because democracies do n' t have the capacity to manage the epidemic effectively —— South Korea, Japan and New Zealand are doing much better than we are.

 For this reason, the United States has largely a unique culture of individualism, a highly decentralized place-state-federal power-sharing systems, fragile public health systems, divided politics, and Republicans who have been working to weaken Washington's government; while many Americans are keen to get news from social networks, the spread of social media magnifies conspiracy theories and undermines truth and trust.

 Most of all, we now have a president whose political strategy for re-election is to divide us, destroy trust, destroy the truth, and declare any news that is not in line with his goals "false ". The lack of trust in the truth and scientific control of the epidemic has led to the situation in the United States today.

 The last outbreak in the United States was in 1918, when many Americans didn't mind wearing masks —— You go to the previous photos to know —— because American leaders at that time asked people to do so and set an example. But this time, the president did not use facts as a basis for American trust, but also ignored the threat of the virus and laughed at those wearing masks. So, many Americans don't trust him.

 As a result, in a democracy like ours, it is irrational to discuss how to deal with the new crown epidemic.

Today's troubles are not solved by a new vaccine. And we have lost trust in each other and in our Government, our basic understanding of the truth —— all of which are necessary for a common response to the public health crisis. This trust we have in previous wars, but today in the face of the new crown epidemic is gone. I believe Joe Biden is nominated by the Democratic Party and is likely to win because a large number of Americans intuitively believe that we are disgusted by the status quo of disunity, and Biden may begin to reverse it. Biden's victory was not enough to restore America to a healthy state politically and practically, but it was necessary. At the same time, I hope that Russia, China and other countries, do not take the opportunity to attack us now, the United States is no longer the former United States.