Showing posts from category: National politics
The Americas, Pandemic on the Back of Poverty: Mexico and Venezuela
While Brazil has sown up the unenviable title of the worst coronavirus hotspot in Latin America, Mexico has steered a similar course to disaster in the face of the pandemic. As Brazil’s coronavirus count climbs to well over 1.1 million confirmed cases and closing in on 53 thousand fatalities, the galloping toll in Mexico—60% the size of Brazil population-wise—now registers 191,410 cases and 23,377 deaths (as at 24-June-2020).
(Source: www.lonelyplanet.com) False security? Among some Mexicans there seem to be a sense that the country’s demographics which are skewed toward the young—around 85% of the population is under 55—may act as a barrier against coronavirus. This confidence may be misplaced due to several factors: pre-existing health conditions in Mexico which affect younger cohorts as well—make the population more vulnerable to the ravages of coronavirus, as the table below indicates [‘Many young Mexican at risk from Covid-19’, (James Blears), Vatican News, 31-March-2020, www.vaticannews.va]. the death-rate from COVID-19 among maquiladora workers in the border region of Baja California was found to be 25 times higher for the age bracket 40-49 than in the corresponding San Diego County, [‘COVID-19 killing young maquiladora workers, study shows’, (Salvador Rivera), Border Report, 11-Jun-2020, www.borderreport.com].
A league of populist leader ‘bedfellows’?
The way Mexico under its president, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, has approached the pandemic has disturbing parallels with that of Brazil’s leader Bolsonaro, and with the US under Trump. Despite a difference of ideological orientation—Obrador (who’s commonly known within Mexico as AMLO) is a Left-populist whereas Bolsonaro and Trump are Right-populists—the Mexican leader has pursued much the same course with similar outcomes. AMLO’s government was slow to engage in the fight against COVID-19 in the critical early period. The virus apparently entered Mexico via overseas returnees, primarily wealthier Mexicans returning from business trips to Italy and skiing holidays in Colorado, and then spread to low-income groups [‘Mexico’s Central de Abasto: How coronavirus tore through Latin America’s largest market’, (Mary Beth Sheridan), Washington Post, 21-Jun-2020, www.washingtonpost.com].
🔺 AMLO, pressing the flesh (Photo: Mexico’s Presidency Handouts/Reuters)
How not to contain a pandemic Like his US and Brazilian counterparts, AMLO justified his inaction by being dismissive of the disease, continually downplaying its risk to people, and he was negligent by example. After the outbreak Obrador toured the country, holding rallies sans face masks, nonchalantly meeting and greeting supporters, freely shaking hands, embracing people and even kissing them✱. The president’s advice to the Venezuelan people was simply to continue to “live life as usual”…until late March he was encouraging people to go out, attend fiestas, dine in restaurants and go shopping, airports remained open◘ – a clear indicator that Obrador’s priority was the health of the economy rather than the health of the public [‘Poverty and Populism put Latin America at the centre of the pandemic’, (Michael Stott & Andres Schipano), Financial Times, 14-Jun-2020, www.amp.ft.com; ‘AMLO’s feeble response to COVID-19 in Mexico’, (Vanda Felbab-Brown), Brookings, 30-Mar-2020, www.brookings.edu].
Abject lack of medical preparedness. Obrador’s dangerous indifference to the crisis extended to a half-hearted medical intervention. Testing for COVID-19 has remained woefully low, no program of widespread testing or of contact tracing – these vital measures dismissed as being impractical for a population of 128 million (Sheridan; Stott & Schipano). The reluctance to test extensively is no doubt also related to Mexico’s health care incapacity. Despite having gone through the experience of the 2009 H1N1 influenza outbreak, subsequent Mexican administrations have permitted the country’s health sector to run down, funding to hospitals and medical centres have been cut by millions. Mexico has only 1.4 hospital beds for every 1,000 persons and just over 2,000 ventilators all up. The shortfall extends to physicians, medical equipment including PPE and coronavirus test kits [‘Mexico’s coronavirus-sceptical president is setting up his own country for a health crisis’, (Alex Ward), Vox, 28-Mar-2020, www.vox.com].
Shooting the messenger Inevitably AMLO has copped a lot of internal criticism for his irresponsible response to the crisis. Rather than taking positive measures to try to undo the disaster of his own creation, Obrador has gone on the attack against the Mexican independent media. Again invoking the Trump playbook, he has railed against the “fake news” and “Twitter bots” who have opposed his government’s handling of the situation. Independent investigations in fact have brought to light the clandestine activities of Notimex (the state-owned news agency) which has created a network of bots and fake accounts to discredit prominent journalists and label them as ‘criminal’ [‘Mexican President López Obrador frets about the spreading virus of fake news, but not COVID-19’, (José Miguel Vivanco), Dallas News,16-Jun-2020, www.dallasnews.com].
AMLO has taken to giving regular video ‘sermons’ to the masses (he calls them “Decalogues to emerge from coronavirus and face the new reality”)…these are not as you might surmise updates on how the government is attempting to counter the pandemic, but an uninspiring mish-mash of banalities about staying positive, eating corn and getting sun and fresh air. With the unchecked escalating death toll from the disease, many believe Obrador has given up any pretence to even trying to combat the virus [‘Mexico’s president has given up in the fight against the coronavirus’, (León Krauze), Washington Post, 19-Jun-2020, www.washingtonpost.com]. In this most unpropitious context AMLO is now taking an imprudent gamble by lifting restrictions – despite the curve of Mexican infections continuing to shoot upwards.
🔻 Mega-mercado, Mexico City
Footnote: Mexico City epicentre
Mexico City accounts for about one quarter of all COVID-19 deaths in Mexico. The offical counts however are only starting points to explain the catastrophe. A Mexico City study by Nexos magazine found that there was an “excess mortality” of more than 20% unaccounted for by the official figures [‘8,000 ‘excess deaths’ in Mexico City as coronavirus rages: study’, Ajazeera, 26-May-2020, www.aljazeera.com]. One of the capital’s biggest clusters is the wholesale mega-market, the Central de Abasto. The enormous mercado providing 80% of the city’s food is a petri-dish for the virus which has cut a scythe through its 90,000-strong workforce, infecting its tomateros, chilli vendors and other workers whose need to keep working is often greater than their fear of the pandemicφ. The vendors and carters have another reason for continuing working even when they become ill – working class Mexicans are accustomed to poor quality health care and often harbour a distrust of hospitals (Sheridan).
⏦⏦⏦ ☤☤☤ ⏦⏦⏦
(Image source: www.studentnewsdaily.com)
Venezuela: Showcase numbers but a lack of transparency Although the available statistics relating to Venezuela don’t reflect the dramatic numbers in Mexico, the situation in the South American country is peer bit as parlous. Venezuela has fessed up to 4,186 cases and 35 deaths (24-Jun-2020), but these figures have little credibility with independent observers. Venezuela has done very limited testing for the disease with the testing data guarded very carefully by the government [‘Hunger, Infection, and Repression: Venezuela’s Coronavirus Calamity’, (Stephanie Taladrid), The New Yorker, 29-May-2020, www.newyorker.com]. Doubters outside the country have noted that Venezuela’s health system was already in a state of collapse before COVID-19 arrived, citing as evidence: the country‘s functioning intensive care beds are estimated to number between 80 and 163; nil or intermittent supply to water to two-thirds of hospitals; power cuts off at regular intervals; shortages of gloves and face masks in 60% of hospitals; 76% of hospitals shortage of soap and 90% were short of sanitising gel [‘Venezuela’s Covid-19 death toll claims ‘not credible’, human rights group says’, (Tom Phillips), The Guardian, 27-May-2020, www.theguardian.com].
🔺 Maduro: “People, we are identity”
President Maduro—already embroiled in a political and socio-economic crisis acerbated by long-term US trade sanctions on Venezuela—imposed a national lockdown in March. A side benefit to the lockdown (now extended to July) is that it allows the regime more scope to crack down on its critics…the obvious targets being opposition politicians and increasingly journalists, doctors and nurses who report adversely on Maduro’s handling of the pandemic (especially if they query the reported official numbers). [‘Venezuela’s Zulia State emerges as coronavirus hot spot’, Reuters, 24-Jun-2020, www.news.yahoo.com].
Footnote: Rich and poor, a widening of the divide
At the point of corona impact, the contrast between Venezuela’s masses and the elite have sharpened even more. The brunt of the economic crisis has fallen squarely on the poor and middle-class citizens – skyrocketing prices, scarcity of necessities, a greatly devalued Venezuelan bolivar, the oil price plunge (oil accounts for 98% of Venezuela’s export revenues), and over-reliance on the informal economy by the lower socio-economic classes [‘Why coronavirus could be catastrophic for Venezuela’, (Katy Watson & Vanessa Silva), BBC News, 12-Apr-2020, www.bbc.com]. With corruption, cronyism and nepotism ingrained in Venezuela, the Maduro regime and its acolytes—the heirs of Chavismoism—continue to benefit lavishly from black-market and other illicit financial activities◊ [‘Freedom in the World 2020: Venezuela’, Freedom House, www.freedomhouse.org].
⇚⇛⇚⇛⇚⇛⇚⇛⇚⇛⇚⇛⇚⇛⇚⇛⇚⇛⇚⇛⇚⇛⇚⇛ ⇚⇛⇚⇛⇚⇛⇚⇛⇚⇛⇚⇛⇚⇛⇚⇛
✱ AMLO preferring to travel and mingle accompanied only by his personal amulets for ‘protection’
◘ only in the last week of March did the government retreat a bit and start to urge the public to stay-at-home
φ the CDMX-run market only acted, bringing in health workers, ramping up testing and contact tracing, after workers starting dropping in significant numbers (Sheridan)…as with the rest of Mexico, too little, too late
◊ beneficiaries of this state largesse and privilege include the bolichicos, the wealthy children of the regime’s top leaders
Coronavirus Responses and Patterns in Africa: Southern and West Africa
Three months ago when the COVID-19 outbreak started to move around the globe, the World Health Organisation issued a warning to the continent of Africa whose nations were just starting to feel its impact [‘Coronavirus: WHO tells African countries to ‘prepare for the worst’, Eye on Africa, 18-Mar-2020, www.france24.com]. The pandemic was late in reaching Africa and initially slow to make inroads, taking 98 days to register its first 100,000 confirmed cases but is now accelerating – only taking 18 more days to hit the 200,000 mark of cases [‘COVID-19: WHO warns of virus acceleration in Africa’, Vanguard, 14-Jun-2020, www.vanguardngr.com]. Overall African fatalities sit at 6,793 (16-Jun-2020) with just five countries (Algeria, Egypt, Nigeria, South Africa and Nigeria) accounting for 70% of the deaths✹.
Southern Africa: To date South Africa has been the nation most heavily affected by the public health emergency – over 73,000 confirmed cases and 1,568 deaths (16-Apr-2020). The Western Cape province has become the epicentre of the RSA pandemic, recording so far around 75% of the country’s fatalities. The province’s high incidence of cases has been attributed to the presence of poor, densely populated townships like Khayelitsha, a shantytown of 500,000 people. Cape Town’s thriving tourism (before the closedown) has also been advanced as contributing to the outbreak’s toll. South Africa, with a more developed economy and better health care system, has conducted more a million virus tests, while many other African countries have racked up only a few thousands. The clear implication of this is that ”the disease is spreading undetected elsewhere on the continent” [‘Cape Town becomes South Africa’s coronavirus hotspot’, (Jevans Nyabiage), South China Morning Post, 12-Jun-2020, www.amp.scmp.com].
⍐ Bulawayo, Zim. (Photo: Philimon Bulawayo/Reuters)
South Africa’s smaller, northern neighbour Zimbabwe has done surprisingly well on paper in the crisis (four deaths recorded only), but with the rider that testing for the disease—hampered by a critical shortage of health equipment and infrastructure—has been very limited…by 10th April it had tested a mere 392 people [‘In Zimbabwe, lack of tests sparks fear COVID-19 goes undetected’, (Chris Muronzi), Aljazeera, 10-Apr-2020, www.aljazeera.com].
(Image: SABC News)
West Africa: Results of the fight against the pandemic in West Africa have been mixed. Senegal began its counter-measures early in January, closing the borders, implementing contact-tracing, etc. The country was able to produce a test kit for COVID-19 costing only $1 per patient and has managed to accommodate every coronavirus patient either in hospital or in a community health facility. African countries who experienced the 2013/14 Ebola virus outbreak like Senegal put that experience to good use, prohibiting large gatherings, strict night-time curfews, banning intercity travel, etc. Côte d’Ivoire (the Ivory Coast) followed Senegal’s approach, declaring a state of emergency and trying to impose curfews in it’s main city Abidjan, but the country’s buoyant economy has taken quite a hit from the coronavirus crisis. Ghana has utilised an extensive system of contact-tracing and a “pool-testing” mechanism which follows up only on positive results [‘Why are Africa’s coronavirus successes being overlooked?’, (Afua Hirsch), The Guardian, 21-May-2020, www.theguardian.com; ‘Women unite against COVID-19 in Senegal’, Relief web, 10-Jun-2020, www.reliefweb.int].
The speeding up of coronavirus cases in a small African country like Guinea-Bissau has occurred notwithstanding it’s small population and limited testing, reflecting a reality stretching across the whole continent, the sheer incapacity of weak and under-resourced national health infrastructures to cope with the pandemic [‘West Africa facing food crisis as coronavirus spreads’, (Emmanuel Akinwotu), The Guardian, 16-May-2020, www.theguardian.com].
⍐ Kano (Photo: Reuters/Luc Gnago)
In Nigeria, Africa’s most populous country, the most worrying hotspot has been the north in Kano state and metropolis. The pandemic has gotten out of hand here because of a confluence of factors, including the state government’s early failure to admit the presence of coronavirus (which it initially tried to pass off as an upsurge in other illnesses), costing it vital lost time in the fight against the disease; the closure of Kano’s only testing centre for a week in April; acute shortages of PPE; and the pre-existing displacement of 1.8m people in the region [‘Covid-19 Outbreak in Nigeria Is Just One of Africa’s Alarming Hot Spots’, (Ruth Maclean), New York Times, 17-May-2020, www.nytimes.com].
Dakar, Senegal (Photo: John Wessels/AFP via Getty Images)
PostScript: A young and rural population Africa’s avoidance of the worse excesses of COVID-19 thus far has prompted the theory that the continent’s demographics is working in it’s favour. A study in the journal BMJ Global Health attributes this to Africa’s young, rural-based population▣ …60% of the population is under 25, cf. Europe (95% of its deaths from the virus have been people over 60). BMJ hypothesises that Africa will likely suffer “more infections but most will be asymptomatic or mild, and probably (go) undetected” [‘Africa’s young and rural population may limit spread and severity of coronavirus, study says’, (Jevans Nyabiage), South China Morning Post, 28-May-2020, www.amp.scmp.com].
↜↝↜↝↜↝↜↝↜↝↜↝↜↝↜↝ ↜↝↜↝↜↝↜↝↜↝↜↝↜↝↜↝ ✹ Egypt and South Africa alone account for nearly 48% of the entire continent’s corona-related deaths ▣ the study focused on Kenya, Senegal and Ghana
Coronavirus and Age Vulnerability: The Riddle of Japan
Both the medical experts and the empirical evidence on the ground tell us that the elderly are the cohort in the community most susceptible to COVID-19. The Office of National Statistics (UK) calculates that people aged 80 and over have >59% risk of dying from coronavirus (www.ons.gov.uk/). The pandemic’ age bias skewed against older populations is one explanation, in the absence of much hard data, put forward to explain the African continent’s current low rate of mortality due to the virus – overall 111,812 confirmed cases and only 3,354 deaths (as at 25-May-2020) [‘Coronavirus in Africa tracker’, BBC News, www.bbc.co.uk/]. The percentage of the African population aged under 25 is 60% (in sub-Saharan Africa the number over 65 is only 3%)[‘Coronavirus in Africa reaches new milestone as cases exceed 100,000’, (Orion Rummler), Axion, 22-May-2020, www.axios.com].
And if we needed any more empirical proof of the salience of the age factor, there is the tragic example of Italy’s corona-toll. 32,785 dead✤ from COVID-19 in a country with the oldest population in Europe. Nearly 58% of the country’s deaths in the pandemic have been Italians aged 80 and over [Statistica Research Department, (22-May-2020), www.statista.com/].
With Italy’s grim corona-death tally falling disproportionately heavily on the country’s senectitude, you would think that it would not bode well for Japan which has the world’s highest percentage of older people (28.2% aged 65 and more) [Population Reference Bureau, www.pbr.org/]. When you add in other demographic factors relevant to Japan, this would seem doubly ominous for the “land of the rising sun” – a population of >126 millions on a land area of 377,944 sq km, including the mega-city of Tokyo✪ with its notoriously packed commuter trains. On top of all these is Japan’s proximity to China, the virus’ original causal point.
(Source: www.quora.com)
Japan, unpropitious conditions for avoiding an global epidemic? With such cards stacked against it, worried Japanese health officials might have feared a catastrophe eventuating on the scale of that befalling the US, Italy and UK. And Japan has not come out of the pandemic unscathed but the result-to-date (25-May-2020)—16,550 confirmed cases and 820 deaths—is much better than many comparably sized and larger countries. Of course, Japan’s public health authorities are very mindful, as is every country, of being swamped by a second wave of the coronavirus.
(Photo: www.english.kyodonews.net)
How has Japan done as well as it has?
Good question! The Japanese themselves can’t really explain how they’ve managed to escape a major outbreak of the virus⌧. WHO has called it a “success story”, but it’s one that continues to mystify. In so far as explanations were forthcoming from Japan’s health ministry, it was attributed at least in part to a raft of cultural factors. First, hygiene and cleanliness is something ingrained in the Japanese psyche, Japanese people tend not to shake hands and hugs others, preferring to bow as the form of greeting. Second, the practice of wearing face masks was already the norm in Japan ante-COVID-19 (the Japanese go through 5.5bn a year, averaging 43 per head of population) [‘Most coronavirus success stories can be explained. Japan’s remains a ‘mystery’’, (Jake Sturmer & Yumi Asada), ABC News, 23-May-2020, www.abc.com.au; ’How Japan keeps COVID-19 under control’, (Martin Fritz), DM, 25-Mar-2020, www.dm.com].
Other cultural factors Other suppositions put forward to explain the Japanese success include the practice of inoculating young children with BCG vaccinations, which according to its advocates give Japanese people a basic immunity which helps their defence against coronavirus. Physiology was also cited as a factor in guarding against the disease, the low obesity of Japanese is thought to help, as is the Japanese diet (eg, natto, a soybean yoghurt, is thought to boost the immune system) [‘’From near disaster to success story: how Japan has tackled coronavirus’, (Justin McCurry), The Guardian, 23-May-2020, www.msn.com/; ‘Has Japan dodged the coronavirus bullet?’, Richard Carter & Natsuko Fuhue, Yahoo News, 14-May-2020, www.au.news.yahoo.com; Sturmer & Asada].
(Photo: www..Forbes.com)
The “Diamond Princess” In addition to all of the domestic factors hindering Japan’s fight against COVID-19, an external element exacerbating the early outbreak in Japan was the debacle of the “Diamond Princess” cruise ship. When the international ship docked at Yokohama in February, the Japanese authorities injudiciously prevented healthy passengers and crew on-board from disembarking during the quarantine – with no separation made between well and contaminated passengers, and no self-isolation of the sick! This led to a blow-out of virus contamination which eventually infected 712 passengers, creating the first big cluster of coronavirus outside of Wuhan [‘How lax rules and missed warnings led to Japan’s second coronavirus-hit cruise ship’, (Ju-Min Park), The Japan Times, 07-May-2020, www.japantimes.co.jp].
A cautious reaction from politicians, one eye on the XXXII Olympiad? Let’s look in detail at what Japan did – or didn’t do! When the disease first arrived, the government took a cautious approach to tackling the virus. Borders initially remained open and Chinese visitors were still allowed into the country in huge numbers, 89,000 came in February (after the first outbreak), which was on top of the 925,000 who visited during January! Prime Minister Abe came in for a lot of flak, some including a former PM, Yukio Hatoyama, accused him of holding off from going full-tilt against the pandemic so as to preserve the Tokyo Olympics event (Fritz). Critics railed against a lack of leadership from the Abe government, criticising its failure to appoint anyone to take firm control of the crisis, and that those efforts to counter the virus were hamstrung by the multiplication of bureaucratic silos [‘A Japan divided over COVID-19 control’, (Hiromi Murakami), East Asia Forum, 08-Mar-2020, www.eastasiaforum.org].
Lockdown-lite, testing-lite The Abe government’s belated state of emergency saw sport suspended and schools closed, but overall only a partial lockdown was imposed✺, many businesses, restaurants were permitted to stay open, albeit with reduced hours. Citizens were asked to stay home but compliance was only on a voluntary basis, with no surveillance technology deployed and no punitive action taken against anyone failing to adhere to the government’s request.
(Image: www.japantimes.co.jp)
Targeted testing
It was in testing that Japan adopted a very different crisis approach to most of the leading western countries. Rather than going for high volume, it deliberately tested under capacity. By mid-May it had tested a mere 0.185% of the country’s population, averaging two tests per 1,000 people, cf. Australia, >40 per 1,000 (Sturmer & Asada). It was highly selective, only those with serious virus symptoms were tested. The rationale for such a low-testing regime was concern for the capacity of widespread testing infrastructure, by limiting testing this would lighten the load on testing centres. Rather than mine-sweep the country with testing, the Japanese pursued a strategy of targeting virus clusters as they were identified to pinpoint the sources of the infection [‘Has Japan found a viable long-term strategy for the pandemic’, (Kazuto Suzuki), The Diplomat, 24-Apr-2020, www.thediplomat.com; Gramenz].
Consequently, Japanese medical experts concede that the official counts may be well short of the reality, which puts a rider on the country’s achievement. Even with a smaller number of cases Japan found itself lacking in IPUs (only five per 100,000 people cf. 35 in the US) , there was also a shortage of PPE as well as face masks which were rationed out only two per household (and derided as “Abe-no masks”). This calls into question the faith that the Japanese placed in the robustness of the nation’s health system [‘Japan’s Halfhearted Coronavirus Measures Are Working Anyway’, (William Sposato), Foreign Policy Magazine, 14-May-2020, www.foreignpolicy.com]⊚.
Self-complying social distancing? Social distancing, a nightmare to try to enforce in people-dense Tokyo, was not a major focus for authorities. This was largely left to the goodwill of the individual, aided by some subtle social shaming – government workers walking through Tokyo nightlife areas with signs asking people to go home (Sposato). In any event the authorities’ measures were only partly effective – Japanese people continue to flock to the cherry blossom spring events in large numbers. Where social distancing was more manageable was in shutting off obvious potential hotspots, closed spaces with poor ventilation (karaoke clubs and pubs), crowded places with many people people in the immediate vicinity and other close, intimate contact settings (Suzuki).
Cherry blossom time: no voluntary social distancing here (Photo: www.bloomberg.com)
Tokyo transport
Tokyo’s mass transit network is a petri dish in-waiting for coronavirus, but it appears that preventive measures (some pre-planned) have lessened the impact on public health. Tokyo business working hours have been staggered and large companies like NEC started to adopt telecommuting and teleworking, as well as a big increase of people riding bikes to work occurring. Consequently, transits at Tokyo’s central station on May 18th was down by 73% on the corresponding day in 2019 [‘Remote possibilities: Can every home in Japan become an office?’, (Alex Martin), The Japan Times, 23-May-2020, www.japantimes.co.jp].
(Image: Getty Images/AFP. P Fong)
Most pundits and observers conclude that Japan, with its ageing population and all its drawbacks and encumbrances, has (so far) warded off the worst of the pandemic. With no “silver bullet” in sight, we are left to speculate whether that they have achieved this outcome by sheer good luck, by good judgement, by the personal habits and cultural traits (especially hygiene) of its citizens, or by a combination of all of the above (McCurry).
Endnote: Low tester, early starter Another Asian country which has mirrored Japan’s pattern of choosing not to test in high volumes is Taiwan. The Taipei China republic, commencing measures to counter the virus as early as anyone did, had tested only 2,900 people per million of population (Worldometer, as at 20th May), but it’s mortality rate (deaths per million) was only 0.3 (total of seven deaths) compared to Japan which was 6.0 per million.
˙˚˙˙˚˙˙˚˙˙˚˙˙˚˙˙˚˙˙˚˙˙˚˙˙˚˙˙˚˙˙˚˙˙˚˙˙˚˙˙˚˙˙˚˙˙˚˙˙˚˙˙˚
✤ as at 25-May-2020
✪ the largest metropolis prefecture in the world, around 14 million people
⌧ Japan’s health officials had themselves projected a worse-case scenario of up to 400,000 deaths (Gramenz)
✺ to be fair, there are constitutional impediments in Japan that prevent the declaration of a full, European-style lockdown (McCurry)
⊚ a Kyodo news poll indicated that 57.5% of people were unhappy with the government’s handling of the emergency. In so far as Japanese people have given credit to the success, it has gone to medical experts for efficiently managing Japan’s cluster tracing and containment efforts, rather than to Abe who many view with distrust based on its past track record [‘Time to Give Japan Credit for its COVID-19 Response’, (Rob Fahey & Paul Nadeau), Tokyo Review, 18-May-2020, www.tokyoreview.net]
Declaring War on an Internal Enemy Hiding in Plain Sight: The ❛Deep State❜
In the fiercely combative arena of Washington DC politics, one term that gets bandied about a lot—before and continuing through the time of pandemic—is the notion of the existence of a “Deep State”. Whenever the expression gets publicly uttered, it’s purpose is to serve as the answer to some or other momentous development or outcome. Left there hanging in the air, vague, nebulous, mysterious and unelaborated but always unambiguously pejorative – the innuendo of conspiracy.
༄ ༄༄
Alternately called “a state within a state”, the “shadow government” or “the permanent state”, the Deep State connotes images of shadowy individuals talking in soto voco, practicing the political dark arts.
So, what actually is a deep state? In get to the essence of this concept let’s survey a cross-selection of responses to the question:
⌱ a type of governance made up of networks of power operating independently of the state’s political leadership in pursuit of their own agenda and goals [Wikipedia]
⌱ a conspiracy theory which suggests that collusion and cronyism exists within the US political system and constitute a hidden government within the legitimately elected government [Wikipedia]
⌱ a body of people, typically influential members of government agencies or the military, believed to be involved in the secret manipulation or control of government policy [Oxford English Dictionary].
⌱ the idea that a cabal of unelected security officials across a number of government bodies maintain influence over elected politicians [Will Worley, The Independent (UK)]
⌱ (“the seed for many tantalising conspiracy theories”…the existence of a premeditated effort by certain federal government employees or other persons to secretly manipulate or control the government without regard for the policies of Congress or the President [Robert Longley]
⌱ an underworld of unaccountable authority [Peter Dale Scott]
⌱ belief in an informal or parallel government that exists to countermand legitimate, usually more democratic, institutions (whose usage includes) a catch-all term applied to any number of extraordinary, usually violent, episodes, eg, JFK assassination, 9/11, etc. [Ryan Gingeras]
⌱ a massive informal government comprising untold thousands of bureaucrats, technocrats and plutocrats committed to driving president-elect Trump from power [Breitbart]
⌱ (how it functions) when elected governments threaten the deep state’s domestic or international interests, actors aligned to this coalition (the military, the clandestine service, the mafia and far-right activists) employ any means to reverse the state’s political course…these coalitions within the government work to ‘veto’ or ‘fine tune’ policies related to national security [Ola Tunander]
༄ ༄༄
The topicality of the Deep State as a conspiracy theory and as a form of politics in practice, as I indicated at the start, resides within, indeed permeates, the present US political realm, but the political phenomena itself did not start in the US. Let’s first look at the modern origins of the deep state – in early 20th century Turkey.
Turkey: volatile zero-sum-game The notion of an unofficial para-authority, a deep state within the nation’s polity, has probably existed since the time of antiquity, but as a normative concept it can be traced back to the rise of the Young Turks movement in Turkey (revolution of 1908). In the struggle for power in the vacuum created by the disintegration of the Ottoman Empire, the Young Turks, and Kemal Ataturk who would become the ‘architect’ of the modern Turkish Republic, used criminal elements to eliminate political opponents. Ataturk’s group, through a violent, intra-government resistance to the ruling clique in Turkey, destabilised and undermined it (from within), eventually establishing control over state and society for itself. Turks called this secret network, derin devlet (literally the “deep state”). Since then, the phenomena has been replicated elsewhere, eg, Soviet Union/Russia, Egypt, Pakistan❈, with the tradition maintained in Turkey up to the (present) Erdogân era, eg, the failed military coup in 2016 seeking to overthrow the Erdogân autocracy [‘Turkey’s “Deep-State” and the Ergenekon Conundrum’, (H Akin Ünver), Middle East Institute, 01-Apr-2009, www.mei.edu].
↴ Erdogân state (Source: www.time.com)
Deep state sans conspiracy Drawing together the different threads of responses, a deep state exists when a network of different groups covertly coalesce, forming a power base independent of and parallel to the legitimate government, with the purpose of pursuing its own objectives. In practice it tends to exercise soft power (rather than the more violent type seen in Turkey) by undermining and discrediting the legitimate government, with the aim of subverting its operation and bringing it down. The collusive elements of the network or cabal is typically drawn from the state’s security services, the bureaucracy, the military, the media, the private sector, even from organised crime.
The deep state in America It was general-turned-GOP governor Dwight D Eisenhower who first alerted America to the dangers of a deep state emerging…at his farewell address in 1961 he said: “We must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex”. A couple of years later the assassination of Eisenhower’s successor John F Kennedy provided conspiracy theory obsessives with endless material for imaginative speculation. Inevitably some of that speculation has joined the dots between the never-satisfactorily explained Kennedy murder and the Deep State. A perusal of the web turns up numerous posts with titles like ‘JFK was Murdered by the Deep State’ and ‘JFK Was Assassinated by LBJ, Establishment, Deep State’…fairly self-explanatory but these generally fact-thin ‘revelations’ detail a deep state hit squad of assassins and conspirators which includes Lyndon B Johnson and a coterie of southern Democrat politicians, the American mafia, Texas oil tycoons, Fidel Castro, the CIA, the KGB and a host of other nominated suspects⊠. And of course popular movies like Oliver Stone’s 1991 JFK was a further shot-in-the-arm for political conspiracy buffs and the perpetuation of the Deep State/JFK thesis (portraying “a cabal of shadowy officials as the puppet masters behind Kennedy’s assassination”)◘. As Professor Paul Musgrove remarked, “the deep state is catnip for conspiracy theorists” [‘How a Conspiracy Theory Went From Political Fringe to Mainstream’, (Tom Porter), Newsweek, 08-Feb-2017, www.newsweek.com].
Deep State rhetoric: How to vilify your opponents and turn back criticism, it’s all a conspiracy by the enemy! The term finally acquires staying power and everyday currency in the US political lexicon with Donald Trump’s transition to the presidency in 2016/2017. Trump, a self-acknowledged outlier of Washington politics, came to office promising to “drain the swamp in DC”, his avowed aim, to ditch the old, distrusted model of federal government. With Trump doing things very much his own (peculiarly idiosyncratic) way in the White House, this caused waves, there was a “natural pushback” from a bureaucracy accustomed to a very different approach under Obama. This is a normal part of the process of regime change in parliamentary democracies universally – a residual if usually temporary feature of the culture of resistance to government change. [‘President Trump’s Allies Keep Talking About the “Deep State”. What’s That?’, (Alana Abramson), Time, 08-March-2017, www.time.com].
The practice of leaking information
From within the president’s fold, warnings of “covert resistance” from within to the president, emerged. Talk of a “Deep State” was heard from the far-right✪, Trump strategist Steve Bannon among the voices. The complaint was that elements within the bureaucracy, the State Department, Pentagon, wherever, were leaking damaging information to a media hostile to Trump (eg, New York Times, Washington Post), to which Trump’s “knee-jerk” reaction was to label it as “fake news”⍤. Two points need to be made about the leaking of information from democratic governments: as Abramson has noted, this is “not a new dynamic” or unique to the US, career civil servants—who are extra-political—have always leaked information to the press. The (legitimate) government from time to time itself will leak favourably information to the media (Abramson).
Watching the president The second point is that the various federal government agencies, being non-partisan, see a component of their role to act as a check on wayward and irresponsible behaviour by an incumbent chief executive that would be harmful to the nation. Previous directors of the CIA have stated that the military would refuse to follow orders given by Trump which are unlawful [‘US Military to Disobey Trump’s ‘Illegal’ Nuclear Strike Order’, Sputnik News, 15-Nov-2017, www.sputniknews.com]. In such a scenario, the “permanent national security apparatus” has a right to act, as “a check on the civilian government” (Musgrave).
Another Deep State linkage with the coronavirus for conspiracy fans? The “Covert-19” pandemic? ↴
Using the Deep State catch-phrase to your own advantage Opposition to Trump, to his style of presidency and approach to government, in the form of hostility from almost the entirety of the mainstream US media, the leaking of information from within the ‘citadel’ such as the charge that Russian interference in the 2016 elections assisted a Trump victory, have provided the ammunition for the Trump’s enablers and supporters to construct a narrative of a deep state, a ‘conspiracy’ of anyone seeking to subvert the presidency, including foreign powers (like China) and many bureaucrats they see as loyal to the former president (Obama).
Trump has turned internal criticism of himself into an excuse to fire officials, creating scapegoats for the shortcomings of the administration he heads. Inspector General of the Intelligence Community Michael Atkinson, sacked after alerting Congress of Trump’s attempts to pressure Ukraine’s leader into investigating the president’s domestic political opponents, remarked pointedly that he was dismissed, not for failing to do his job but for doing it properly [‘Trump’s safari into the wilderness of the deep state’, (Jacob Heilbrunn), Spectator (America), 08-Apr-2020, http://spectator.us]. Numerous other subalterns from the White House staff, Pentagon, Homeland Security, FBI, Treasury, Attorney General, etc have suffered the same fate after earning Trump’s ire. As Professor Timur Kuran, an economist who has studied the deep state concept in both Turkey and the US, said: in many authoritarian regimes, dictators often blame their failures on a “deep state enemy” within the legitimate state [‘Deep State: Inside Donald Trump’s Paranoid Conspiracy Theory’, (Michael Hanford), Rolling Stone, 09-Mar-2017, www.rollingstone.com].
Connecting coronavirus to the Deep State conspiracy
In the turmoil of the COVID-19 crisis in America, it didn’t take long for a number of Trump’s cronies and followers to play the pandemic conspiracy card. TV commentator Rush Limbaugh has labelled the coronavirus a deep state hoax⍝ (calling health experts fighting the virus outbreak functionaries of the deep state). The right-wing “shock jock” has said the crisis was being used by as a political weapon to destabilise and undo the Trump presidency [‘Rush Limbaugh: coronavirus a “common cold” being “weaponised’ against Trump’, (Martin Pengelly), The Guardian, 26-Feb-2020, www.theguardian.com]⦿. Other “true-believers” of the DS conspiracy myth see the coronavirus crisis as a plot to destabilise global markets and cripple the US economy, or alternately a Deep State plan to suppress dissent and impose “mandated medicine” on to the unsuspecting masses [‘Right-wing conspiracy theorists see coronavirus as a plot against Trump’, (Mikael Thalen), The Daily Dot, 26-Feb-2020, www.dailydot.com; ‘Scientist with 4 Degrees from MIT Warns ‘Deep State’ Using Coronavirus Fear-Mongering To Suppress Dissent’, (Carmine Sabina), The Western Journal, 17-Mar-2020, www.westernjournal.com].
❈ there have been numerous other Deep State scenarios internationally, a classic one in recent history was the 1973 Chilean coup where foreign elements, the American CIA and IT&T, combined with a right wing military clique in Chile to overthrow the democratically-elected Allende government
⊠ many of the conspiracy hypothesisers who accept that Lee Harvey Oswald killed Kennedy, depict the gunman as having been an agent of the Deep State
◘ with hindsight we can see earlier instances of the (unnamed) deep state in American politics, beavering away to undermine a US president – in the Thirties and early Forties the Dulles brothers, Foster and Allen, exploited their key diplomatic roles in arms of the Roosevelt administration to covertly pursue their own agendas which were at variance with FDR’s policies, David Talbot, The Devil’s Chessboard: Allen Dulles, the CIA, and the Rise of America’s Secret Government (2015)
✪ one of the wildest is the QAnon Deep State conspiracy which alleges that a “cabal of Satan-worshiping pedophiles” have joined up with Hollywood liberals and Democrat politicians to try to overthrow the Trump regime
⍤ sometimes hitting back with his own brand of fake news, such as his unsubstantiated tweet claim that President Obama wiretapped Trump Tower before the election
⍝ a view with popular backing among sections of the Alt-Right, patriot-militia groups in the US
⦿ Limbaugh last month, looking to cloak the ‘conspiracy’ in an even more sinister light, suggested to his viewers that there were eighteen earlier strains of the disease which he has likened to the common cold, therefore COVID-19 was nothing to be concerned about, he reasoned. Limbaugh’s woeful ignorance—the 19 in the disease’s name refers to the year it was first identified, 2019—earned him much scorn and derision from liberal America (although amazingly it didn’t deter a Trump lackey from repeating the gross misinformation in a “Fox & Friends” rant against WHO) , ‘Coronavirus skeptic Rush Limbaugh thinks COVID-19 means there were 18 other COVIDS’, (Brian Niemietz), Daily News, 12-Mar-2020, www.nydailynews.com
The National Health Emergency ‘Tyranny’: The Lockdown Through Libertarian Eyes
The majority of countries where coronavirus infection rates have experienced an upward curve have resorted to locking down the community to varying degrees. In the USA, more than elsewhere, this has tested the faith of those of a libertarian disposition. In recent weeks we have seen the mega-massive jolt to the economy and enforced closures of businesses resulting in millions of workers finding themselves in the dole queues. Many libertarians, albeit with reluctance, accept the inevitability of the present state intervention as the only means available of providing the fiscal stimulus to keep people and businesses afloat.
Its when it comes to the matter of mandatory quarantine as a counter-virus measure, that the issue becomes more thorny for libertarians. The classic libertarian position would see voluntary self-isolation as the ideal solution in an ideal (ie, libertarian) world… compulsory quarantine is the last resort to them. Some of a libertarian mind would reject it outright – on ideological grounds, while also claiming it to be an ineffective measure as a social curative. Others accept it as a legitimate move given the uniqueness of the Covid-19 crisis situation, but with a very clear rider that the measures taken need to be temporary only. As shown below, this aspect of libertarianism is a “hot-button” issue currently for many in the US with skin in the game [‘What libertarians would do in response to coronavirus’, (Bonnie Kristian), The Week, 13-Mar-2020, www.theweek.com].
Gadsden flag: associated with libertarianism & the American Tea Party
Social distancing as an imposed, mandated practice during the pandemic, fails the libertarian test. The pure libertarian much prefers to see voluntary compliance by the individual, in the expectation (or hope) that most people will ultimately do the right thing [‘Libertarianism and the Coronavirus Pandemic’, (Andy Craig), Cato Institute, 25-Mar-2020, www.cato.com]. Accordingly, a small minority of US states (five?) have not enforced the distancing and stay-at-home edicts, their leaders pledging to hold fast to the “sacred liberties” of their citizenries. But most everywhere else the pandemic has hit, certainly in urban areas, the civil authorities have gone for some form of lockdown.
Escape from Lockdown 13 For the average “Joe and Joanna Citizen” in Main Street, Anywheresville, being locked down inside four walls indefinitely is one of the hardest things to cop. For most people “cabin fever” will inevitably set in…confined at home, unable to congregate and socialise in cafes, eateries and bars with friends and colleagues or do road trips. In First World societies such as the US, Western Europe or the Commonwealth of Nations, freedom of movement is such an inherently natural expectation, once deprived, resistance to these rigid controls can reach a tipping point which easily spills over into increasingly bold attempts to subvert or defy the government’s edicts. Recently we have witnessed this perhaps at its apogee in the Midwest and Southern states of the US. Protest groups, the new scofflaws of Trumpian America, have mushroomed in particular in “rust-belt” states such as Michigan, Ohio, Indiana, Pennsylvania and West Virginia✷.
(Photo: AP Photo/Paul Sancya)
As the lockdowns extend from weeks into months bunches of pro-Republican conservatives∎ have more and more blatantly violated the stay-at-home orders of mostly Democratic governors (in contrast serving GOP governors like South Dakota’s Kristi Noem, continue to play the libertarian card, steadfastly refusing to implement a stay-at-home order regardless of virus outbreaks within the state). For the protesters, egged on by the schizophrenic tweets❂ of President Trump, a call to “Liberate Michigan” (Virginia, etc) and amplified by the Fox press, one prime target of their vitriol has been Michigan governor Gretchen Whitmer who has mandated a strict ”stay home, stay safe” executive order to counteract the virus. This month organised gatherings of protesters have assembled outside the Capitol building and the governor’s home, flaunting the restrictions and demonstrating their displeasure at Whitmer’s policies. Some of the dissenters have been armed with AR-15s and AK-47s, very few wearing face masks but brandishing Confederate and Gadsden flags and even Nazi emblems (loosely equating the state “governor/tyrant” with Nazis). Some protesters have held up signs such as “The cure is worse than the virus” (which, if you have watched the president’s coronavirus press briefings ‘sideshow’, has a faintly familiar ring to it).
(Photo: REUTERS/Alyson McClaran)
This orchestrated “Operation Gridlock”, in Michigan and elsewhere, is organised by a conservative patriot/militia group with connexions to Trump’s education secretary, Betsy DeVos. One of its objectives (successful) was to grind city centre traffic down to a standstill, including the blocking of ambulances conveying patients. Protesters in various states have also tried to intimidate health workers engaged in the frontline of the fight against the pandemic. So far Whitmer has remained resolute in maintaining a strict state lockdown, pointing to the gravity of the state’s health predicament (Michigan has had 37,778 confirmed cases and 3,315 deaths due to coronavirus, as at 27-April-2020) [‘Conservative group linked to DeVos family organises protest of coronavirus restrictions in Michigan’, (Igor Derbyshire), Salon, 16-Apr-2020, www.salon.com; ‘Trump Supporters Are Staging Armed Protests to Stick it to Coronavirus’, (Caleb Ecarma), Vanity Fair, 16-Apr-2020, www.vanityfair.com].
🔻 Gov. Whitmer (Photo: U.S. News & World)
What’s motivating the scofflaw behaviour? Researchers at the University of Maryland have concluded that “quarantine fatigue” has set in. Increasing numbers of fed-up or plain bored Americans are venturing outside of “the box” in defiance of state stay-at-home orders. Many of these are exercising, or as the weather gets warmer, going to the beach (most of the escapees are doing these things without bothering to practice safe distancing)⌖ [‘Quarantine fatigue is setting in: Smartphone data shows thousands are fed up after weeks under lockdown’, (Ralph R Ortega), Daily Mail, 27-Apr-2020, www.dailymail.com].
The inalienable right to be ‘selective’ The gatherings of those discontented with the status quo in America have exercised their right to protest against their state’s political leaders. Interestingly, their decision to protest on this occasion, as has been noted, does not signify their endorsement of the right to protest per se – a perfectly admirable and consistent libertarian trait. Previously when sectors of the Left in America took to protesting issues such as climate change and police brutality, these Right-wing elements were vigorously supporting the conservative politicians’ endeavours to bring in legislation to outlaw protests [’The hypocrisy of the anti-lockdown protests’, (Anthony L Fisher), Business Insider Australia, 22-Apr-2020, www.businessinsider.com.au].
🔺The ‘tyranny’ avengers
(Photo: Nikolaus Kama/AFP via Getty Images)
These insurrectionists and those who facilitate and encourage them, argue that they are motivated, nay compelled, by the (temporary) loss of their basic liberties… evoking the First Amendment and the Founding Fathers, they portray Whitmer and other governors as tyrants, preventing their right to come and go as they wish, to work and leisure untrammelled. Thus, it comes back to that same nub at the core of libertarian values, the right to do as one pleases — (with the rider)…so long as it doesn’t harm anyone else. This added qualifier is fundamental to the credo of libertarian theory.
“Inviolable freedom”…so long as it doesn’t harm harm anyone else The casualty toll of the Covid-19 health crisis in the US—the worse in the world by far—is rapidly overtaking that of the total of American lives lost in the ten-years of the Vietnam War. Disproportionally, the pandemic everywhere is killing the older and the most vulnerable, people with co-morbidities. Coronavirus, the epidemiologists have shown us, is transmitted from a human host to a human recipient, the more people interacting with each other, the more likelihood of transmission, the greater the incidence of morbidity and mortality from the virus, simple as that!
An unavoidable trade-off The temporary suspension of liberties is the price to pay to preserve lives. Yes, the measures are inconveniences and hardships on individuals, but they’ve been imposed on the population for a health safety reason – the greater good of the community and the health of all. Yes, the libertarians have some grounds to quibble, a few of the measures taken have been over-the-top and seem disproportionate. Even Gov. Whitmer, a rising Democrat star on the national political scene, has at times pulled the wrong rein (eg, barring people from purchasing garden equipment and baby restrainers for cars seems to be over-zealous) [‘Quarantine Protesters Are No Heroes of Civil Disobedience’, (Jonah Goldberg), National Review, 22-Apr-2020, www.nationalreview.com].
🔺 Colorado protesters visualising a totalitarian pivot by their governor? (Photo: AP)
FN: Heat in the kitchen Democrat governors in “swing states” like Gov. Whitmer—caught in a pincer of intimidatory Scofflaw defiance, demands from business to re-open and constant sniping from a divisive chief executive at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave—are not the only ones feeling the mounting pressure of the moment. Florida’s GOP governor, Ron DeSantis, has copped plenty of flak himself. He was very late in issuing stay-at-home orders, having rejected calls to close Florida’s crowded beaches, citing the libertarian manta of free choice. When the lockdown finally came, church services got a “go free” card from the restrictions. Consequently, the state’s coronavirus ‘scorecard’ is now 32,138 confirmed cases and 1,088 deaths (27-April-2020). The current virus “hot spots” in Florida don’t augur well for a lifting of it’s restrictions any time soon. On top of this gloomy prognosis, Florida, being a ‘bellwether’ state, Trump will be expecting DeSantis to deliver it to the Republicans in the November elections [‘Anti-quarantine protests, Trump pressure on governors on political tightrope over coronavirus’, (Deidre Shesgreen & Maureen Groppe), USA Today, 23-Apr-2020, www.amp.usatoday.com].
⥿⥿⥿⥿⥿⥿⥿⥿⥿⥿⥿⥿⥿⥿⥿⥿⥿⥿⥿⥿⥿⥿⥿⥿⥿⥿⥿⥿⥿⥿⥿⥿⥿⥿⥿⥿⥿⥿⥿⥿⥿⥿⥿⥿⥿
✷ the protests have by no means been confined to these states – such happenings have been increasingly the done thing from Pennsylvania to Nebraska to California. Nor have lockdown protests been confined to America, ‘Berlin police anti-lockdown protestors accusing Angela Merkel of “banning life”’, SBS News, 25-Apr-2020, www.sbsnews.com.au ∎ the same kind of pro-Trump people that Hillary Clinton (unwisely) labelled a “basket of deplorables” in the 2016 presidential campaign ❂ ”schizophrenic” because at the same time the president at his daily podium is officially asking Americans to adhere to the prescribed Covid-19 safety measures ⌖ there’s obviously other underlying factors in the tendency towards civil disobedience in Midwestern states and perhaps more so in the South – greater religiosity (and associated with that) scepticism towards scientific evidence and government experts, and even the “Siamese twins” attachment of many Americans to car culture (especially in suburbia and rural regions), ‘The American South has resisted social distancing measures — and we’re all going to pay the price’, Raw Story, 03-Apr-2020, www.rawstory.com
Dandong’s Historic Bridge to North Korea: A Fleeting Peak into Kim’s Kingdom
Dandong in China’s North-eastern Liaoning province is 541 miles from Beijing, but only some 105 miles from Pyongyang, North Korea’s seldom seen capital. But Dandong is much, much closer to North Korean soil as a visit to the most eastern city in China’s Dong-Bei will confirm. From Dandong’s shoreline on the Yalu River, the Peoples’ Democratic Republic of Korea (PDRK) is just the distance of one short bridge away.
We, like millions of Chinese visitors from other parts of the vast country, paid the admission fee (¥30 per head) to tour the bridge open to the public✹. This bridge is no ordinary bridge even by Chinese standards, the bridge is truncated on the Korean side as a result of war damage. This is the famous Yalu River Broken Bridge. Built by Imperial Japan in 1911, the half-way section of the bridge was destroyed by an American B-29 bomber during the Korean War. The bridge has been deliberately kept un-repaired since for its Cold War propaganda points-scoring (and the eastern sections of the bridge subsequently dismantled by the North Koreans).
As you walk up the stairs from the entrance, you are bombarded with another bit of transparent Chinese propaganda extolling the patriotic homeland – a stirring large multi-figure set of stern-faced statues, heroic Chinese servicemen striking an ever-vigilant pose, on the lookout for foreign “enemies of the state” (there’s also another patriotic military wall sculpture on the front (street) side of the bridge.
At night the Broken Bridge is at its most visually striking as the bridge cascading into a revolving spectrum of colours. Climbing on to the bridge itself (draped in Chinese flags) during the day allows visitors, some in guide-led tour groups, more opportunity to study the bridge’s intricacies in detail. The swing bridge signage contains detailed information explaining its unusual engineering specifics, a “Unique Horizontal-Opening Beam Bridge” (a special thrill for civil engineering tragics and graduating Lego enthusiasts alike).
The bridge was very well attended on the afternoon/evening we visited, everyone making their way to the famously truncated section of the bridge to survey the damage close-up. The end-point, with people jostling for prime position, is also the best spot to peer into the “Hermit Kingdom” of North Korea, home of the colourfully unstable President Kim. Just across from here is the “ghost town” like city of Sinuiji…at night bereft of lights, and during the day scarcely little to be seen, a scattering of seeming abandoned grey old buildings, a strange orange dome-shaped structure that catches the eye and a dilapidated Ferris wheel, and precious little else. Eerily it is seemingly also bereft of observable human life. An added nationalistic touch for very many of the Chinese visitors was to snap a selfie with both the red Chinese flag and the Sinuiji “still-life” backdrop.
Of course back in Chinese Dandong you can find a North Korean presence right here. Several of the restaurants in riverside Binjang Middle Road are North Korean (run perhaps by economic refugees who had once taken the chance to hop over the Yalu at some point to find more profitable trade and opportunity on the Chinese side).
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✹ there are in fact two bridges in Dandong, sitting side by side, that span the river to North Korea – the second bridge, the Sino-Korean Friendship Bridge, is a traffic bridge for (a restricted number of) sanctioned vehicles making the journey to Pyongyang