Wuhan mayor says willing to resign if it helps contain virus

The Associated Press ^ | January 27, 2020

[TheNext]

Communist term limits, but only after 90,000 city residents have died from a viral disease.

[null and void]

“I’m getting the hell out of here”

Bring Out Your Dead

Post to me or FReep mail to be on/off the Bring Out Your Dead ping list.

The purpose of the “Bring Out Your Dead” ping list (formerly the “Ebola” ping list) is very early warning of emerging pandemics, as such it has a high false positive rate.

So far the false positive rate is 100%.

At some point we may well have a high mortality pandemic, and likely as not the “Bring Out Your Dead” threads will miss the beginning entirely.

*sigh* Such is life, and death...

If a quarantine saves just one child's life, it's worth it.

[Truthoverpower]

Word has it there’s a couple biological warfare labs there in Wuhan

Understand that you have nothing to fear of any virus

Simply purchase or make colloidal silver and ingested on a regular basis and keep a supply of silver rides in your blood and he will be immune to viruses and bacteria

I will take all the slings and arrows from the government shills

[null and void]

The local Communist Party secretary outranks the mayor. Still the fact both are offering to resign shows how grave things are in Wuhan.

They are offering to lose that most precious of things, they are offering to lose a MASSIVE amount of face, if their getting out of the way, or being scapegoated will help contain the epidemic.

That they would do this, a fate even worse than mere death, does indeed show how desperate the situation really is.

[plain talk]

[samtheman]

“I’m getting the hell out of here”
—
Really. You guys take over here. If you need me, I’ll be in my condo in Diamond Bar.

[dfwgator]

In China, “retirement” is a bullet in the brain.

[ProtectOurFreedom]

This is a typical Chinese face-saving action required by custom and protocol. Nothing more. He won't really resign as there's nothing to be achieved by that. But custom requires he offer to resign to restore his reputation.

Here is a link to a good explanation of 'Face' Culture in China. Here are some excerpts:

Although in the West we talk about “saving face” on occasion, the concept of “face” (面子）is far more deeply-rooted in China, and it’s something you’ll hear people talk about all the time.

'Face'
Just like in the English expression “saving face,” the “face” we’re talking about here isn’t a literal face. Rather, it’s a metaphor for a person’s reputation amongst their peers. So, for example, if you hear it said that someone “has face,” that means that they have a good reputation. Someone who doesn’t have face is someone who has a very bad reputation.

Common Expressions Involving 'Face'
Having face (有面子): Having a good reputation or good social standing.
Not having face (没面子): Not having a good reputation or having bad social standing.
Giving face (给面子): Giving deference to someone in order to improve their standing or reputation, or to pay homage to their superior reputation or standing.
Losing face (丢脸): Losing social status or hurting one’s reputation.
Not wanting face (不要脸): Acting shamelessly in a way that suggests one doesn’t care about one’s own reputation.

'Face' in Chinese Society
Although there are obviously exceptions, in general, Chinese society is quite conscious of hierarchy and reputation among social groups. People who have good reputations can buoy the social standing of others by “giving them face” in various ways. At school, for example, if a popular child chooses to play or do a project with a new student who’s not well known, the popular child is giving the new student face, and improving their reputation and social standing within the group. Similarly, if a child tries to join a group that’s popular and is rebuffed, they will have lost face.

The mayor has obviously "lost face" as a result of letting this get out of control. Offering to resign is a gesture to "restore face."

[ProtectOurFreedom]

It is a very weird statement.

Only from an American perspective. It is a common face-saving effort to salvage one's reputation in China. See #28.

[The people have spoken]

I spent a week in Wuhan three years ago. It has a new modern subway system that puts to shame anything in the US. Surprisingly, its metro area population is 19 million, about the same as New York.

[DannyTN]

How did 5 million people leave the city prior to lockdown?

Did they creep out in the dead of night?

But it’s okay, probably only 10,000 of them were infected.

[Bookshelf]

They are partying a la The Masque of the Red Death.

[Tolerance Sucks Rocks]

Mayor Zhou Xianwang told state broadcaster CCTV that both he and Wuhan’s Communist Party secretary are willing to take responsibility for closing off the city, including being removed from office.

Hey, you dumb goof, how's that gonna help anything???

[Boogieman]

Then we put the Taiwanese in charge and ship all of our “asylum seekers” over there to man the iPhone factories?

[Zhang Fei]

[Hey, you dumb goof, how’s that gonna help anything???]

---

I’ve read plenty of Chinese historical narratives (only in English, given my lack of anything other than the barest Berlitz-acquired conversational Chinese). The dominant theme in these narratives, unlike anything I’ve read anywhere else (mostly European history), is that the emperor is never to blame. It’s always his courtiers and local officials*. The underlying intent of the historians who put these accounts together is presumably to preserve the legitimacy of the emperor and an empire assembled and held together through the spilling of oceans of blood.

This guy is abasing himself not because he’s to blame. He’s doing it in hopes he still has a career after he takes the fall for Xi Jinping’s incompetence and domineering tendencies.

PS Did you misspell a word in your post?

* Try as I may, it’s hard to think of any British historical account couching Harald Hardrada’s defeat to Harold Godwinson at Stamford Bridge as the product of the misconduct of grasping courtiers Norwegian nobles subordinate to Hardrada. Chinese history and political narrative resembles an R-rated (for violence) version of any number of just-so stories, with scenes that no historian could have been part of, routinely written into the narrative.

[Rebelbase]

“I think all the pics and video of people eating bats and snakes suddenly flooding social media is nothing more than a smokescreen.”

It satisfies the rubes need to not think the worst cannot happen.

[Zhang Fei]

[Quite the contrary, he needs to stay.
There is need for experienced govt. officials
who know the local resources and can command with leadership.
Nothing can be gained by his departure too ! ]

---

He’s not local. In order to retain central control and prevent local leaders from cultivating power bases that might feed separatist tendencies in times of turmoil, senior officials are not only helicoptered in from other provinces, they are also rotated periodically in order to prevent them from going native. This is how the Chinese empire has been held together for thousands of years. The regimes change, but the methods remain the same.

[Rebelbase]

oops, double negative. Edit: It satisfies the rubes need to think the worst cannot happen.

[Tolerance Sucks Rocks]

No, I meant GOOF — as in somebody who’s an idiot. I figured somebody might take that as a racial slur. I meant nothing of the sort, so I used it anyway.

[Zhang Fei]

[No, I meant GOOF — as in somebody who’s an idiot. I figured somebody might take that as a racial slur. I meant nothing of the sort, so I used it anyway.]

---

I laughed out loud when I read your post. I thought there was a sly reference to that other word that’s a synonym for crud.