RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://www.nationalreview.com/2020/05/the-end-of-hong-kong/

The 1997 handover of Hong Kong from Britain to the People’s Republic of China marked the end of Western colonial rule in the region. Optimistic Western policy hands hoped that the final mending of the “unequal treaties,” as they were called by the Chinese Communist Party, would initiate Beijing’s integration into the rules-based world order.

Recent events in Hong Kong put paid to this hope.

The days of China’s “peaceful rise,” when the CCP steadfastly denied its hegemonic ambitions, are long gone. In light of China’s clampdown on Hong Kong, the transfer of the autonomous region now appears to have entailed swapping one imperial government for another. As if to remove any doubt, China’s National People’s Congress bypassed the Hong Kong Legislative Council this week and imposed a new national-security law. The law, which bans all “seditious activity,” effectively nullifies the Hong Kong Basic Law according to which the territory is guaranteed autonomy from the Mainland until 2047.

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo responded appropriately in announcing that, under the Hong Kong Human Rights and Democracy Act passed last year, Washington would no longer consider Hong Kong independent of China. The White House will reconsider the privileges and immunities granted to the autonomous region, including its preferential trade status, visa exemptions, and flexible foreign-exchange regime.

Critics argue that the measures will cause undue economic harm to the region. Hong Kong’s economy will suffer, but the millions of Hong Kongers who have taken to the streets in protest have demonstrated in no uncertain terms that they value freedom over GDP growth. Indeed, the rule of law is what allowed Hong Kong to build a thriving economy in the first place. The short-term harms from reduced trade and investment pale in comparison to the disaster of Mainland dominance of Hong Kong. Worse, allowing China to violate the 1984 Sino–British Joint Declaration, registered at the U.N., will send a signal that the U.S. is unwilling to stand by a basic element of the international order.

https://quadrant.org.au/opinion/qed/2020/05/run-the-numbers-survey-the-folly/

As of May 22, Australia had suffered 7,088 cases of COVID-19 and 102 people who died with the virus, the majority were males between 70 and 89. A sizeable proportion of those admitted to hospitals’ intensive care unitss were suffering from comorbidity issues such as cardiac disease and diabetes. Australia’s Chief Medical Officer (CMO) has told a Senate Inquiry that the Australian government’s actions in locking down the economy saved 14,000 lives.

In the meantime, Camilla Stoltenberg, director of Norway’s public health agency, has confessed:

Our assessment now, and I find that there is a broad consensus in relation to the reopening, was that one could probably achieve the same effect – and avoid part of the unfortunate repercussions – by not closing. But, instead, staying open with precautions to stop the spread.

The cost to the Australian economy of the global pandemic could be as high as one thousand billion dollars with an additional direct cost to the taxpayer of $260 billion this year alone. It will be a while before our Prime Minister and the premiers admit the lockdown was entirely unnecessary and unjustified.

Rampant alarmism

With the support of 289 or more top economists, four economists, Edmond, Hamilton, Holden and Preston (2020) deny “that there is a trade-off between the public health and economic aspects of the crisis.” I answered this here. Two of the four, Richard Holden and Bruce Preston estimate that without lockdowns and similar interventions, but presumably with voluntary social distancing, 90 per cent of our population of 25.5 million would have resulted in 225,000 deaths, based on an assumed fatality rate of 1 per cent, and yielding an incredible rate of 882 deaths per 100,000 residents.

The claimed deaths saved are higher than argued by Australia’s CMO by a factor of 16 times. The same methodology yields nearly three million COVID deaths in the U.S. and seventy million deaths globally. But is this simply fanciful alarmism and fearmongering designed to frighten all Australians into acceptance of continuing lockdowns and restrictions on normal life, or is it an astute economic analysis?