Vicious Rants of an Angry Yellow Man

There is a TED talk on YouTube featuring Gary Liu, CEO of the South China Morning Post.  The SCMP is the most prominent of the English language papers of Hong Kong.  It has been under attack from all sides since it was bought out by Alibaba.  Western leaning people believe that SCMP has become the puppet of China.  On the other hand, those who are pro China are accusing the paper of being pro western because the top executives are all western educated.

The same accusations are leveled at Gary Liu.  In this TED talk, he gave an excellent timeline regarding COVID-19.  His criticism and praise for China were balance, in my opinion.  Yet when I checked the like and dislike hits, they were almost even.  Most of time, there are way more likes than dislikes on YouTube because the people who tune in to a particular video usually like the content in the first place.  So to me, Liu must be hit from both sides, just like his paper.  To the pro Chinese faction, this U.S. born person who grew up in Taiwan, New Zealand, went to Harvard, worked in the U.S. for 20 years, must be biased against China.  To those against China, working for Alibaba must mean that he will be soft on China.

There were protests in several states regarding lock downs.  Most of the people involved were Trump supporters so Trump has told certain states (with Democratic governors) they should liberate the people.  He even threw in Second Amendment right issues in it.  Once again, Trump is doing his best to divide the country for his own political gain.  If Trump and his supporters have their way, we will end up like Italy or worse.

I think there is an attitude difference between most of the western countries and those of Asia that transcend democracy and communism.  In most of the west, it seems to me individual rights and freedom trump community rights and freedom.  So while South Korea, Taiwan and Singapore are not communist like China, they had the discipline of doing what they perceived as best for the community.  Germany is one big western country that has demonstrated this type of discipline.  But most other western countries were late in lock downs and faced protests over less draconian restrictions than those in Asian countries.

I will end with something from Hong Kong I read:  Quarantine and you have no human right.  No quarantine and you have no human left.