Tom Friedman says China feels different:
In the three decades I have been visiting Beijing and Shanghai, I had never felt what I felt on this trip — as if I were the only American in China.
He's right:
The pandemic is over, but travel to China is still less than a quarter of what it was five years ago. And that's despite the fact that international travel in general has fully rebounded. Xi Jinping's China apparently doesn't feel very welcoming to Americans these days.
Never let a crisis go to waste. Becoming more explicitly authoritarian, crushing Hong Kong’s special arrangement 2+ decades early, cracking down on billionaires who don’t slavishly support the ruling party, etc couldn’t have been done at a better time than a worldwide pandemic which helped mask and blur the economic and social impacts of those other decisions.
I've heard it's a lot more of a pain to travel there now, because everything is cashless and you have to create a WeChat payment account in China or such if you just want to be able to do anything or buy anything (maybe it's different with travel tour packages).
Did I hear that they were, like, arresting Americans for no good reason, to use as bargaining chips? That's the first thing that comes to mind when I think about visiting China. Was that actually a thing or am I hallucinating?
That's definitely a risk in Russia these days, but I haven't heard about China pulling a stunt like this recently.
Maybe it's because China's had a problem of stabby-stab-stabbings of foreigners.
https://dragonflyintelligence.com/news/china-lone-actor-attacks-on-foreign-nationals/
Also, I can't imagine a lot of Americans trust the Chinese on food safety (eg cooking oil transported in chemical tanks) or hygiene, right now.
Doubtful KD's going to cover this story, but just in case there are people with open minds on the topic of the source of SARS-CoV-2: https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/behind-closed-doors-the-spy-world-scientists-who-argued-covid-was-a-lab-leak/ar-AA1wuPLT
Maybe we could get Tom Friedman to STAY in China, instead of just visiting?
If fucking only, and 30 years too late.
I wonder if 10 years of sustained MAGA Sinophobia, in which Democrats have shamefully been too inclined to join, could possibly have anything to do with it.
a big reason is visas to China are very expensive for US citizens. I've lived in Thailand and Cambodia for a decade and would have loved to visit China, but $250 visa is crazy.
Meanwhile: https://apnews.com/article/china-new-amphibious-ship-596a481b3bc3b808947080005ab433c7