The Limits of Force: A Bayonet in the Back Will Not Restore China’s Economy

by Charles Hugh Smith
Of Two Minds

Force cannot restore legitimacy, trust or confidence, nor can it magically erase the consequences of a still-unfolding national trauma.

The Chinese authorities threatening to punish workers who refuse to return to work are getting a lesson in the limits of force in an unprecedented national trauma: a bayonet in the back will not restore the legitimacy and confidence that have been lost.

There are two enormous blind spots in conventional media coverage of the pandemic:

1. The limits of force in restoring China’s economy to pre-pandemic levels.

2. The longer term (i.e. second-order) consequences of the immense trauma experienced by the Chinese people.

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