Just looked at my appt book, I've averaged 3-4 senior gigs a week since May, '21 - Philadelphia and suburbs - I'm working thru an agency. Just got called back to my restaurant gig after being off since the beginning of the China virus ...
Ciao,
Jerry

Trump-virus.

I agree that Trump is a virus of his own kind, but the way you are propagating China here is really strange. I read some very nice posts from you in the past, but your late posts with the Chinese flag and your ignorance towards what China is doing with the rights of individuals, total surveillance of every move of every individual, punishment of any utterance of contradiction against the regime's opinion and the shocking treatment of the Uigur minority etc. reminds me of a Chinese regime troll, I'm sorry to say that.

Oh my, another China expert who's no clue about the real China.

My country's flag offends you or what? You're a victim of US anti-China propaganda. And a lot of that is because of Adrian ZenZ who hails from your country. Uyghurs lives have been greatly improved and they don't appreciate all the lies being told by the West, mostly courtesy of the US. You know, the country that loves to accuse other countries of human rights abuse while ignoring its own poor human rights record. If pulling over 800 million people out of poverty goes against your idea of human rights, so be it.


By the way, I am Chinese and live in China. How come I feel free? How come China's cities are safe, women aren't scared to go out at night?

I guess me being free here must be an insult to all China-bashers who have never been to China or spent enough time here to actually see what a great country is.

Don't believe everything you hear or read. It's better to have concrete evidence.

Sorry but your behavior is that of a troll.

I‘m from Germany, and I trust the versatile German media that investigate what is happening in China. I always consult as many different media as possible, and if you tell me they all spread propaganda, you won‘t convince me. I also know people who have spent time in China, some who studied Sinology.

I suggest you follow your own advice rather than saying everybody else in the world is wrong and only China tells the truth.

Bill

Blah blah blah...I've heard it all before.

So you know better than me even though I actually live in China.

Whatever country you were born or live in will always bias you towards it, and you will always emphasize the best parts and push the bad to a lower level.
The only way to know what your own country is truly like is to see how the rest of the world sees it. (And sometimes it can be a rough but that’s life)

Bill

I'd been expecting you, Mr. Racist.

You make the accusation, you should come up with evidence. It's never going to happen.

You obviously see nothing wrong with the BBC using filters every time they post photos of China. Or are you denying this little fact?

Unlike you, I actually live in China but both of you are basically telling me that you know more about China than I do or any other Chinese.

You're speaking through your racist arse. Everything that comes from China must be fake and lies, right? Dream on.

Both of you sound are so brainwashed by your racist media. Quite pathetic.

This is your so-called free and fair media:

If you add this statement on your subject box "Language manipulation in western propaganda" before all other content on your twitter, they will restrict your twitter account.

China doesn't fire officials, it "purges" them

China doesn't requisition private hospitals during a health emergency by passing laws, it "seizes" them

Chinese leaders don't strengthen laws, they "concentrate power"

China doesn't give out loans, they "trap" countries in debt

Chinese people don't attend rallies, they "descend" upon them

Corrupt Chinese officials don't get convicted for corruption, they "lose power struggles"

China doesn't punish corrupt officials, they "net" them

Chinese media doesn't report news, it reports "propaganda"

China doesn't revise counting methodologies, it "under-reports" cases

China doesn't prevent people from shouting "fire" in a crowded theater, it "censors free speech"

Chinese companies don't innovate, they "steal IP"

Chinese people are not patriotic, they're "brainwashed"

China's government doesn't face governance challenges, they face "threats" to their rule

Chinese provinces don't win PISA tests, they "selectively nominate the best schools".

China is not good at AI, it simply has "loose privacy controls" and the "largest datasets".

Chinese athletes don't win medals, they are "picked from school, often against their parents' wishes" and train in "secretive" training camps

CCTV is not more popular than BBC on Facebook, it "fools algorithms" and creates "bogus followers"

If China wins at the Olympics, they're cheating. If Chinese are patriotic, they're brainwashed. If a Chinese company is successful, it's because it stole IP.

And if CCTV has more Facebook likes than BBC, they're fake.

China doesn't ban the import of addictive drugs like "Opium" - it "renounces free trade"

Chinese celebrities don't love their country and post patriotic messages on social media - they "pander" to the CCP and "nationalistic" fans

HK rioters don't storm and destroy LegCo - the HK police "stand back" and let them do it

HK rioters don't beat and burn and kill civilians, commit arson, build bombs, destroy subway stations, set fire to buildings, block traffic - they "retaliate" against police brutality.




I'm sure you don't lose sleep over the fact that ethnic Chinese are the most common victims in the UK. Your anti-China attitude must applaud such cowards who go after innocent victims. And don't get me started on the many attacks in the US, Canada, Australia. Where's the outrage? It's non-existent.

Don't bother to reply for you're lost cases.

By the way, talking about freedom of speech, Crossover. To you it obviously means only the things that you want to hear. Anything else has to be fake.

Don't pretend to know about stuff you absolutely know nothing about. And what a couple of your racist friends say means nothing. Funny, it's always the ones that agree with you that must be telling the truth, right?

Now stop bothering me with your pathetic nonsense unless you can show me concrete evidence.

“I was a CIA director, we lied, we cheated we stole… like, we had entire training courses. It reminds you of the glory of the American experiment,” Pompeo told an audience in College Station, Texas amid self-amused chuckles.

Doesn't bother you at all, eh?

Calm down and re-read your post, as what you have said in it makes China look like the worst country in the world. (You have gone way beyond anything that the so called (In your opinion) western propaganda has ever said)

Bill

No, it doesn't. At least not to those who have an ounce of reading comprehension.

And once again you're white-washing what western media says.

Just stop it!

I am wondering if you even are Taike, as your recent posts are nothing like the Taike that used to post on SZ. (Also your avatar had a different flag as you did not live in China at the time)

Bill

You've never changed your avatar? My previous avatar was also the Chinese flag and before that the Lao (Laos PDR) flag.

Well, I left Laos and went back to China. And before I lived in Laos I lived in Taiwan.

Who knows, I might be impersonating myself.

Why am I even trying to explain myself to you?

You are definitely out of your mind. Never has anyone called me a racist. Involuntarily being part of a minority myself that experiences forms of discrimination I am as far away from racism as you could imagine. If you cannot distinguish criticism of an undemocratic political system from racism towards an ethnicity, you have poor reasoning. Don’t think you can win anyone here with your aggressive behavior putting users into all kinds of categories.

You do sound like a racist making all groundless accusations. Having access to different media sources means nothing if they all share the same agenda. A Joseph Goebbels quote springs to mind:

"If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it. The lie can be maintained only for such time as the State can shield the people from the political, economic and/or military consequences of the lie.
China has its own political system for and it has its own culture.

You sound like any other China-basher. Your kind of democracy won't work in China just like China's system won't work in yours. Why doesn't Germany have the US system or the US system the French system? the top-10 list.

Any good news from China is perceived as propaganda, a lies, for the West can't bring itself to believe that China's actually doing better and better each year. But, no, we have to read blatant lies in de media, lies so stupid that one wonders how anyone can even believe them.

It doesn't matter what I tell you for you'd rather believe media than someone who actually live in the country. And a few of your friends having been to China means nothing.

What you obviously don't understand is that no one in China really gives much though about politics as long as the government does its job and so far we're happy with the results.

Why Chinese People Support Their Government

On May 4, Spain’s China Policy Observer website published an article by Julio Rios, a China expert who opined that public support for the Chinese government has been rising year by year, leaving some governments in the West far behind.

According to the Pew Research Center, 85 percent of Chinese people in 2013 were satisfied with their government, while only 35 percent of Americans felt the same about their government. In May 2020, a University of California survey found that 88 percent of Chinese people preferred their country’s political system. A study jointly published by the Ash Center for Democratic Governance and Innovation at Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government showed that Chinese people’s satisfaction with the central government rose from 86.1 percent in 2003 to 93.1 percent in 2016.

According to the Edelman Global Trust Barometer Report, the rate of public trust in the Chinese government was 84 percent in 2018, 86 percent in 2019 and 90 percent in 2020. Over the same period, Americans’ trust in the U.S. government ranged from 37 to 40 percent. Why the Chinese people are so supportive of the government has become a topic of international discussion.

On Dec. 6, 2020, a Swiss newspaper, The Times, ran an article titled “Why don’t Chinese people hate their government?” It said foreigners thought China’s international image was tarnished by issues related to Hong Kong, Xinjiang and the South China Sea, but public opinion polls show, to the contrary, that Chinese people, especially younger people, have grown more supportive of their government. Globally, Chinese are among the most optimistic about their government. The article identified four reasons for this:

First, economically, China’s rapid growth is beyond dispute. The median age of both the Chinese and U.S. population is around 37. While young Americans have experienced war, economic crisis and stagnant incomes, the young people in China have largely lived in an era of growing wealth thanks to poverty elimination, and they are better off than their parents’ generation.

Second, the “state decision-making” model wins the trust of the Chinese people. China’s success lies in the government’s ability to manage the micro economy. The world’s most populous country has built an extensive network of modern railways and roads in a span of 25 years, and a highly efficient digital infrastructure has been put in place.

The third reason lies in China’s recent history. The Chinese people remember well the lessons of the “century of humiliation” suffered at the hands of invading imperialists and foreign forces, and they are keenly aware of the havoc wreaked by Western-style democracy in modern China.

The last one is education. For more than 2,000 years, the Chinese nation has been infused with Confucianism, which argues that individuals should obey the state in the name of the common good. The Chinese stand ready to give up some level of individual freedom in the interest of collective prosperity.

There are many other reasons, but according to experts the most important thing is that with fast economic development and growing national strength, the Chinese people have a general sense of gain, security, happiness and pride, which naturally translates into trust and support for the government.

Over recent decades, China’s development has captured the imagination of the world. In 1980, China’s GDP was $191.15 billion, accounting for one-15th of U.S. GDP, which was $2.86 trillion. It was also far smaller than that of Japan and major countries in Europe. But China leapfrogged forward, and its economic aggregate overtook Italy in 2001, France in 2005, the United Kingdom in 2006, Germany in 2007 and Japan in 2010, along the way to becoming the world’s second-largest economy. In 2020, the GDP of China and the U.S. stood at $15.83 trillion and $21.4 trillion respectively, which means China’s GDP was about 74 percent of the U.S. and triple that of Japan.

If you look at India, which itself tends to compare with China, China’s GDP was lower for a long time — until 1963, when it reached $50.7 billion, compared with India’s $49.2 billion. By 2019, China’s GDP had grown to about 5.3 times that of India.

China’s GDP is underpinned by comprehensive national strength. According to the United Nations, China houses the most complete industrial system in the world and is the world’s largest trading nation and the top trading partner of more than 130 countries. China has nearly $4 trillion in foreign exchange reserves and is reaching the forefront of many high-tech fields.

The Chinese government’s effective governance and statecraft wins it the support of the Chinese people. It plans for the long term, in the form of five-year plans, 10-year plans and even a longer horizon. This ability to think ahead lays a solid foundation for overcoming crises, unlike in some countries in which policies are determined by elections and the platform for governance changes with every president. As policies of the previous administration are invariably repudiated by the next, consistency in national policy is undermined.

Experts say the “whole-of-state” system allows China to direct resources to do big things. This characteristic has been reflected in the fight against COVID-19. To tackle the challenge, the government took resolute measures, including lockdowns a necessary. The strict measures effectively brought the epidemic under control in a way that minimized the blow to economic activity. China was the only major economy that registered positive growth in 2020.

These factors all explain why the Chinese people trust and support their government. They believe that in spite of the severe challenges ahead and the fact that there is room for improvement, so long as the government genuinely serves the people and works for their well being the trust of the Chinese people is well-placed.

Former U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo during the Trump administration advocated separating the Communist Party of China and the Chinese government from the Chinese people, focusing his attacks on the former, which only exposed his ignorance of reality.



Unlike in the West, politicians are held accountable for their actions. Quite a few had been fired during the pandemic because of poor performance. How many have been fired in the West? Or is it undemocratic to fire politicians that don't do what they're supposed to do? Our system is based on merit, not popularity. That's how it's supposed to be. No "The Rock" for president here, thank goodness. Our president is chosen on merit. He started from the bottom and worked his way to the top...on merit. Politicians don't make empty promises here. Results matter. That's how a government is supposed to be. Being elected in Chinese doesn't guarantee you job safety when your performance is lackluster. You want to do as little as possible, become a politician in the West.


And don't think you can win over any Chinese with your blatant lies and insults. It's you who has poor reasoning for now you're trying to separate things to make yourself look better. I'll let you figure this one out on your own. Your accusations aren't aggressive? Really? Stop playing the victim.

No, you are out of your mind.

You don't know anything about China and China's accomplishments. Or you simply choose to ignore China's accomplishments for they don't fit in your agenda. How blind can you be?



You don't know China so give it a rest.

You’re just talking about yourself in this last post, and selectively choosing reports that just happen to fit your belief proves that.
Chinas growth is because of western investment due to the cheap labour costs in China, so knocking those that pay your wages proves your lack of understanding of the world outside of your little bubble.
I don’t know what has happened to you Taike (Brainwashed perhaps) but I wish the old Taike was still around, as discussions then were always sensible and courteous.

Bill.

You're the brainwashed one. Sorry, I take that back. You need an actual brain for that.

The old Taike? If my memory serves right (it does), it's not the first time that you've tried to put words in my mouth.

Every country relies on investment, even the UK. But it is people who do the job. Money doesn't build things. Now you're actually claiming that we Chinese are on your the West's payroll. How absurd. Selectively choosing reports? Isn't that what you've been doing all the while? You're such a hypocrite. Coming from someone whose country once colonized like half the world, raped, committed genocide, etc. At least we Chinese work for a living instead of colonizing countries. And isn't it about time that your country's museums return the loot to the rightful countries?

It's not the first time that I've spoken up against several anti-China posts here. And guess what, no one else spoke up for they think there's nothing wrong with posting such racist drivel.

So stay in YOUR little racist bubble. You obviously don't know much of the rest of the world.

Why should I be courteous and sensible with such drivel? But that's just how the West operates, isn't it? They think they can enforce their will on sovereign countries. Never saw you speak up against the illegal invasion of Iraq, Afghanistan, etc. Yet here you are telling me that you know better about China than I do. The nerve.

Stop posting your drivel for it's pathetic.

To the real Taike,, I hope one day you will return so that we can once again have a respectful and courteous conversation, until then, bye.

Bill