The China Thread

[Syt]

https://www.defense.gov/News/News-Stories/Article/Article/3288543/f-22-safely-shoots-down-chinese-spy-balloon-off-south-carolina-coast/

[...]

The official said Chinese balloons briefly transited the continental United States at least three times during the prior administration.

[...]

Weird we never heard about that.

[Sheilbh]

Well apparently it's been going on for a while, so it may have worked okay. Basically it's a low cost alternative to a spy-satellite.

Also I could be wrong but presumably they can also normally go higher than jets (but obviously wtihin the atmosphere) because they can be a lot lighter?

[The Brain]

How high does national airspace reach?

[Crazy_Ivan80]

How high does national airspace reach?

all the way to the nine dashed cloud?

[grumbler]

Yeah, I can see how it's cost effective.  Radio the data back, write off the balloon.

The radio transmitter, power supply, and antenna are going to be major weight burdens given that this balloon would have to transit in the high frequency spectrum to get the data back to anywhere.

I think that it may have been just a collect and store system until it got back to within UHF range of China.

[HVC]

Another balloon shot over the Yukon.  Guess the new Chinese weatherman isn't any better then the last one.

[The Minsky Moment]

How high does national airspace reach?

"Outer space" which is not clearly defined under international law.
However, the PRC balloon was clearly within the limit however defined.

[Jacob]

The central government has recently cut medical expense accounts by 2/3rds (essentially the money is used to access family doctor equivalent services and purchase medicine and other things at pharmacies). Additionally reforms have moved certain treatments and consultations to hospitals (more expensive) and removed the coverage of certain medicines previously covered.

This has led to groups of seniors - not typically thought of as a segment prone to anti-government manifestations - to gather and protest the government (by singing "the Internationale") in Wuhan and Daliang.

https://twitter.com/fangshimin/status/1625927064351289344?t=ivqyad1pV8J2GNj_1MBxLA&s=19

https://twitter.com/whyyoutouzhele/status/1625814616856035328?t=9LRtN5hjKwHyhIfrhDpvtg&s=19

[Sheilbh]

So Xi was unanimously re-elected on 10 March. I saw (via Adam Tooze) that apparently Chinese social media was flooded with a picture of another Chinese leader who also took office on 10 March: Yuan Shikai

Always impressed by the mad inventiveness of Chinese netizens.

[Jacob]

The skies also darkened on the day of Xi's ascent: https://www.reuters.com/news/picture/sandstorm-and-pollution-darken-beijing-s-idUSRTSH21NL

Not an auspicious sign.

[Admiral Yi]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h4DKz2Yn_As

Chinese Karen starts at 3:54.

One anomaly of Chinese authoritarianism is how much shit Chinese cops take from citizens.

[DGuller]

I'm not sure it's an anomaly.  Soviet cops legally had to take a lot of shit from citizens as well.  Of course, once you were in environment controlled by them, you were liable to get some extralegal treatment, followed by emergency medical or mortician treatment.

[garbon]

Polygon had an article on what would happen if TikTok is banned by the US. Comments have a pretty strong contingent of those noting that it is xenophobia and America is worse than China.

[Josquius]

What I'm not getting is how western money isn't chasing the obvious opening of tiktok without the dictatorship.

[Grey Fox]

What I'm not getting is how western money isn't chasing the obvious opening of tiktok without the dictatorship.

We overstate the importance of tiktok. Youtube got that market cornered really.

Tiktok should be banned.