Generational Dynamics World View

[John J. Xenakis]

** 14-Jun-2020 World View: China on 'wartime footing', Pakistan, India face new surge of Covid-19 cases

I suppose it would be cruel and unfair to enjoy a tiny bit of
Schadenfreude over a major outbreak of Covid-19 in Beijing this
weekend, after weeks of CCP gloating about how they had been so
brilliant and the Chinese Communist government had been so much more
effective than democratic governments at controlling the outbreak.
And so, since that enjoyment would be clearly cruel and unfair, let's
not do that, and let's just be somber about this Beijing outbreak.

China has put Beijing on a "wartime footing" and Beijing’s largest
wholesale vegetable market – Xinfadi market -- was shot down on
Saturday, after 45 people out of 517 tested were positive for
Covid-19.

This is a really big deal, because Xinfadi provides 90% of Beijing's
vegetables and fruit, as well as much of the meat and fish. The
market employs or hosts some 10,000 workers and vendors, and all of
those will now have to be tested, an enormous job.

But Xinfadi also sells food to restaurants, stores and markets in many
places in China. The CCP will have to track all those down, and do
testing and contact tracing on all their employees and customers.

The Communists have "locked down" several neighborhoods around the the
market, but the question now is how closely they will follow the
successful model they used in Wuhan. In Wuhan, they locked down the
entire city, and blocked all flights to and from the city within
China, so that the virus would not spread elsewhere in China.
However, they permitted and encouraged flights to and from other
countries, so that the virus would be seeded in as many countries as
possible, so that China wouldn't be alone in fighting the virus.

So now the question is whether they're going to have to lock down all
of Beijing. That would be an economic problem, but it would also be
an enormous humiliation for the dictator Xi Jinping, whom the
Communists are portraying as the man who defeated Covid-19 in China,
with Beijing as a shining example. If the Beijing virus spread gets
out of hand, it could seriously destabilize Xi Jinping's dictatorship.

***
*** Impact on the Ladakh border confrontation
***

There's another possible consequence, related to the article that I
just posted on the India-China border confrontation in Ladakh.

** 13-Jun-20 World View -- China and India mobilize thousands of troops along border in Ladakh
** http://www.generationaldynamics.com/pg/x...tm#e200613


If the CCP is now distracted by a large virus outbreak in Beijing and
other provinces, then it could affect deployment of Chinese troops in
Ladakh -- and the effect could go either way. It may encourage the
CCP to delay further action or to speed up further action, depending
on the paranoic state of mind by Xi Jinping and the other CCP thugs on
any given day.

The Ladakh situation has two other players besides China -- India and
Pakistan. And the latter two countries are also suffering major
Covid-19 surges, further complicating the Covid-19 situation.

• Covid-19 cases in Pakistan

The novel coronavirus is spreading faster in Pakistan than almost
anywhere else in the world, yet most people there do not take the
pandemic seriously. As of Friday, COVID-19 cases in Pakistan had
reached 125,933. Infections have risen by more than 500% over the
last week.

But lockdown rules are being relaxed because of widely believed
conspiracy theories, such as the one put forth by Tariq Jameel,
Pakistan's most famous televised Islamic cleric, claiming that the
coronavirus is a sign of God's wrath over such sins as women dancing
and dressing immodestly.

Covid-19 cases are also surging in India's capital, Delhi. The total
number of 320,922 officially confirmed cases puts India fourth in the
world - after the US, Brazil and Russia - in the pandemic. The
Hindustan Times reports that Delhi is the third worst-hit state in
India after Maharashtra and Tamil Nadu.

On Sunday, India announced that it would make 500 railway carriages
available to be converted to house 8,000 more beds for coronavirus
patients in Delhi.

So all three parties to the Ladakh border crisis -- China, India,
Pakistan -- are also embroiled in Covid-19 crises, with unpredictable
results.

---- Sources:

-- Beijing In 'Wartime Emergency Mode' Amid Fresh Cluster Of
Coronavirus Cases
https://www.npr.org/sections/coronavirus...irus-cases
(NPR, 13-Jun-2020)

-- Beijing district in 'wartime emergency' after virus cluster at
major food market
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-healt...SKBN23K03V
(Reuters, 13-Jun-2020)

-- Beijing’s largest vegetables supplying base shut down as novel
coronavirus detected among some merchants
https://www.globaltimes.cn/content/1191455.shtml
(Global Times, 13-Jun-2020)

-- Pakistan’s Confused COVID-19 Response
https://thediplomat.com/2020/06/pakistan...-response/
(Diplomat, 9-Jun-2020)

-- Conspiracy theories help coronavirus take root in Pakistan
https://asia.nikkei.com/Spotlight/Corona...n-Pakistan
(Nikkei, 13-Jun-2020)

-- Coronavirus threatens to upend Pakistan's long war against polio
https://asia.nikkei.com/Politics/Coronav...inst-polio
(Nikkei, 3-Jun-2020)

-- Coronavirus: India to use 500 train carriages as wards in Delhi
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-india-53039868
(BBC, 14-Jun-2020)