See how the cops are treating people who test "positive" in Shanghai, under lockdown

If lockdown, and brute force, were indefensible in Australia, New Zealand and New York, they're indefensible in China

I know many people who always spring to the CCP’s defense, no matter what the charge, on the assumption that it can’t be true, or that it can’t be all that bad, or that there’s a damn good reason for it. This reflex is driven by the Manichaean fantasy that China and the US are fundamentally at odds, that the US is way worse, and that any bad news out of China comes from Langley.

That is a fantasy, for several reasons too complex to deal with adequately here. In any case, that tendency to carry water for the CCP is especially notable when it’s indulged by people who are rightly outraged when the US (or any other of the “democracies”) does what China’s doing, or has done, but, when China does it, either they go mute, or (wrongly) wax supportive of the crime.

There’s a whole lot more to say about what’s really going on in China, which I’ll revisit soon, in more detail. For now, it is enough to share a video provided by a Chinese student in Shanghai, who sent it to a colleague/friend of mine at NYU. This student is quite desperate to come back to the US, because the lockdown over there is horrible—as I think those who’ve conscientiously opposed the lockdowns in the West ought to agree. (Let’s see if they do.) If lockdown was a groundless and disastrous policy in the US, Canada, Europe, Australia and New Zealand, it’s no more justifiable when the CCP imposes it, and even worse, in light of their particular brutality (as evidenced in this video).

(Since there’s an NYU Shanghai, with many faculty and students over there, I find myself wondering what’s happening to them, and wishing that NYU would tell the rest of us; though I rather doubt they will, because they’ve always been reluctant to offend the CCP, just as they’ve been loath to criticize the government of Abu Dhabi, where they also have a campus. That silence is especially striking, since NYU’s president, and deans, have been quite vocal in their outrage over the death of George Floyd, “Asian hate,” the Kyle Rittenhouse verdict, and other “woke” hot-button issues.)

From that Chinese student:

These are recent events in Shanghai.

Qingming Festival is also called the Tomb-sweeping Festival. It's to remember deceased ancestors. Qingming Festival is a traditional festival in China.