Of course the New York Times had to fidget the blade in on the way out:

‘With Olympics Closing Ceremony, China Celebrates a Joyless Triumph’
The Games ended without disaster but overshadowed by a doping scandal, rising tensions in Europe and anxiety over the future of the sporting movement.

I personally don’t recall anything “joyful” since mid-February 2020, when I had so much fun exploring Singapore’s Changi Airport that I missed my flight to Ho Chi Minh. Nothing of such nebulous rapture has seized my lapels since then – in fact, just getting up every morning is a “joyless triumph” – so I think maybe we could give China a bit of break – if for no other reason than they actually pulled the Olympics off.

It was a bumpy ride, though, what with the robot-made and -served “unfood,” and the doping scandal, the absence of snow and the genocidal gulag we’re not supposed to mention etc. A typical Twitter comment:

Julian Ku 古舉倫 @julianku

Looks like German sports media also did not enjoy their time in Beijing. Sports host Markus Othmer: “China is a political nightmare.” Complains about constant surveillance, notes 2 German 🏅 winners say they will never go back to China. https://t.co/qsKu9Kwws3

RFI 华语 - 法国国际广播电台 @RFI_Cn

北京冬奥闭幕德语媒体说"终于结束了" https://t.co/nGS82X6ziS https://t.co/e6xKXJOYR1

As for Olympic mascot Bing Dwen Dwen – perhaps China’s most significant export since gunpowder – the message was clear. “Thanks folks, I’m out of here!”

watching olympics, leave me alone 👀 @TessaVScottM1

thank you bing dwen dwen for being the most iconic moment of this Olympics — PART 2

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About that joint declaration with Russia

The Wall Street Journal is reporting that, even though a shared adversarial position on US hegemony is the sweet spot in the Sino-Russian “friendship”. China’s not too keen on an invasion that will likely worsen its relations with the US.

Behind the Beijing-Moscow joint stance against NATO enlargement is Mr. Xi’s eagerness to show solidarity with Mr. Putin as both countries’ ties with the US have soured, according to people with knowledge of Beijing’s thinking. Just as Russia is worried about threats to its security from any NATO expansion, one of the people said, China is concerned about ‘its territorial integrity as a result of the US meddling in Taiwan.’
‘They feel like they’re in the same boat,’ the person added. Beijing sees Taiwan as Chinese territory and bringing the self-governing island into its fold as part of Mr. Xi’s ‘China Dream’ of national revival.

But … It’s complicated, and it’s safe to say that over the seven days during which China’s Standing Committee eminent worthies were sipping tea behind closed doors they were earnestly seeking out a strategy that minimizes aggravating anyone.

While tilting closer to Moscow, the Chinese leadership still sees it in its interest not to have the bottom fallout of its ties with the U.S. It needs continued access to American financial and technological resources to ensure economic security and development—an access that could be jeopardized should Beijing decide to help Moscow evade sanctions in the event of an invasion.

It’s still Putin’s move, and if he does move on Ukraine it will inevitably put China in an invidious position – you can’t please everyone, and it doesn’t help if you’ve just spent the last five years trying not to please anyone.

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Hong Kong’s viral meltdown

Bloomberg is calling it “complacency” – well, Bloomberg actually says that Hong Kong “squandered” its “covid edge”, its bureaucracy was caught on the back foot and now the hospitals are overflowing. And you know it really is bad when Xi Jinping feels obliged to intervene with a call from the capital.

Oliver Farry @ofarry

Hong Kong government press releases now feature explicitly toadying preambles, thanking Xi Jinping for his “important instruction” regarding an outbreak you’d expect the authorities here to be taking seriously as a matter of course. info.gov.hk/gia/general/20…

Or does this Hong Kong crisis presage the death knell of China’s Zero-Covid policy?

Matthew Brooker @mbrookerhk

“They might seek more severe lockdowns, but that will run into resistance. Hong Kong’s people are more suspicious and distrustful of China since their liberties were so brazenly taken away.” In Hong Kong, China’s ‘covid zero’ strategy is falling apart

washingtonpost.comOpinion | In Hong Kong, China’s ‘covid zero’ strategy is falling apartThe strict measures of the mainland may be difficult to impose on the semiautonomous territory, but without them, the outbreak looks certain to expand.

Read the Washington Post on how China might topple as Hong Kong appears to be falling now. ChinaDiction’s take is Zero Covid is Zero Covid. However Beijing reacts, it will still be Zero Covid. Probably, the best that can be hoped for is Zero Covid with Chinese characteristics.

The Diplomat has an interesting piece on the possible political ramifications of what are being perceived in Beijing as Zero Covid missteps in Hong Kong.

On February 9, Tian Feilong, director of the Chinese Association of Hong Kong and Macao Studies, wrote an op-ed reiterating many of the points made by the People’s Daily, but he raised the vitriol and innuendo to a proverbial 11. Tian, who in a profile by the New York Times was noted as an adviser and champion of the central government’s hardening of policy toward Hong Kong, blamed the failure to carry out a zero COVID policy squarely on Chief Executive Carrie Lam and Hong Kong’s civil servants, whom he derisively referred to as Hong Kong’s “AO Party” (“AO黨們,” meaning Administrative Officers Party).

AO Party is not a complimentary term, btw, with connotations of allegiance to the former British bureaucracy combined with a CCP-loyalty deficit.

Meanwhile, Hong Kong has postponed the chief executive election to May 8 amid the Covid-19 surge with Carrie Lam citing Emergency Ordinance because the focus has to be on fighting the pandemic.

While we’re on the subject …

Where’s the latest Chinese vaccine? The New York Times has a great piece on the subject, but the reality is that all we can do is speculate. What on Earth are they up to?

China is so committed to competing with the United States and the West on science and technology that some in the scientific community say it is hard to imagine that the state hasn’t pulled out all the stops to develop a homegrown mRNA vaccine. That China has fallen behind on that front, and failed to approve a readily available foreign option, has left many experts baffled.
‘We don’t know how decisions are made nowadays in China, but a better vaccine would definitely help in maintaining a zero-Covid policy,’ said Jin Dongyan, a virologist at the University of Hong Kong who has urged his peers in mainland China to approve the BioNTech vaccine.
‘They are presenting to the world that they are doing well in vaccine development,’ he said of officials in Beijing. ‘And it would be embarrassing for them to show the opposite to the Chinese people.’

But there’s more to it than that:

James Palmer @BeijingPalmer

@james98170 the mRNA vaccines are American and approving them would be seen as admitting that the Chinese ones are inferior (which they are - they're not *useless* but they're not as good as the mRNA vaccines)

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Chains

The chained mother of eight story is now reaching epic online proportions, with some arguing the victim is the real “woman of the Olympics,” not thrice-medal winner Eileen Gu, who was probably starting to wonder what parallel universe she had stumbled into by the time the Olympics were ending today.

It’s a long and complicated story and I’m not going to attempt to sum it all up. Read Manya Koetse’s (@manyapan) piece on What’s on Weibo. It’s the kind of bizarre narrative that rarely leaks beyond China non-porous borders for consumption abroad.

The entire fiasco bristles with talking points, but one of them is that even with armies of censors laboring day and night, social media – even in China – demands content and the spark that lights a social-media conflagration could come from anywhere and at any time.

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Other news

No, the clampdown on the private sector is not over. China has wiped $26 Billion off Meituan’s value with a new fee policy, reports The Wire.

It was the everything-app’s biggest tumble in seven months, as China issued “new guidelines asking for food delivery platforms to cut fees, showing that investor angst over the nation’s tech giants remains high,” The Wire reported.

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Something cool for a change, Lithuania and Taiwan are cooperating on semiconductors:

Dr Zsuzsa Anna Ferenczy | 馮儒莎 @zsuzsettte

Following up on mutual interest in #Taiwan-#Lithuania cooperation, the two sides open a joint center for semiconductors 👏🏼 https://t.co/Ru62jPxyx1

The Taiwanese Representative Office in Lithuania @TW_in_LT

Congrats for opening of “Taiwan and Lithuania Center for Semiconductors and Materials Science”! The first project is to develop thin-disc solid state laser by combining crystal and laser tech from TW & LT. Precision machinery and semiconductors will be the industries to benefit. https://t.co/hdATGPAxSw

Freewheeling bastion of democracy, gender tolerance and high-tech wizardry, Taiwan – while we’re on the subject – also has a gangland problem with pigeons.

Michael Fahey @shu_wang_gong

Leaders of northern Taiwan's largest pigeon racing association have been charged with allegedly laundering more NT$2 billion (US$71 million) annually in gambling proceeds. The association's quarterly races involve 12 to 14 thousand pigeons.

news.ltn.com.tw一年洗錢逾20億！北部最大賽鴿分會涉簽賭查扣現金2886萬元 - 社會 - 自由時報電子報號稱北部最大賽鴿組織的三重新順利分會，利用賽鴿收注簽賭，且該鴿會將收受款項轉成有價證券，意圖隱匿不法金流，一年洗錢超過20億元，案經檢警循線追查去年底收網查獲，帶回陳姓會長及幹部等涉案人，並及時查扣已移轉的不法金流2800餘萬元，訊後全案依賭博、洗錢等罪嫌移送法辦。刑事局中部打擊犯罪中心日前接獲洗錢情資，新北市多名男子帳戶間有龐大金流往來，經抽絲剝繭發現，相關出入金流涉及北部賽鴿協會三重新順利分會，且這幾名男子都是該分會幹部，光一年在各銀行帳戶間就有超過20多億的疑似簽賭金流往來。

If you’re into geeky, eccentric Taiwan news, please read Michael Turton’s fantastic 2007 blog entry on Taiwan’s neglected pigeon sector.

Oh, and I can’t resist a third Taiwan story – it’s too feel-good to overlook. Taipei has a female station master – its first in 130 years.

Timo H. @timmyzone

Congrats to Hu Yong-Chi (胡詠芝) for becoming Taipei Main Station’s first female head of station– in its 130+ years history. Hu has served at TRA for ‘only’ 13 years and it’s quite an achievement considering TRA and much of the transport scene in TW has long been male-dominant.

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Tragically, Uyghur translators are in short supply, as an ancient Silk Road culture disappears before our eyes.

Uyghur Human Rights Project @UyghurProject

"[I]t’s very difficult for [Uyghurs] to pass on their native language to their children in the way they would most prefer," @AndersonEliseM for @UyghurProject told @CodaStory. The Uyghur language requires greater support abroad.

codastory.comThreatened, harassed, punished: The Uyghur translators defying China to tell Xinjiang’s story - Coda StoryJournalists rely on a short supply of Uyghur interpreters to investigate the human rights crisis in northwest China. The CCP is intent on muzzling them

And on that note, some Uyghur poetry – and it’s lovely stuff:

Joshua L. Freeman @jlfreeman6

Just published in @NewStatesman: 3 poems by the remarkable #Uyghur poet and geologist Fatimah Abdulghafur Seyyah. Two of the poems are translated by me; the other is translated by the multitalented scientist/translator/poet @menevere. Here's my translation of "Since you left":

Jeremy Cliffe @JeremyCliffe

At its heart are three new, specially commissioned poems by the Uyghur poet Fatimah Abdulghafur Seyyah. Including: Since You Left, translated for us by @jlfreeman6. https://t.co/vZgXrVBgmU https://t.co/XiOas8bAri

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Book Review: The Long Game: China's Grand Strategy to Displace American Order (Bridging the Gap)

TL;DR. No, you’re not supposed to start book reviews like that, and it’s not entirely true anyway – I read a few chapters – but when a book of this sort announces its agenda in its early pages and there are 500 more pages to read, there’s a marked tendency among book reviewers to sit back and consider what those 500 pages could conceivably do to hammer the point home more clearly than it already has. Case in point, early in the argument (which twists itself into knots over the word “strategy”), The Long Game announces:

This book argues that, since the end of the Cold War, China has pursued a grand strategy to displace American order first at the regional and now at the global level.

Several pages later, it comes up again:

As US-China competition intensified over the last few years, a number of policymakers and scholars have frequently returned to the same question: “What is this competition over?” This book argues that US-China competition is over who will lead regional and global order.

In the face of such a bold, unfiltered thesis, ChinaDiction can only recommend that readers shovel through the remaining 500 pages and decide for themselves whether the argument holds up over the long game.

Coda

Thanks to Hong Kong, we now know hamsters need to safeguard themselves and others from Covid-19 too. Apparently, Omicron is particularly tough on them:

BethD @stricken103

@hjelle_brian

Winter Games Wrap Up