‘The panda in the pandemic’

As a life-long amateur Sinophile, my attention was recently drawn to ‘China hand’ and author Steven W. Mosher’s experience of being severely censured (by China) for his outspoken criticism of human rights depredations in the People’s Republic, specifically as they were focused upon China’s draconian repression of reproductive ‘rights’ among China’s population during the period of its ‘one-child policy’ (which ended in 2015 and was replaced by a ‘two-child’ policy). My heightened focus on Mosher came with news, a month or more ago, that Mosher had stated publicly that he suspected the SARS-CoV-2/COVID-19 pandemic had possibly (my italics) resulted from the accidental or inadvertent release of a classified Chinese research lab ‘value-added’ biological agent from the Wuhan Virology Institute (an erstwhile ‘level-IV’ laboratory facility at which China’s biological research programs are all conducted, level-IB being the highest level of biosafety required for work on the most highly contagious and potentially dangerous forms of biologically-transmitted disease).

Mosher, so the story goes, was a doctoral candidate at Stanford University in Palo Alto (CA) whose dissertation focused to a great extent on the severe excesses of the Chinese one-child policy (which he both witnessed and documented while working in China). Predictably outraged by the assertions and allegations of human rights abuse and violations contained therein, the People’s Republic of China exerted strong sub-rosa pressure on the university to censure Mosher and suppress his ‘displeasing’ criticisms. The result of that ‘pressure’ took shape in Stanford University’s consequent disapproval of Mosher’s PhD petition. Mosher (rightfully, I am of the opinion) attributes this to the ‘spinelessness’ of the university’s administration and by extension to its obsequious ‘kowtowing’ to the Chinese, doubtless brought about by the threat of Stanford’s losing its Confucian Institute Program.

Stanford’s craven censure of Mosher was probably to a great extent consequent to the presence of a highly developed and well-established ‘Confucian Institute’ on that campus, which is part of a network of hundreds of similar establishments at educational campuses (colleges, universities and secondary schools) throughout the world whose propagation has been conceptualized, orchestrated and overseen by China’s top CCP leadership.

Beginning in 2004 (when the first Confucian Institute was established in Seoul, South Korea), these cultural organisations are ostensibly devoted to teaching Chinese language, history and culture. Mosher terms them ‘propaganda outlets’, which they are no doubt are, since they are fully funded, organised, operated and supported with the full resources of the Chinese Communist Party’s propaganda ministry (through various front organisations). These institutes come complete as a ‘gift’ (think Trojan Horse, if it helps) with generous Chinese Government financing, instructors and teaching materials, all aspects of the program that doubtless have great appeal to many schools and learning facilities used to struggling mightily for financial aid. Given China’s present trillions of dollars that are available from their economic cash reserves surplus, the prospect of accessing the bountiful funding that accompanies them is doubtless quite welcome at most learning institutions. It is particularly relevant to note that the institutes are self-administered and self-operated…not under the administrative aegis of the schools they operate within, but by direct enablement and collusion with CCP officials appointed to their posts by the PRC.

Mosher, in his interesting book titled Bully of China, quotes former PRC leader Hu Jintao as saying, in remarks made to the senior leadership of the CCP (Chinese Communist party), “…through many years of effort, we have now found the way to cultivate and prepare foreign supporters for our Party…Establishing and spreading the various Chinese language institutes such as Confucius Institutes around the world increases our Party’s influence world-wide.”

Mosher further notes “...the Beijing bureaucrats of the innocuously named ‘Office of Chinese language Council International' (Hanban, for short) who run the Confucius Institute network are at pains to deny any subversive intent, of course. They blithely compare the institutes to France’s Alliance Francaise and Germany’s Goethe-Institut, claiming that they exist only to promote the Chinese language and culture and to facilitate cultural exchange.” Of course, those highly respected philanthropic institutions are not run directly by their benefactor nations.

Thus, and not fully apart from China’s effort to discredit Mosher himself, we gain substantial insight into what Mosher characterises as China’s drive to establish itself as the world’s new socio-economic ‘hegemon’, an ambition targeted towards and intended to displace America as the present leading world power. In Bully of China, Mosher explores China’s driving ambition quite skillfully, underscoring his arguments with extensive research and documentation in the 380 pages of his 2017 book, and makes a highly persuasive case for America to not be taken in by China’s duplicitous efforts to convey the impression that national ambition is not its sole driving impetus.

Mosher’s book is written bereft of the sort of kid-glove delicacy that many academics might more gingerly employ in detailing the inner workings of the world’s leading contender for world supremacy in our present era, especially when their educational institution (and employer, ahem-ahem) receives subsidies and generous economic ‘aid’ from that entity, but his complaints (as well as his principal contention) are in my opinion quite legitimate. China appears to present the stance to the world that it is merely interested in displaying and conveying the many benefits of its several thousand years of civil development to the rest of the world, but as Mosher points out, lurking beneath that façade is a far more sinister intent…one that seems to almost entirely be lost on naive Americans (whom China rightfully characterises as ‘unsophisticated and with none of the deviousness that the realities of life mandate.’ This is the nation that, as some will recall, produced the Qi Dynasty’s (roughly 544 BC) Sun Tzu, whose timeless classic The Art of War is still regarded across the world as a highly insightful and useful manual for subduing an enemy.

But this is all mere backstory here. Very recently a few of America’s various leaders (who would all doubtless stridently proclaim that America has NOT been derelict in protecting its citizens against the pandemic that CBRN experts have been predicting for decades), in their scrambling effort to grab at explanatory straws, have shared the brilliant wisdom that perhaps, just perhaps, the United States has put too many of its economic eggs in a proprietary basket that is now in a prime position to crack all the eggs contained in it wide-open. That is to say, minus the allegorical embroidery (I love that sort of needless verbal circumloquity, unfortunately), America should not have relied so disproportionately on outsourcing so many of its crucial material (and technical) needs to other nations (read: China) in the more recent decades.

As America continues to perform its embarrassing economic self-exam in the face of current dire shortages of biological protective gear (respiratory masks, isolation gowns, self-contained open-circuit breathing systems, ventilators, et al) in the face of the COVID-19 crisis, it seems to have finally dawned upon US strategic planners and long-range economic thinkers that we may have become too critically dependent on nations like China to supply our urgently needed medical/hygienic preparedness gear. Duh!

In point of fact, China now provides some 82% of all US consumer goods, including such important medical safety equipment such as N95 respiratory masks, isolation gowns, surgical supplies, and biolaboratory supplies in all categories. Of course, to a significant extent this has been one of China’s chief economic aims for a very, very long time now: making America further vulnerable to China’s overarching ‘hegemonic’ ambitions. It would be hard for any serious student of economics to deny that China has long used deliberate currency manipulation (officially sanctioned under-valuation monetary policies) as a weaponised form of devastating economic armament, a strategy that has had (and continues to have) potentially catastrophic consequences for our nation, as ‘cheap’ but very high-quality material goods continue to flood our shores.

Although President Trump just yesterday articulated this concern in one of his increasingly frequent ‘fireside chats’ to the American public, it is a certainty that he likely never in his foggiest moments of economic alacrity EVER personally conceived of such a possible scenario heretofore. And it is a credit only to his chief economic advisors (no thanks at all to the Trumpster) that he has even given this scary and totally impermissible state of affairs any lip service at all, as he belatedly tries to soft-pedal this omission of duly diligent prescience!

Predicting the catastrophic potential that reliance on foreign sources for fulfilling critical American needs carries with it is not even the provenance of rocket scientists, after all. It is merely another excellent example of how what was traditionally a most indigenous American asset (applied common sense) has fallen victim to the myopic free-market profiteering activities of American businesses, intent on making a fast buck and skedaddling out of the way of the figurative tsunami that typically occurs subsequent to acts of such economic short-sightedness. It is further another sterling example of one of the major differences between China’s world-view and that of the USA: cultivating the market for long-term, proportionately determined and projected gains versus the ‘make a quick buck and git the hell out’ economic philosophy that exemplifies American ‘Yankee-style’ applied economic adventurism.

China, however, taking this into its overall, long-view ambitions to achieve not just economic but SOCIAL hegemony, well understands the potential rewards that beckon (and dangers that loom). It might help to think of US/China foreign relations (or all foreign policy, for that matter) for what it is: a political chess (or poker) game played out for the highest stakes, at the highest financial levels of socio-economic responsibility on a world stage.

America is, and has ever been, a pathetic chess player (although not perhaps such a bad poker player, despite the somewhat divergent nature of both games)…contrary to other nations, which have long histories of appreciating the development and cultivation of complex strategies and their application to key world affairs (i.e. China, Russia, etc.). It is after all, no accidental coincidence that China has played (after inventing it) the ancient and intellectually demanding board game of ‘Go’ for more than 2500 years.

In light of these arguments and insights, to continue to pursue the US’s typically simplistic strategy (of exploiting cheap labor and putting maximizing profits ahead of the long-term market’s best interests) is literally tantamount to committing eventual national suicide. This shouldn’t prevent us from recognizing that America, as a democracy, is already operating at a severe disadvantage in the world-wide market, since an extremely authoritarian nation like China (whose style of governance has been aptly characterised by Steven W. Mosher as ‘Confucian ethics suffused with traditional socialistic Chinese legalism’) has a distinct advantage in pursuing its policies (whatever they are) over the long-term, whereas in a democracy such as America’s, the political climate can and typically does change remarkably every four years.

China, like the former USSR (which in its present form still mimics the USSR it was back before the ‘fall’, and with a new name only), regularly bends the rules in its favor so as to perpetuate the desired governmental status quo of the moment. Thus, both Russian and Chinese leaders regularly engage in (il)legal political manipulations that assure political dynastic continuity at the top. America, by stark contrast (almost humorously) more resembles the Yang/Yin ‘Tao’, with that ancient philosophy’s radical polarisations (both administratively and functionally, on a political level).

When this state of affairs is applied both to statecraft logistics AND to national (or global) socio-economic policies, it’s no great mystery as to whom is forced to operate at a disadvantage and whom is not, after all!

A few weeks ago I wrote a paper slamming both the sensationalist American media and the US Federal Government for 1) failing to keep its faith with the American public by providing adequate protective preparedness in anticipation of a pandemic such as the present one (in the case of the COVID-19 outbreak) and 2) engaging in needless histrionic, highly unproductive & emotional hyping of the COVID-19 pandemic (in reference to America’s broadcast media). The foregoing facts and observations certainly expose the tragically shortsighted and almost criminally irresponsible US domestic preparedness policies and the equally culpable, unprofessional and highly censurable news coverage policies of the former. Those criticisms are, if anything, understated and feeble enough when the greater pending dire consequences of our conceptional understanding failures are placed on a microscope stage and mercilessly scrutinized today.

In another wonderfully informative book I am presently reading (ACES WILD: The race for Mach-1, by Al Blackburn), I was bemused to run across mention of typical media hyping that has become a uniform characteristic of all broadcast media in the United States. Blackburn (who is a former flight test pilot and experienced experimental aircraft engineer) does, by the way, an absolutely engrossing job of tracing the controversies around which ‘Aces Wild’ was constructed. Namely, the question of who actually broke ‘Mach’ for the very first time, and some of his comments on the flagrant excesses of media hype bear repeating here since they relate directly to needless and highly unhelpful media hyper-histrionics. I would heartily recommend Blackburn’s book to anyone with a strong interest in Aviation history and aerospace matters.

It is helpful, I believe, to here briefly point out what should be immediately apparent to any rationally objective thinker, in my opinion: that the American public has been so thoroughly ‘brain-washed’ (socialized, in more academic terms) into accepting the established broadcast media status-quo existing today (of exaggerating, needlessly emotionalising and histrionically distorting fact in order to create ‘news’ from no news) that it remains largely almost totally unmindful that it is being disingenuously played.

So much so has modern American news media become a vehicle for brainless, anti-intellectual ‘infortainment’ that the masses who slavishly watch television each day now regard these pathetically low standards of supposedly professional journalism as the accepted norm to be emulated. By contrast, I have always found it helpful to view foreign English-language news media programming as a standard to expose these wretched American practices. Just watch the UK BBC (not the wretched ‘made for US audiences’ surrogate we now see on the tube), French, German or Japanese channels and the profound differences in nuances of delivery, enunciation, elocution and content (not to mention an overall pervading ‘calmness’ and rationally intelligent behavioral affect that typically radiates forth) quickly become discernible.

[The fact that these facts haven’t fully emerged in the US viewing audience are a slamming indictment of the fact that the majority of American viewers are either no longer capable of making such comparisons or no longer care, being happy to daily be led down the informational primrose path that leads (Lemming-like) to the edge of a cliff that reeks of soulless materialistic consumerism).]

But returning to Al Blackburn’s riveting story of the race to break the so-called ‘sound barrier’ in 1947, in his book Blackburn details the (unofficial) keen competition that existed between North American Aviation and Bell Aircraft to get their aircraft past that legendary milestone first: the ‘sound barrier.

For the record and for the sake of making an important distinction, the Bell X-1 was a straight-winged, rocket-powered experimental aircraft that was borne aloft under its Boeing B-19 ‘mothership’, launched at altitude, and glided in to a landing after exhausting its fuel. The North American XP-86 (later famously known as the Korean War jet fighter known as the ‘Sabre’) was by contrast a jet-turbine-powered, swept-wing fighter aircraft production prototype, designed to take off, fly and land on its own (still under power).

At the controls of the NAA XP-86 was George Welch, a highly experienced pilot who coincidentally (6 years earlier) had been one of the few USAAC airmen to get his P-40 Tomahawk fighter off the Pearl Harbor facility’s auxiliary strip during the famous Japanese attack and managed to shoot down several enemy aircraft.

At the controls of the Bell X-1 was an unknown USAF Captain named Charles Yeager, who had replaced Bell’s civilian flight test pilot Chalmers ‘Slick’ Goodlin at the last minute (since the Air Force wanted to be able to make one of their own pilots the ‘most famous pilot in history’ (knowing that whomever managed to pierce Mach-1 the very first time would end up in the history books). Yeager, also am accomplished WW2 ace, would emerge from the competition as ‘Mr. Right Stuff’ forever afterwards, thanks to author Tom Wolfe’s best-selling book that first came out in 1979).

Although strictly informal, the ‘race’ between NAA and the Bell Company was in fact very real and as might be predicted, the overly attentive and ‘frothing-at-the-mouth’ media was following the competition as closely as the highly classified nature of the projects would allow.

Blackburn very adequately and inarguably establishes the fact that it was in fact NAA’s George Welch and not Bell’s Yeager who deserves credit for having ‘been there first’, since on at least two occasions immediately prior to Yeager’s record-breaking flight, Welch’s experimental XP-86 fighter prototype did in fact exceed the Mach-1 ‘barrier’ (in a slight dive). But the priorities of extant political maneuvering and state-needs emerged to confer the laurels on Yeager, when in actual fact Welch had, technically speaking, beaten him to the honors.

Naturally, the entire story is far more complicated and detail-nuanced than my brief recapitulation of the salient facts here and one really needs to read Blackburn’s excellent (and highly readable) book, since in addition to being historically interesting for aviation people, it is also inherently enjoyable.

But to return to his reference to the sensationalistic nature of the media press coverage attendant to the Mach-1 race, he says on page xx of his prologue, “Which of these aircraft carried a man at supersonic speeds for the first time? The separation in time may have been a matter of a mere week, two at the most, or perhaps less than a day. For people trained in the aerodynamic arts and sciences, there are few mysteries—just surely soluble challenges and active, inquiring minds. To the cognoscienti, terms such as the ‘sound barrier’ or ‘sonic wall’ were symptomatic of a Luddite mentality, better left to the sensationalistic world of media hype, where they proved great for burnishing egos and providing fillers on slow news days (my emphasis added).'

"David Lean’s forgettable film Breaking the Sound Barrier premiered with great fanfare in New York in 1952, with the Air Force Chief of Staff Hoyt Vandenberg making a generous introduction. Technically informed viewers left the theatre with unmistakable discomfort. In a later television skit, comedian Sid Caesar’s not-very-subtle parody of the film’s more gripping moments (‘Sneaking Through the Sound Barrier’) helped to provide a bit of balance.”

Elsewhere, Blackburn remarked that “Publicly shrugging off big-media-hype was a typical personality trait of NAA flight test pilot George Welch.” Further on, Blackburn relates: “They (referring to the nation’s leaders) have always had the challenge of ensuring that Congress and the public will be ever enthusiastic about appropriating sufficient funds for the research essential to maintain America’s lead in aeronautics. Thus, a bit of media hype—hey, a LOT of media hype—however out of touch with reality, was not always challenged. If some of the star players had appealing personalities and only a vague sense of the technical truths, well, that was perfectly all right. Show business is show business, no matter what stage is handy.”

You get the idea, I’m sure, and certainly pumping up public enthusiasms for whatever ‘big idea’ a democratic government wishes to promote or promulgate has always played a role in furthering major American ambitions and aspirations (whether it be the so-called Cold War ‘space race’ to land the first man on the moon, or the Vietnam War, etc. ). In fact, we shall hopefully see a bit more of this ‘positive’ hype directed towards humankind’s upcoming big leap to Mars, but it is nevertheless important to distinguish…ever, ever…between ‘helpful’ hype and the far more deleterious hype (such as is presently being needlessly and relentlessly engaged in, with reference to stirring up fears, uncertainties and general anxieties over the COVID-19 pandemic).

In summary then, in these difficult and semi-hysterical times, more than ever those who are still capable of insightful critical thinking (in a mass culture of keep’em in the dark and feed ‘em shit ‘bread and circuses’ for the herd) need to help cultivate and innoculate public awareness with a need to view everything we are being so relentlessly force-fed by both the Government and the broadcast media with a healthy dollop of plain old skepticism and critical analysis.

Above all else, never forget: ‘Applied intelligence and critical thought, along with the adjunctives of common sense and skeptical, reflective insight are our best resources to prevail against both Governmentalal obfuscations and media excesses.’

QED, the SARS-CoV-2/COVID-19 pandemic of 2020.

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ADDENDUM dated 6 Apr 20:

Of interest (bearing directly on Steven Mosher's 'Hegemony' thesis) is the following rather interesting article (appearing in The Atlantic) by Nadia Schadlow, former Deputy National Security Advisor for Strategy and now a Senior Fellow at the Hudson Institute:

"Consider the Possibility That Trump is Right About China"