Natural Immunity
An Alternative to Vaccines? By Nathan Worcester
'THAT'S NOT WHAT ANY OF US SIGNED UP FOR.' Border Patrol agents open up about morale crisis. p.18
OCTOBER 15–21 | 2021
XI’S AMBITION TO RESHAPE SOCIETY
"Common prosperity" rhetoric belies intense challenges facing the CCP and its leader. p. 40
AUSTRALIANS PROTEST 'HEALTH DICTATORSHIP'
Strict lockdown orders, geo-targeting, smartphone tracking: worries mount over sliding freedoms. p. 32
Editor’s note
Natural Immunity for decades,
it has been well-established science that natural immunity—immunity one develops while recovering from a disease—provides long-term protection against reinfection. Survivors of the 1918 influenza pandemic were shown in a Nature article to still be able to mount an immune response to the virus 90 years later. When it comes to COVID-19, however, any discussion of natural immunity has been all but erased from the conversation. The CDC, in describing natural immunity in the context of the disease caused by the CCP virus, offers what appears to be an intentionally vague and conflating description, to suggest that natural immunity is weaker than vaccine-induced immunity—a claim that isn’t supported by the data. All of this has come at a real cost to the public’s trust in health officials and the guidance they provide. In our cover story of this edition of INSIGHT, we provide a look into natural immunity and whether it’s a viable alternative to vaccination. In this edition, we also travel to the southern border, where, on the heels of an influx of an estimated 15,000 Haitian illegal immigrants, Border Patrol agents share how the morale among them has hit rock bottom. Frustrated agents say they aren’t being allowed to do their job of effectively curbing illegal immigration and instead are, in effect, enabling it. They say the hit to morale is worse now than in 2019, when they were accused of putting "kids in cages" at the overwhelmed facilities along the border. "Day after day, they just look like they want to eat their gun," one agent told The Epoch Times. Jasper Fakkert Editor-in-chief
2 I N S I G H T October 15-21, 2021
STEPHEN GREGORY PUBLISHER JASPER FAKKERT EDITOR-IN-CHIEF CHANNALY PHILIPP LIFE & TRADITION, TRAVEL EDITOR CHRISY TRUDEAU MIND & BODY EDITOR CRYSTAL SHI HOME, FOOD EDITOR SHARON KILARSKI ARTS & CULTURE EDITOR SHANSHAN HU PRODUCTION
ON THE COVER In the debate on how to protect ourselves against COVID-19, why is natural immunity ignored?
FEI MENG & BIBA KAJEVICH ILLUSTRATORS
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issue 02 | october 15-21, 2021
26 | Cutting
51 | Ted Nugent
the Military Three scenarios for cutting the budget while maintaining the mission.
on Nature Rock star says hunting brings us close to nature.
52 | Q&A: Vivek
29 | Brazil's
Ramaswamy On the alliance of big government, big business, and woke dogma.
Inflation Woes The pandemic is leaving its mark on Brazil as inflation increases food and energy prices.
56 | Epoch Booklist
40 | Chinese Regime Beset with crises, Chinese leader Xi looks to the masses.
46 | Chinese
Influence A French military report exposes Beijing's new propaganda war.
47 | Food Inflation
What's driving double-digit hikes in meat prices?
48 | Europe's
Energy Crisis The crisis could sink Europe's economic recovery.
49 | Regulating
Algorithms The target of China's latest tech crackdown.
50 | Better Than Gold Deep friendships are invaluable—and they’re good for your health.
57 | Epoch Movie List
Features
11 | Natural Immunity and Vaccines Censorship prevents people from knowing the facts: Evidence shows natural immunity protects against COVID-19. 18 | Border Agent Morale ‘This is not what we signed up for.’ Border Patrol agents say agency is not fulfilling its border security mission. 32 | Australians See Freedoms Slip
Amid Pandemic
Geo-targeting, smartphone tracking, police visits, military deployment: Australians have seen some of the strictest lockdown measures in the world. Sebastian Kurz (bottom R), leader of Austria's People's Party, has resigned as Austrian chancellor amid a probe into allegations that he and others used public money to secure favorable media coverage. Kurz has denied the allegations and will stay on as the head of his party’s parliamentary group. JOE KLAMAR/AFP VIA GETTY IMAGES
58 | Change of Pace
An escape to the unique private island of Ulvsnes, Norway.
60 | 2-Wheel
Escape Pods Motorcycles offer adventure with a practical side.
61 | Floating
Masterpieces Wooden boats meet modern technology.
64 | Liechtenstein
The German-speaking principality feels like a medieval kingdom.
66 | Going
Whole Hog Legendary BBQ pitmaster Rodney Scott shares his secrets.
67 | Luxury Goods
Looking to invest? These brands have stood the test of time.
I N S I G H T October 15-21, 2021 3
IN FOCUS On Set President Joe Biden hosts a meeting with corporate chief executives and members of his Cabinet to discuss the looming federal debt limit, at the Eisenhower Executive Office Building in Washington on Oct. 6, 2021. PHOTO BY CHIP SOMODEVILLA/GETTY IMAGES
4 I N S I G H T October 15-21, 2021
I N S I G H T October 15-21, 2021 5
Astronauts from a team from Europe and Israel walk in spacesuits during a training mission to prepare for exploring Mars, in Mitzpe Ramon in Israel's southern Negev desert on Oct. 10, 2021. PHOTO BY JACK GUEZ/AFP VIA GETTY IMAGES
6 I N S I G H T October 15-21, 2021
NAT ION • WOR L D • W H AT H A P P E N E D T H IS W E E K
The Week
Issue. 02
The Cumbre Vieja volcano spews lava, ash, and smoke on Spain's Canary Island of La Palma on Oct. 7, 2021.
JORGE GUERRERO/AFP VIA GETTY IMAGES
Trouble on the 'Beautiful Island' Thousands were forced to leave their homes in Spain's La Palma as lava from a volcanic eruption covered 680 hectares, with one village completely destroyed.
✒
A NEW RIVER OF LAVA from an erupting volcano has threatened the coastal town of Los Llanos de Aridane on the island of La Palma. Island authorities ordered the evacuation of around 800 people from the neighborhood on Oct. 12 after the lava took a new course on its way to the Atlantic Ocean and put their homes in a probable path of destruction. It was the first mass exit since around 6,000 people were told to leave immediately after the Cumbre Vieja volcano erupted on Sept. 19. I N S I G H T October 15-21, 2021 7
The Week in Short US NYC’S UNVACCINATED TEACHERS NEED TO WAIVE RIGHT TO SUE Aside from being put on unpaid leave, New York City teachers who’ve declined to get the COVID-19 vaccine won’t be allowed to keep their health benefits for another year unless they give up their right to sue the city over its vaccine mandate. The United Federation of Teachers, the city’s largest teachers union, touted the arbitration verdict as a victory that forced the city to acknowledge medical and religious exemptions to the vaccination. But the union’s press release left out the caveat that the health benefits would only continue beyond Nov. 30 for those who sign waivers preventing them from suing the city for being fired.
ARE YOU AWARE THAT SPECIAL COUNSEL JOHN DURHAM IS INVESTIGATING THE ORIGINS OF THE TRUMP-RUSSIA “COLLUSION” PROBE?
NO 70%
SOURCE: TECHNOMETRICA INSTITUTE OF POLICY AND POLITICS POLL OF 1,308 AMERICAN ADULTS, SEPT. 29–OCT. 2.
YES 30%
SOUTHWEST AIRLINES PILOTS UNION SUES TO BLOCK COVID19 VACCINATION MANDATE The Southwest Airlines Pilots Association has filed a lawsuit against the carrier, after the company said that its 56,000 workers, including pilots, must be vaccinated against COVID-19 by Dec. 8 8 I N S I G H T October 15-21, 2021
$2.5 MILLION
Los Angeles may face a multibillion-dollar lawsuit over its public employee vaccine mandate, as 871 firefighters have filed a notice of intent to sue the city, seeking $2.5 million each in damages. The Los Angeles Fire Department stated that those not exempt or fully vaccinated by the “hard deadline” of Oct. 20 will be sent home for five days without pay, and if they still decide not to take the vaccine, their employment will be terminated.
Merck has
BIDEN SIGNS ‘HAVANA SYNDROME’ BILL INTO LAW
President Joe Biden has signed the Helping American Victims Afflicted by Neurological Attacks Act into law. The measure provides funding for the treatment of U.S. officials who have suffered brain injuries and other symptoms consistent with what’s known as “Havana Syndrome,” the cause of which remains a mystery. Congress approved the measure unanimously in September, providing funds for the treatment of more than 200 government employees who say they’ve been affected.
“Parents absolutely should be telling their local schools what to teach. This is the very basis of representative government.” Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell
filed an emergency use authorization application with the FDA for its COVID-19 oral antiviral medicine.
Federal Judge
Rules Against
Natural Immunity
A federal judge has denied a request to block Michigan State University’s COVID-19 vaccine mandate on the basis of natural immunity. Jeanna Norris, an employee at the school, filed a lawsuit against the mandate and asked a judge to intervene on the basis that she had already contracted COVID-19 and recovered. Despite her natural immunity, Norris faces termination from the university for not complying with the school’s mandate. U.S. District Judge Paul Maloney declined her lawsuit.
The Week in Short US ECONOMY
Treasury Secretary Believes Congress Will Pass Global Minimum Tax
A health care worker comforts a patient in a COVID-19 ward in Houston on Dec. 4, 2020. CCP VIRUS
COVID-19 Cases Plummet in Southern US, Rise in Northern States Hospitalizations follow similar pattern COVID-19 metrics in southern states have plummeted in recent weeks while rising in many northern states, including heavily vaccinated states. Confirmed COVID-19 cases in Mississippi, for instance, have plunged some 95 percent to just 268 on Oct. 7 from the peak of 5,018 on Aug. 19. Similar drops have been recorded in Alabama, Arkansas, Georgia, Florida, and Texas. At the same time, metrics have been rising in many northern states. Vermont, for instance, went from one case on July 5 to 286 on Oct. 1, and eight hospitalizations in the month of June to 160 in the month of September, though the metrics have been declining in recent days. In North Dakota, active cases jumped to 4,485 on Oct. 7 from 143 on July 5 while hospitalizations rose to 184 from nine.
MICHAEL M. SANTIAGO/GETTY IMAGES; WIN MCNAMEE/GETTY IMAGES; CHIP SOMODEVILLA/GETTY IMAGES;
JOE RAEDLE/GETTY IMAGES; MARK FELIX/AFP /AFP VIA GETTY IMAGES; KEVIN DIETSCH/GETTY IMAGES; SHUTTERSTOCK
ECONOMY
Food Prices Hit Highest Level in a Decade Food prices across the world have risen to their highest levels in a decade on the back of tightening supply conditions coupled with robust demand, according to the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO). The FAO’s food price index, which measures world food commodity prices, has surged by 32.8 percent in the 12 months through September, coming in at a reading of 130 points, a level not seen since 2011. On a month-over-month basis, the index rose 1.2 percent.
GUN CONTROL
4 States in Northeastern US Sign Pact to Share Data on Guns New York and three other states have signed a pact to share information on guns used in crimes. New York Gov. Kathy Hochul and three other Democrats—Connecticut Gov. Ned Lamont, Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Wolf, and New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy—have announced the partnership. Under the agreement, the states will transmit all data on guns used in crimes to the other states, and will be sent via a non-public secure transmission method.
Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen says she believes Congress will likely approve a bill to implement the global corporate minimum tax agreed upon by 136 countries. Speaking to ABC News on Oct. 10, Yellen said that a proposal to include the United States in the global corporate minimum tax plan would likely be part of the $3.5 trillion budget reconciliation plan that Democrats are trying to ram through Congress. “Yes. I am confident that what we need to do to come into compliance with the minimum tax will be included in a reconciliation package,” Yellen told ABC. “I hope that we, that it will be passed and we will be able to reassure the world that the United States will do its part.” On Oct. 8, more than 100 countries agreed to set a minimum global tax rate of 15 percent for big corporations and made it harder for such businesses to avoid taxation. The plan was endorsed by President Joe Biden, who praised the move in a statement released by the White House soon after it was announced.
Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen testifies during a Senate Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs Committee hearing on the CARES Act, at the Hart Senate Office Building in Washington on Sept. 28, 2021. I N S I G H T October 15-21, 2021 9
The Week in Short World COVID-19
AstraZeneca Says Drug Cocktail Effective Against COVID-19
TAIWAN
EUROPE
Taiwan will protect its people Taiwan's President Tsai Ing-wen from falling into the hands of speaks during National Day celebracommunist authoritarianism, its tions in front of the Presidential Office president said at the 110th Nation- in Taipei, Taiwan, on Oct. 10, 2021. al Day ceremony in Taipei on Oct. 10. “We will continue to bolster our national defense and demonstrate our determination to defend ourselves in order to ensure that nobody can force Taiwan to take the path China has laid out for us,” President Tsai Ing-wen said during the ceremony. “The path that China has laid out offers neither a free and democratic way of life for Taiwan, nor sovereignty for our 23 million people.” The Chinese regi me considers the island a wayward province.
Czech voters have booted the communists out of Parliament for the first time since the end of World War II, voting out a party with Soviet-backed predecessors that ruled the central European nation with an iron fist from 1948 until the 1989 Velvet Revolution that ushered in democracy. The Communist Party of Bohemia and Moravia failed to retain enough seats to enter the Czech Parliament for the first time since the formation of the Czech Republic after Czechoslovakia was peacefully dissolved into two nations in 1993, with the other state becoming Slovakia.
The P4 laboratory at the Wuhan Institute of Virology in Wuhan, China. CCP VIRUS
COVID-19 Originates From a Chinese Laboratory Investigative reporter says
Taiwan’s President Promises to Defend Island Against CCP
10 I N S I G H T October 15-21, 2021
Czech Voters Oust Communists From Parliament for 1st Time Since 1948
THIS PAGE, FROM TOP:: HECTOR RETAMAL/AFP VIA GETTY IMAGES; SAM YEH/AFP VIA GETTY IMAGES; RIGHT: CHRISTOPHER FURLONG/GETTY IMAGES
Award-winning Australian investigative reporter Sharri Markson says there are convincing pieces of evidence to show that the virus causing the COVID-19 pandemic originated from a Chinese lab with ties to the communist regime’s military. Markson’s findings are published in her new book “What Really Happened in Wuhan,” and evidence suggests that Beijing knew about the virus months before the onset of the pandemic. “I think the evidence quite clearly points to a leak at the Wuhan Institute of Virology, either in mid-September or at least that’s when the Wuhan Institute of Virology became aware of it, in mid-September, and then after that, there was a deliberate decision by Chinese authorities to cover this up,” she said in a recent interview with EpochTV’s “American Thought Leaders.” A fact sheet released by the U.S. State Department in January stated that several researchers at the WIV fell ill with COVID-19-like symptoms in autumn 2019.
European drugmaker AstraZeneca said a late-stage study showed its antibody-drug cocktail is effective at keeping COVID-19 patients out of hospitals. The phase three trial preliminary results showed the drug, a long-acting antibody (LAAB) combination, cut the risk of developing severe COVID-19 or dying by 50 percent compared to a placebo in people who didn’t require hospitalization and had been showing symptoms for a week or less. The drug, AZD7442, was even more effective when given within five days of symptom onset, according to AstraZeneca. “These positive results show that a convenient intramuscular dose of AZD7442 could play an important role in helping combat this devastating pandemic,” Mene Pangalos, executive vice president of biopharmaceuticals research and development at AstraZeneca, said in a statement. Early trial results were based on an analysis of 822 participants. The trial included 903 participants, about half of whom were given a placebo. The full results will be submitted to a peer-reviewed medical journal and presented at an unspecified upcoming meeting, the company stated.
The Lead Health
NATUR AL IMMUNITY Text By Nathan Worcester
An Alternative to Vaccines?
I N S I G H T October 15-21, 2021 11
The Lead Health
Decades' worth of well-established science on natural immunity is disregarded in response to COVID-19 pandemic
S
en. Rand Paul’s (R-Ky.) question was simple: “Are you a doctor— a medical doctor?” asked Paul, a licensed medical doctor, at a hearing on Sept. 30. “I HAVE WORKED over 30 years on health poli-
cy,” answered Xavier Becerra, who is secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services. “You’re not a medical doctor. Do you have a science degree? And yet you travel the country calling people ‘flat-earthers’ who have had COVID, looked at studies of millions of people, and made their own personal decision that the immunity they naturally acquired is sufficient.” Paul was responding to Becerra’s claim, made during a Sept. 21 online forum, that “because 12 I N S I G H T October 15-21, 2021
VACCINATION IS INTENDED TO
mimic natural immunity by promoting a manageable immune response that doesn't cause serious illness.
some flat-earthers—especially those in places of influence—choose to peddle fiction, we’re losing more loved ones today than we were a few months ago.” Becerra had also said, “The harm caused by those who lack confidence in and denigrate the vaccine cannot be overstated.” “But you presume somehow to tell over 100 million Americans who’ve survived COVID that we have no right to determine our own care?” Paul said. “You alone are on high, and you’ve made these decisions—a lawyer with no scientific background, no medical degree?”
Pfizer Scientists While Becerra didn’t clearly answer Paul’s questions about natural immunity, others have stepped into the breach left by public health authorities. On Oct. 4, a Project Veritas exposé revealed that multiple scientists at COVID-19 vaccine maker Pfizer believe natural immunity is superior to the immunity conferred by their own product. “When somebody is naturally immune, like they got COVID, they probably have better—like,
The Lead Health
If natural immunity to COVID-19 is real and significant, why is it being kept out of the conversation?
A medical assistant transports the Moderna COVID-19 vaccine, ready to be administered at a vaccination site in South Central Los Angeles on Feb. 16, 2021. not better, but more—antibodies against the virus,” said Nick Karl, a Pfizer biochemist. “Because what the vaccine is, is it—like I said, that protein—that’s just on the outside,” Karl said, referring to the spike protein on the surface of the CCP virus, which the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 replicates with the aim of inducing immunity. “So it’s just one antibody against one specific part of the virus. When you actually get the virus, you’re going to start producing antibodies against, like, multiple pieces of virus, and not only just like the outside portion, like the inside portion, the actual viru “So your antibodies are probably better at that point than the vaccination.” Chris Croce, a senior associate scientist at Pfizer, told a Veritas journalist that natural immunity leaves people “protected most likely for longer [than vaccination] since there was a natural response.” “If you have [COVID-19] antibodies built up, like, you should be able to prove that you have those built up,” said Rahul Khandke, another Pfizer scientist. Yet media coverage of natural immunity sometimes seems designed to call its very existence
into question. Covering a district court judge’s decision to uphold the University of California’s vaccine mandate, Reuters placed the words “natural immunity” in scare quotes.
Natural Immunity What is natural immunity, exactly? Does believing that natural immunity exists, or that it protects you better than the vaccine, make you a “flat-earther”—or are Pfizer’s own researchers onto something? Natural immunity is pretty straightforward: it’s the immunity that you get to a disease after recovering from it, as a result of your immune system remembering how to fight the pathogen the next time the two cross paths. In slightly more technical terms, natural immunity involves the adaptive immune response. It could thus potentially include not only the antibody released in response to the spike protein but also other antibodies, along with various memory B and memory T cells—in short, the sort of broad and deep response that Pfizer’s Karl described in Veritas’s undercover interview. In fact, vaccination is intended to mimic natural immunity by promoting a manageable immune response that doesn’t cause serious illness.
CDC’s Explanation
A woman protests COVID-19 vaccine mandates outside City Hall in New York on Aug. 25, 2021.
Yet despite these common-sense facts, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) web resource on natural immunity and vaccines is frustratingly vague and arguably misleading—it sidesteps the question of natural immunity’s superiority or inferiority to vaccine-induced immunity in order to emphasize the (real and serious) dangers posed by many diseases for which vaccines are available: “Some people believe that naturally acquired
I N S I G H T October 15-21, 2021 13
the Lead Health
“When somebody is naturally immune, like they got COVID, they probably have better— like, not better, but more— antibodies against the virus.” Nick Karl, Pfizer biochemist, in undercover video
immunity—immunity from having the disease itself—is better than the immunity provided by vaccines. However, natural infections can cause severe complications and be deadly.” With no explanation, and at a real cost to public trust and understanding, the CDC has run together two separate claims: The first claim—that infection with COVID-19 presents more risks than vaccination, particularly in older or obese individuals—may in fact be reasonable, though it’s not the focus of this article. If true, it would suggest that people shouldn’t intentionally contract the disease in order to gain natural immunity. Yet the second claim—namely, that natural immunity to COVID-19 is weaker than vaccine-induced immunity—doesn’t stand up to scrutiny.
In a Project Veritas exposé, Nick Karl, a Pfizer biochemist, says that he believes natural immunity is superior to the immunity conferred by Pfizer's COVID19 vaccine
Pfizer scientist Rahul Khandke in a Project Veritas undercover exposé suggests that there is a climate of censorship in the pharmaceutical industry. 14 I N S I G H T October 15-21, 2021
For one thing, it runs contrary to our experiences with past diseases.
Evidence As Dr. Monica Gandhi, an infectious diseases specialist at the University of California–San Francisco (UCSF), pointed out in a detailed Twitter thread on the duration of COVID-19 immunity, a 2008 Nature article showed that survivors of the 1918 influenza pandemic were still able to mount an immune response to the 1918 virus roughly 90 years later. Additionally, and as Paul noted while questioning Becerra, the CDC considers natural immunity, including presumptive natural immunity for those born before 1957, an acceptable substitute for measles vaccination. Along similar lines, Army Regulation 40-562 states that prior infection and consequent natural immunity can be the grounds for a medical exemption from immunization—a regulation to which two active-duty service members have appealed in their lawsuit against Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin’s vaccine mandate for all troops. Early results from Denmark, published in The Lancet in March, hint at the protective value of infection. In that study, which involved testing of 69 percent of the country’s population, prior infection was found to shield people reasonably well from reinfection, though less so among older groups. And a September feature by The BMJ, a UKbased company that helps provide clinicians with medical information, summarized some of the older and newer research suggesting that natural immunity is as or more effective than vaccine-induced immunity. Notably, an April 2021 study on the entire population of Israel found that vaccination by the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine was roughly as protective as prior infection. An August study on data from Israeli’s Maccabi Healthcare Services went further, showing that prior infection was associated with greatly reduced risks of hospitalization and symptomatic illness compared to two doses of the vaccine among people who had never been infected. Studies from Austria, Ohio’s Cleveland Clinic, and other countries and organizations, as well as systematic reviews and similar summaries of previous research, have painted a similar picture: immunity from prior infection is as or more powerful than immunity from vaccination. Further underlining the immune system’s resilience to infection, a very recent study from the Finnish Institute for Health and Welfare showed that protective antibodies remained in the vast majority of those who had had COVID-19, persist-
The Lead Health
ing at least 12 months after their initial infection. Meanwhile, new research from Israel and Qatar has shown that the vaccine’s protective effects begin to wane several months after the second dose.
Passports and Mandates Outside the United States, many other countries acknowledge the protective effects of natural immunity. As reported in Science, some countries, including Israel, France, and Italy, give one rather than two doses of vaccine to people previously infected by the CCP virus, commonly known as the novel coronavirus. England recognizes natural immunity when granting vaccine passports. Under New York City’s “Key to NYC” program, by contrast, the passports that people 12 and older need in order to access indoor restaurants, gyms, and other spaces only recognize vaccination. And while George Mason University (GMU) professor Todd Zywicki ultimately received an exemption to his institution’s vaccine mandate on the basis of his natural immunity, many others facing vaccine mandates haven’t been so lucky.
Yoga practitioners attend a class on the Edge Observation Deck overlooking the Manhattan skyline, in New York on June 17, 2021.
OUTSIDE THE UNITED STATES, many other countries acknowledge the protective effects of natural immunity.
In August, Supreme Court Justice Amy Coney Barrett, a Trump appointee, rejected an emergency request from Indiana University–Bloomington students challenging that institution’s vaccine mandate. The students’ writ noted that the university’s mandate “does not include an exemption for those with natural immunity, including those who have previously been infected and fully recovered.” Most recently, on Oct. 10, a federal judge appointed by George W. Bush denied a request by a Michigan State University employee to receive an exemption from that school’s vaccine mandate because of her natural immunity. The Epoch Times’ review of vaccine mandates “didn’t find a single school offering exemptions to students who had acquired immunity,” in line with mandates issued by various states and the federal government.
Censorship If natural immunity to COVID-19 is real and significant, why is it being kept out of the conversation? Pervasive censorship, including the silencing I N S I G H T October 15-21, 2021 15
The Lead Health
of knowledgeable physicians and scientists, may provide part of the answer. The nonprofit Brownstone Institute claims that the social networking website LinkedIn is suppressing its content, including a piece from Harvard epidemiologist Martin Kulldorff, in which Kulldorff argued that hospitals shouldn’t be firing unvaccinated nurses who have acquired natural immunity. Facebook users have reported censorship or threats of censorship for sharing the Israeli natural immunity study, Project Veritas’ videos, and other content related to natural immunity. The climate of speech suppression around COVID-19 is nothing new. While Facebook whistleblower Frances Haugen, who appeared to advocate greater censorship on the platform, was brought before the Senate and booked on “60 Minutes,” an earlier Facebook whistleblower, Morgan Kahmann, was fired after he shared documents to Project Veritas that revealed that Facebook was secretly censoring content perceived to promote “vaccine hesitancy.” Haugen apparently departed Facebook in May of this year, though her LinkedIn profile doesn’t yet indicate that she has left the company. According to Kahmann’s most recent GiveSendGo update, he remains unemployed. More troubling still, the Pfizer employees recorded by Project Veritas suggested that a climate of censorship and self-censorship hobbles the pharmaceutical researchers themselves. “Oh God, I signed NDAs [non-disclosure agreements] against this,” said Karl. “You don’t talk about anything that can possibly implicate you or, like, Big Pharma,” said Croce. “Even if you shut the door to the office, it’s kind of like, who’s listening?”
Soldiers from Fort Riley, ill with the Spanish flu, at a hospital ward at Camp Funston, Kan., circa 1918. 16 I N S I G H T October 15-21, 2021
The Lead Health
Survivors of the 1918 influenza pandemic were still immune to the virus roughly 90 years later.
I N S I G H T October 15-21, 2021 17
DESPERAT
Morale C on the
Border Patrol agents feel hopele hundreds of thousands of ille swaths of the b
18 I N S I G H T October 15-21, 2021
Border Patrol agents look for illegal aliens around a riverbed from a railway bridge near Uvalde, Texas, on Aug. 25, 2021.
TE AGENTS
Collapse Border
ess as policies force them to release egal immigrants and leave large border unpatrolled
✒ Text & Photos by Charlotte Cuthbertson I N S I G H T October 15-21, 2021 19
A group of illegal immigrants crosses the Rio Grande to Del Rio, Texas, from Acuña, Mexico, on July 25, 2021.
TEXAS Del Rio
M
ORALE AMONG BORDER PATROL AGENTS has plummeted to an
all-time low as they struggle to process unprecedented volumes of illegal immigrants, while knowing they’re unable to secure the border against cartel activity. Many blame their own leadership for enabling it. “Day after day, they just look like they want to eat their gun,” an agent told The Epoch Times, referring to some local agents in the Rio Grande Valley Sector, who he says are bearing the brunt of it. “They just look like hell. It’s hard to put it—you just start seeing the life leaving people’s faces.” The agent, Jose (not his real name), spoke to The Epoch Times on condition of anonymity for fear of repercussions. U.S. authorities have apprehended more than 1.5 million illegal immigrants since January, according to Customs and Border Protection (CBP) data. “It’s a very, very hopeless feeling for the Border Patrol,” Jose said. “Of course, we’re all still doing our jobs as best we can. Nobody is giving up, but it’s definitely more of a hopeless feeling just in general.” During August, the average daily number of illegal immigrants in Border Patrol custody along the southwest border was just shy of 10,000, according to CBP. Agents are spending most of their
20 I N S I G H T October 15-21, 2021
"Right now, the common thought on this is that we're just aiding and abetting illegal aliens— furthering their illegal activity. " Border Patrol agent
time processing illegal immigrants rather than being on the front line along the border. “None of us signed up to be secretaries for these family units coming in,” Jose said. Border Patrol agents have been especially overwhelmed in the two busiest sectors—the Rio Grande Valley and Del Rio in Texas. In one week in September, border agents scrambled to deal with an influx of nearly 15,000 most-
ly Haitian illegal aliens in Del Rio alone. The effort left highway checkpoints closed and hundreds of miles of the U.S.–Mexico border unpatrolled. “If we went back to actually doing our jobs, it would be amazing,” Jose said. “But right now, the common thought on this is that we’re just aiding and abetting illegal aliens—furthering their illegal activity. Many border agents are spending the majority of their time taking care of the humanitarian needs of illegal aliens rather than out on the border stopping criminal activity. “And that’s not what any of us signed up for.”
Leadership The Biden administration has said it’s concentrating on the “root causes” of illegal immigration and views it as a race issue. “Immigration, we consider, is part of racial equity—which is a broad issue, but that’s how the president has spoken about that crisis over the past several months,” White House press secretary Jen Psaki said in the early days of the Biden presidency. President Joe Biden was quick in January to dismantle many of former President Donald Trump’s border security measures, which, along with his campaign rhetoric, has resulted in record surges of illegal crossings this year. The president tapped Vice President Kamala
Thousands of illegal immigrants, mostly Haitians, live in a makeshift camp under the international bridge that spans the Rio Grande between the United States and Mexico while waiting to be detained and processed by Border Patrol, in Del Rio, Texas, on Sept. 21, 2021.
1.5
million
illegal immigrants have been apprehended at the southern border so far this year.
Harris in March to address the growing border crisis, and she has since traveled to Central America and Mexico to discuss the issue with leaders from those nations. Harris was outspoken against Border Patrol and ICE agents (comparing them to the KKK) in 2019 during the last surge of illegal immigrants, and again in 2020, when specialized border agents were deployed to Portland, Oregon, to defend a federal courthouse from Antifa and other rioters. And Border Patrol agents haven’t forgotten. “We knew Kamala Harris didn’t like us in the very beginning. She attacked us, called us storm troopers ... in Portland, and she hated us and we knew it,” another agent, Alex, told The Epoch Times, on condition of anonymity. “So then, she becomes our vice president and is now a border czar of the very agency she hates. “From top down, when you have complete leadership that fundamentally does not like you; when you have agents that you don’t know if they’re working for the cartel; if you have half of America that thinks you’re the enemy and you put kids in cages and kill them, all because of propaganda, it weighs on you.” Alex said his children are bullied at school because he’s a Border Patrol agent. “They’re asked if I kill kids, put kids in cagI N S I G H T October 15-21, 2021 21
On the border Morale Takes a Dive
es,” he said. “The border encompasses everything. So that’s why it weighs down. Because I have to think my choice to be a Border Patrol agent is negatively impacting my family’s emotional state and well-being as well. So that’s also a pretty heavy weight.” He said it’s not a simple fix to find another job. He’s not prepared to get the COVID-19 vaccine at this stage and federal agencies are mandating it. Border Patrol agents have until Nov. 22 to be fully vaccinated or else face being fired. Several agents The Epoch Times has spoken to fall into that category. Some are submitting their retirement paperwork, while others are counting the days until they’re eligible. Agents can retire at age 50, but often stay on until mandatory retirement at 57. “We’re not making any difference. Zero, nothing. I always say, today’s turnback is tomorrow’s gotaway,” Alex said, referring to illegal aliens that turn back to Mexico before being apprehended and those who get away from Border Patrol and enter the United States. Then-head of the Del Rio Border Patrol Sector Austin Skero said on June 24, as illegal immigration continued to escalate: “None of us really 22 I N S I G H T October 15-21, 2021
feel good about the current situation we’re in. So it has taken a toll on morale. Our agents are frustrated. They’re frustrated, but they’re highly motivated.”
Focus Department of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas’s three-part plan to address illegal immigration is to invest in the countries that people are leaving, to build “safe, orderly, and humane pathways” for migration, and to rebuild the asylum system and refugee program. So far this year, illegal immigrants have hailed from more than 160 countries. Border Patrol Chief Raul Ortiz said in a June 24 community meeting in Del Rio that the agency’s focus is to streamline the processing of illegal immigrants. This year, the administration released hundreds of thousands of illegal immigrants into the United States with a notice to appear, which indicates the scheduled date of their immigration court case. However, the border agencies got so swamped that agents were directed to speed things up
Border Patrol agents apprehend illegal aliens from Mexico who had hidden in a grain hopper on a freight train heading to San Antonio, near Uvalde, Texas, on June 21, 2021.
"We're not making any difference. Zero, nothing." Border Patrol agent
On the border Morale Takes a Dive
by handing out a “notice to report,” which is a request for the illegal immigrants to check in with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) within 60 days. It’s unclear how many subsequently reported to ICE. The Epoch Times has submitted a freedom of information request for that data, but hasn’t received a response. On Oct. 8, the Biden administration announced its intention to cancel existing border fence contracts in the Rio Grande Valley and Del Rio border sectors. Harris, in 2019, had called Trump’s border wall project his “vanity project” and the surge of illegal aliens an “emergency of his own creation.” During the last crisis in 2019, Border Patrol agents were accused of running state-sanctioned concentration camps and putting “kids in cages” at the overwhelmed facilities along the border. The Border Patrol agency took a hit in morale at the time, but this year is much worse, agents say. “It’s definitely much more profound,” Jose said. “We’re not securing the border anymore. We’re not fighting the incursion, we’re just rolling
"None of us really feel good about the current situation we're in. So it has taken a toll on morale. Our agents are frustrated. Austin Skero, former chief, Border Patrol Del Rio Sector
over and taking it. It’s just being a secretary. It’s not fixing anything, it’s not helping America.” "We're not securing the border anymore. We're not fighting the incursion, we're just rolling over and taking it. It's just being a secretary. It's not fixing anything, it's not helping America."
Border Patrol agents apprehend 21 illegal aliens from Mexico who had hidden in a grain hopper on a freight train heading to San Antonio, near Uvalde, Texas, on June 21, 2021.
Nearly
15,000 MOSTLY HAITIAN
illegal immigrants formed an encampment under an international bridge in Del Rio, Texas, in midSeptember.
I N S I G H T October 15-21, 2021 23
IN FOCUS Traveling Wonderland THE HULL FAIR, one of Europe's largest traveling fairs, after a break due to the pandemic, in Hull, England, on Oct. 11, 2021. The fair, which features more than 250 rides and stalls, was last postponed during World War II. The fair began in 1279, making it one of the oldest still in existence, and was extended to an 11-day event in 1752. PHOTO BY PAUL ELLIS/AFP VIA GETTY IMAGES
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I N S I G H T October 15-21, 2021 25
A Marine with the 3rd Battalion, 7th Marine Regiment, 1st Marine Division attached to Special Purpose Marine Air-Ground Task Force, Crisis Response-Central Command, prepares to board an MV-22 Osprey at Fire Base Um Jorais, Iraq, on July 6, 2018. U.S. MARINE CORPS PHOTO BY CPL. CARLOS LOPEZ
26 I N S I G H T October 15-21, 2021
Budget Military
BUDGET
CUT MILITARY BY $1 TRILLION By Ken Silva
T
he congressional Budget Office (CBO) has released a report showing how the Pentagon can cut $1 trillion in spending by tweaking its national defense strategy. The CBO’s Oct. 7 report comes as lawmakers look to boost the Department of Defense (DoD) budget by 5 percent, with supporters arguing that doing so is necessary to continue the global war on terror while also pivoting toward great-power conflicts with countries such as China and Russia.
CONGRESSIONAL WATCHDOG LAYS OUT 3 SCENARIOS FOR CUTTING BUDGET WHILE MAINTAINING MISSION
ACCORDING TO THE CBO, Congress U.S. AIR FORCE PHOTO BY TECH. SGT. MATTHEW PLEW
can still accomplish its goals and save $1 trillion in the process by making some changes. The CBO provided three options that would save $1 trillion over 10 years compared to current planned spending increases. All three options would reduce the number of active-duty military personnel while leaving the reserve forces intact. The CBO stated that reserve forces are cheaper to maintain. In Option 1, the active-duty force
An F-15E Strike Eagle assigned to the 492nd Fighter Squadron.
would shrink by roughly one-fifth. The CBO said the DoD would maintain its defense strategy by moving troops from relatively safer regions to where the perceived threats are located. “Or it could concentrate its forces in a central location and accept some risk that it would respond less rapidly to a threat,” the CBO stated. Option 2 calls for a return to a Cold War-era strategy. Rather than trying to maintain military dominance throughout the world, the United States would rely more on sanctions and other forms of deterrence. “In Europe, the U.S. military’s objective was not to repel the Soviets in a conventional fight, but rather to slow or stop a Soviet advance until the United States and its allies could mount a counterattack,” the CBO said of the Cold War-era strategy. Such a strategy would entail the United States forging alliances to build defense coalitions, the CBO stated. “For example, China would be deterred from attacking Japan or Taiwan by the presence of a coalition of regional combat forces that was far enough I N S I G H T October 15-21, 2021 27
Budget Military
Soldiers practice exiting CH-47 Chinook helicopters during the Swift Response exercise in Bulgaria on May 11, 2021.
“COMMAND OF THE commons also
requires prevailing in space, which has become vital to civilian commerce and military communications and intelligence,” the CBO stated. “To facilitate control of the sea-lanes and enhance diplomatic and economic security, DoD would boost its emphasis on controlling space and build its [intelligence, surveillance, and recognizance] capabilities.” For deterrence, the third option also would place increased reliance on alliances, the CBO stated. The CBO report has been well-received by groups who favor a scaled-back foreign policy. 28 I N S I G H T October 15-21, 2021
“The new CBO report marks a refreshing departure from the cries for more Pentagon spending emanating from Capitol Hill, and lays out practical steps for achieving real reductions in military outlays,” wrote William Hartung, director of the Arms and Security Program at the Center for International Policy. “It should mark the beginning of a debate over how much to reduce the Pentagon budget, not whether to do so.”
"The new CBO report marks a refreshing departure from the cries for more Pentagon spending emanating from Capitol Hill." William Hartung, program director, Center for International Policy
Lindsay Koshgarian, program director of the National Priorities Project at the Institute for Policy Studies, writes: “The U.S. military budget is now higher than it was at the peak of the Vietnam War, the Korean War, or the Cold War. This report shows that there are viable options for immediate, substantial reductions to the Pentagon budget.”
HOWEVER, THE CBO’S findings diverge from recommendations from the National Defense Strategy Commission—a body that helps set broad U.S. security goals every four years— which has recommended annual Pentagon budget increases of 3 to 5 percent above inflation. The commission’s recommendations have broad bipartisan support, making it unlikely that CBO’s proposals will become law. The House passed the 2022 National Defense Authorization Act—which incorporates a 5 percent spending increase—overwhelmingly last month by a vote of 316–113. The spending increases are supported by Democrats such as House Armed Services Committee Chair Adam Smith (D-Wash.), who has downplayed recent criticisms of the $25 billion spending increase he helped push through. “I don’t support the argument that, ‘Oh my gosh, we can’t spend another $25 billion because we have all these other priorities.’ We’ve spent a lot of money on those other priorities,” Smith said at a Brookings Institution conference last month, referencing the roughly $6 trillion in stimulus injected into the economy over the past year-plus. ■
FROM L: U.S. ARMY PHOTO BY MAJ. ROBERT FELLINGHAM; BUDA MENDES/GETTY IMAGES
from China’s mainland to avoid attack but near enough to respond quickly,” the CBO stated. “The threat of a direct strike would be enhanced by the prospect of diplomatic and economic actions such as a naval blockade and an embargo on China’s energy imports.” Finally, the third option would have the United States withdraw forces from certain regions, focusing them on controlling the “global commons”—making sure air and sea trade routes are maintained, for example. This option would rely more on Space Force, Air Force, and the Navy, and less on ground forces, the CBO stated.
L AT I N A M E R IC A
Brazil's Inflation Woes
The pandemic is leaving its mark on Brazil as inflation increases food and energy prices By Autumn Spredemann
W
A nearly empty Saara region, a large shopping area in the center of the city during a lockdown amid the pandemic in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, on March 24, 2020.
ith inflation hitting 10 percent, Brazilians are dealing with significantly higher electricity and food prices, brought about by the economic consequences of pandemic restrictions and a historic drought. The country’s National Confederation of Commerce of Goods, Services, and Tourism (CNC) published a list of 15 common consumer goods that contributed to the significant inflation rate, which hit double digits as of September this year. Senior economist for the CNC, Fabio Bentes, spoke with The Epoch Times via direct message about the inflation crisis. “In addition to the high level of inflation, the composition of general price indices in Brazil, concentrated on significant increases in electricity and fuel, raises the uncertainty as to whether we will overcome this scenario,” said Bentes. He said the list of common consumer items in the CNC study, released on Oct. 1, were: toothpaste, milk, soap, pasta, salt, beans, coffee, detergent, wheat flour, washing powder, rice, soy oil, margarine, sugar, and bread. The CNC noted significant price variations in all items, with bread being the “most modest” at 20.8 percent. “Low-income families certainly tend to be more exposed to these price fluctuations,” Bentes said.
Based on the inflation rate, prices will hit hard in some of Brazil’s poorest states, such as Piaui, which has a yearly GDPbased per capita income of only 859 reals ($155). By comparison, income in the state of Rio de Janeiro is 1,723 reals ($311). “I feel dread when going to the stores,” Juliana Santos, 41, told The Epoch Times. “The price of electricity and gas is terrible, and now we see it in our food.” Santos works as a teacher and lives in Rio Branco, which is in the state of Acre. Its yearly GDP-derived per capita income is 917 reals ($165) and is another of Brazil’s poorer states.
"Low-income families certainly tend to be more exposed to these price fluctuations." Fabio Bentes, senior economist, CNC
“It was a domino effect bound to happen. The [pandemic] lockdowns came, work slowed, and prices went up,” Santos said. Bentes pointed to prolonged drought as another factor having an impact on inflation. “The water crisis that the country is facing at the moment, the worst in 91 years, will be an obstacle to the pace of economic growth in the coming months,” Bentes said. Lengthy dry conditions have facilitated the worst drought in central and southern
Brazil in almost a century, according to the National Aeronautics and Space Administration. The hydroelectric dams in drought-hit regions generate two-thirds of the country’s electricity. Consequently, electricity prices have risen considerably. On Sept. 1, Vice President Hamilton Mourão released a public statement saying “there may have to be some rationing” in electricity. Oliveira said: “We already have energy blackouts [in Sao Paulo]. Electricity prices keep going up, and so is food. How are middle-income people supposed to live?” In September, the director-general of the National Electric System Operator, Luiz Carlos Ciocchi, said, “For 2022, everything leads us to believe, with enormous uncertainty along the way, that there will be no rationing.” According to official figures, Brazil showed a steady increase in jobless people between May and November 2020. The Instituto Brasileiro de Geografia e Estatística said the unemployment rate rose to 14.7 percent in the first quarter of 2021. Diego Alves, 26, lost his job at a restaurant during the first round of lockdowns last year. Alves said most people he knew had family or friends who became unemployed over the past year. “You have to make your own work. I fix laptops for cash now. I had to adapt to pay my bills. We all did,” Alves told The Epoch Times. I N S I G H T October 15-21, 2021 29
30 I N S I G H T October 15-21, 2021
IN FOCUS 7007 Hollywood Boulevard ACTOR RAMI MALEK (R) speaks during the ceremony to honor British actor Daniel Craig (L) with a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in Los Angeles on Oct. 6, 2021. Craig's star will be located at 7007 Hollywood Boulevard, chosen for Craig's portrayal of James Bond in the "007" films. PHOTO BY WILLIAM WEST AFP VIA GETTY IMAGES
I N S I G H T October 15-21, 2021 31
Police tackle demonstrators during a rally protesting strict lockdown laws, in Melbourne, Australia, on Sept. 5, 2020. WILLIAM WEST/AFP VIA GETTY IMAGES
32 I N S I G H T October 15-21, 2021
Special Report Australia
PA N DE M IC R E S P ON S E
Australians Lose Freedom Over Pandemic Response Draconian lockdown orders, geo-targeting, smartphone tracking, vaccine coercion, military deployment: Australians worry over health dictatorship
I
By Caden Pearson & Daniel Khmelev n the 20 months since the CCP virus first came to Australia, it has been linked to the deaths of about 1.19 percent of the about 113,000 total confirmed cases in the country, according to the World Health Organization (WHO). Despite low rates of hospitalizations and deaths in comparison to other countries, the state and territory governments of Australia have imposed strict measures in response to the virus, sometimes locking down capital cities and regions at the emergence of only one or a few new cases. In attempts to suppress the CCP virus, commonly known as the novel coronavirus, Australia’s second-most-populous city, Melbourne, which has been named the world’s most liveable city seven times, has endured six lockdowns and more than 240 non-consecutive days under stay-at-home orders since March 2020—more than any other city in the world. To ensure compliance with the rules of what one New South Wales (NSW) state official deemed—in what was perhaps a slip of the tongue—“the new world order,” authorities in Australia have at times taken draconian, even harmful, measures in the name of protecting the people from the pandemic.
Meanwhile, dissent against the health measures has been met, mainly in the states of NSW and Victoria, with a heavy martial response, resulting in some violent clashes, multiple arrests, and continued civil pushback. The authoritarian nature of the Victoria Police’s response to days of protest in September against vaccine mandates and health restrictions in Melbourne led to riot squads, mounted police, and armored vehicles patrolling the city. Meanwhile, the government’s stated goal of suppressing the CCP virus has prompted at least one state, Queensland, to mandate smartphone QR code check-in apps for businesses to implement at their premises. In some states, such as Western Australia (WA) and South Australia (SA), similar technology with facial recognition and geolocation ability is used to ensure compliance with home quarantine orders. But while state and territory leaders report new case statistics at daily press conferences, the collateral damage of their virus response, such as the harm to mental health, is rarely conveyed. As the end of 2021 draws near, the governments of Australia have pushed harder than ever to
1 in 4 AUSTRALIANS know someone who has committed suicide during the past 12 months amid the pandemic.
I N S I G H T October 15-21, 2021 33
Special Report Pandemic Response
achieve an 80 percent vaccination target that would trigger phase two of the four-phase national plan to reopen the country. State leaders, particularly in Victoria and NSW, have even refused to ease COVID-19 restrictions until 70 to 80 percent of the population is vaccinated.
Lockdowns and Restrictions
34 I N S I G H T October 15-21, 2021
Track and Tracing Australia has utilized smartphone technology as a key tool to ensure quarantine compliance and in a bid to help COVID-19 contact tracers work faster in the event of an outbreak. But there are privacy concerns. Every jurisdiction has implemented some form of contact tracing, often requiring residents to check in when visiting businesses and other venues. Most of this is done via smart-
"Eliminating COVID19 means eliminating jobs, freedom, and hope. " Daniel Wild director of research, Institute of Public Affairs
CLOCKWISE FROM L: ASANKA RATNAYAKE/GETTY IMAGES; DARRIAN TRAYNOR/GETTY IMAGES; DARRIAN TRAYNOR/GETTY IMAGES
After the WHO declared SARS-CoV-2 a public health emergency of international concern on Jan. 30, 2020, Australian lawmakers amended the Biosecurity Act 2015 to give the government powers to create and enforce public health orders to take measures to control the novel coronavirus by declaring a human biosecurity emergency. After this, health officials could impose human biosecurity control orders on people who may have COVID-19. This was the government’s main method of managing risks to human health, according to the Biosecurity Act 2015. The powers extended to aircraft and vessels that entered Australian territory. The Act also gives the federal health minister special powers to enact WHO recommendations. However, Australia doesn’t always follow advice from the WHO. For example, Australia closed its international border in March 2020 against the WHO’s advice, potentially reducing the early transmission of the virus from arriving via international travelers. During the emergency period, which has been extended every three months since March 2020, the Act also gives officers powers to investigate and enforce penalties for noncompliance with COVID-19 health orders, such as fines and providing for warrants to enter premises. In some limited cases, officers can enter premises without a warrant or consent. At one point in July 2021, over half of Australia’s population of 25 million was subject to stayat-home orders. Currently, at the time of publishing, 5 million Melburnians are required to comply with the Victorian chief health officer’s directives, with many unable to leave their homes except for five essential reasons, and even then there are limits on the distance people can travel from their homes. There are also mask mandates and curfews. Extreme restrictions have led businesses and venues to shut down, and placed significant limitations on attendance at places of worship, and at weddings and funerals. Former Prime Minister Tony Abbott has referred to some of the state government measures as a “health dictatorship.” “Homes can be entered, people can be detained, and the ordinary law of the land sus-
pended,” Abbott said on his podcast. These restrictions are replicated in similar ways across the country’s six states and two territories. The Greater Sydney region has been under stay-at-home orders since late June, and continues to be as of publishing. Former NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklean, who resigned at the beginning of October, extended the lockdown in that region on July 28, citing “low vaccination rates.” During this time, the NSW government used Australian Defence Force personnel to expand police compliance operations, with 800 soldiers deployed to the city as the state moved to enforce stricter lockdown rules. Meanwhile, other states, such as Queensland and WA, went the route of “go hard, go fast” snap lockdowns almost as soon as cases emerged. This year, Queensland imposed restrictions after recording three cases of COVID-19 and introduced lockdowns after four cases. Similarly, the Northern Territory (NT) imposed restrictions after recording one case and introduced lockdowns after four cases. On the west coast, WA imposed restrictions after confirming one case and imposed lockdowns after three cases, while SA at one point imposed restrictions after recording no cases. Further, WA, with a population of 2.6 million, has imposed stay-at-home orders three times this year following single-digit cases. Additionally, state border closures have displaced residents and separated families. For example, thousands of Queenslanders were locked out of their home state in September when Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk “paused” entry for residents trying to go home but allowed the wives, girlfriends, and families of National Football League players to enter. She later apologized for this. To help those displaced, the charity Angel Flight Australia mobilized to help individuals reunite with relatives in special circumstances by offering free compassionate flights. Those flown across borders included toddlers and children separated from parents, sometimes for months, as well as individuals seeking to visit dying relatives.
Special Report Pandemic Response
phones, with users required to scan QR codes positioned near venue entrances. Governments say the measure is critical in tracking down individuals potentially exposed to known cases within the community, with every state and territory equipped with its own contact tracing app. For example, Queensland has made it mandatory for businesses in that state to use its Check in Qld app. But the ability to maintain registers of the exact whereabouts of residents has raised concerns that the data could be used for non-health purposes. For example, the SafeWA app was guaranteed by Premier Mark McGowan to be used for contact tracing only, and that the data would “only be accessible by authorized Department of Health contact tracing personnel.” However, an audit into SafeWA later revealed that police ordered WA Health to provide check-in data on six occasions, of which three were granted before the state passed legislation prohibiting its use for purposes other than contact tracing. “The public were explicitly told that contact tracing check-in data would not be used for anything other than public health contact tracing purposes,” a Digital Rights Watch spokesperson told The Epoch Times. “Police access to the WA COVID-19 check in-app data is a betrayal of this public trust.” Other states have promised that their own apps will only be used for health purposes. Digital rights advocates were also concerned about international access to data, given that Queensland and WA contact tracing information was hosted on Amazon Web Services and Microsoft Azure Cloud Services, both of which are “subject to both Australian and overseas laws” that may require the disclosure of information to government authorities in those jurisdictions. Aside from contact tracing, the states and territories have also utilized apps to enforce stayat-home quarantine orders. Typically, West Australians subject to twoweek self-quarantine orders would receive random in-person checks by police. But WA Police streamlined the process with the G2G Now app. The app sends a notification, potentially multiple times per day, requesting the user for a picture which is then cross-referenced using facial recognition and geolocation services. Users have five minutes to respond. Failure to do so will prompt a second notification, upon which further noncompliance will prompt a user to submit a reason—with police left to determine if a physical check would be needed. The G2G Now app is used in some cases in the NT, with similar geolocation and facial recog-
A sign reading “Go straight home and Isolate” at the exit of a drive through COVID-19 testing site at Highpoint shopping centre in Melbourne, Australia, on July 4, 2020.
Members of the Victoria Police patrol through Chadstone Shopping Centre in Melbourne, Australia, on Sept. 20, 2020.
Thousands of Australians have taken to the streets, defying stay-at-home orders to voice their dissent to strict COVID-19 measures.
parent uses a QR code check-in A at a playground in the Brunswick suburb of Melbourne, Australia, on Sept. 3, 2021.
nition measures being trialed across Australia, including SA’s Quarantine SA app, and NSW’s Home Quarantine NSW app.
Vaccine Mandates and Rewards The Australian federal government’s policy is that COVID-19 vaccinations are voluntary for most people, but it aims to have as many people as possible choose to be vaccinated. To achieve this, the approaches of both federal and state governments have been to launch messaging campaigns, hold daily press conferences to report new COVID-19 cases, and partner with the private sector to incentivize vaccinations by offering rewards. Meanwhile, some politicians expressed concern that elements of these approaches were coercive and said that it was “dangerous” to take away freedoms and only restore them to those who have been vaccinated. For example, from Sept. 13, NSW authorities allowed vaccinated people one extra hour of “low risk” recreation outside their homes once six million first doses had been administered. I N S I G H T October 15-21, 2021 35
Liberal-National Party (LNP) Sen. Eric Abetz in early August expressed concern that plans for “freedom incentives” as well as “vaccine passports,” combined with the power for employers to force workers to divulge information about their health status, could create second-class citizens out of people who have been hesitant to get vaccinated. Meanwhile, some of Australia’s largest companies have offered rewards for those who have been jabbed. National carrier Qantas was among a number of organizations that offered “vaccinated rewards.” The airline offered “mega prizes” such as unlimited travel for a year and flight vouchers, according to a federal health department flyer. “As a large company that relies on travel to put our people and planes back to work, we’re obviously motivated to help with the national vaccine effort,” Qantas customer officer Stephanie Tully said on May 28. HAG Imports offered fully vaccinated staff $100 Myer vouchers, while Melbourne’s Classic Cinema and Lido cinema provided free popcorn and ice cream to vaccinated customers. In addition, airline Virgin Australia began a competition open to fully vaccinated people to win one million Velocity Frequent Flyer points. Virgin Australia CEO Jayne Hrdlicka said on May 17 that Australia needs to open its borders once an appropriate rate of vaccination has been achieved, for the sake of the economy and health. “It will make us sick but won’t put us into hospital. Some people may die, but it will be way smaller than the flu,” she said. But Abetz suggested that vaccination inducements, megaphoned across the country, might amount to coercion. In an Aug. 4 statement, Abetz said that the COVID-19 vaccination rollout should be done under the legal requirement of informed consent. The Australian Immunisation Handbook states this as needing to be “given voluntarily in the absence of undue pressure, coercion, or manipulation” to be legally valid. While the official federal policy is that COVID-19 vaccinations are mostly voluntary, on June 28, the federal government announced that it would be mandatory for residential agedcare workers to get their first dose by September. “This is not something any government should do lightly ... we have been considering this matter for some time now, based on the best possible medical advice,” Prime Minister Scott Morrison said, following a special national cabinet meeting of all Australian state and territory leaders. The federal government offered paid leave for staff who experience side effects from the 36 I N S I G H T October 15-21, 2021
vaccines. This also was a bid to ensure no other unintended consequences, such as aged-care workers leaving the sector. Of the more than 1,300 deaths in Australia linked to the CCP virus as of early October, 735 have been aged-care residents, and the vast majority have occurred in Victoria. Additionally, some state and territory jurisdictions used public health orders to mandate the vaccine for certain industries, such as for certain health workers in Queensland, NSW, and WA. But at least one Queensland nurses union, the Nurses’ Professional Association of Queensland, has pushed back against the mandate.
Collateral Damage The widespread strategy of strict lockdowns has had a severe toll not only on the nation’s economy, but on the mental health of many Australians constrained by stay-at-home orders. Some estimates put the cost of this year’s lockdown in NSW, Victoria, and SA at $2.8 billion (US$2.07 billion) per week, with the restrictions in Greater Sydney accounting for two-thirds of the costs at $257 million per day. Previous economic modeling found Australia’s preference for lockdowns—for example, locking Perth down after only three confirmed cases in June—could cost the country an estimated $319 billion by 2022.
$257 million per day—Estimated cost of restrictions in Greater Sydney “Eliminating COVID-19 means eliminating jobs, freedom, and hope,” said Daniel Wild, director of research at the Institute of Public Affairs. Many small businesses have reportedly struggled to sustain themselves during the lockdowns, with many forced to shut down entirely. “Lockdowns have brought about one of the greatest regressive transfers of wealth and power in Australia’s history,” Wild said. “Young Australians, small businesses, the self-employed, and those otherwise embedded in the productive, private parts of the economy have been smashed, while public servants and bureaucrats are flourishing.” One barbershop owner in Sydney recounted his struggles in July.
Protesters march against lockdowns, in Melbourne, Australia, on Aug. 21, 2021.
Special Report Pandemic Response
"One of the foundations of health care is that care should be consented to. You can’t forcibly treat someone with a therapeutic—that’s just not what health care is."
G ETTY IMAGES
Nurse in Perth
“I’m just going to lose my job,” Nam Nguyen said. “I still have to pay for my rent, living cost, food, insurance, utilities, you name it, all while I’m losing my income.” “They said they would lock down until the pandemic ends, but you can’t tell when it will end,” he said. “People will have to learn to live with the virus somehow.” Concern is mounting about whether the effects of lockdowns have caused more deaths in youths and young adults than the virus itself. The seemingly endless lockdowns and restrictions, along with the loss of jobs and freedoms, have also played a devastating role in the decline of many Australians’ mental health. One in four Australians knows someone who has committed suicide during the past 12 months amid the pandemic, according to figures from Suicide Prevention Australia (SPA). SPA found that 25 percent of Australians knew someone close to them who died, or attempted suicide, while 27 percent said they had directly, or indirectly, sought assistance from a suicide prevention service in the last 12 months. Respondents said the biggest risks contributing to potential suicide over the next 12 months were social isolation (64 percent), unemployment and job losses (58 percent), family and relationship breakdowns (57 percent), and cost of living issues (55 percent). Surging demand for the services of the national suicide helpline, Parents Beyond Breakup, led them to plead for extra government funding amid repeated COVID-19 lockdowns. Last year, Patrick McGorry, a professor of youth mental health at the University of Melbourne, warned that results from population surveys showed a substantial rise in mental distress. “We have already seen a rise in self-harm and suicidal behavior,” he said. “What my colleagues tell me on the frontline
is about a 20 percent increase in people presenting,” McGorry said. “Often in quite acute and complex presentations now too.” Recent modeling by the University of Sydney’s Brain and Mind Centre has noted that for the next five years, Australia could see an estimated increase of 13.7 percent in suicide rates—close to 20,000 deaths. The report stated: “Uncertainty regarding how the COVID-19 pandemic will evolve, with associated lockdowns, physical distancing, and quarantine measures, is driving uncertainty around the extent and duration of the resulting economic breakdown, further exacerbating psychological distress and mental health problems among previously healthy people.”
Pushback and Protests Thousands of Australians have taken to the streets, defying stay-at-home orders to voice their dissent to strict COVID-19 measures. At a protest in Perth on Oct. 1, a nurse told The Epoch Times that she believed the decision to force staff into receiving the jab went against the principles of health care. “It’s coercive,” she said. “One of the foundations of health care is that care should be consented to. You can’t forcibly treat someone with a therapeutic—that’s just not what health care is.” The nurse said there was insufficient evidence around the long-term safety of the vaccines given they had not completed longer-term clinical trials. Pointing to the protesters wearing white shirts, the nurse said they were all willing to lose their jobs over it. “All these professionals are willing to give up years of work. Look at the numbers on everyone’s shirts, 15 years, 17 years, 20 years,” she said. “I’m devastated to lose my job, but I’m not going to be coerced into taking an experimental drug.” Protests in Melbourne drew international I N S I G H T October 15-21, 2021 37
Demonstrators march through the streets to protest lockdowns in Melbourne, Australia, on Sept. 18, 2021.
Police pepper spray a protester during a rally against COVID19 lockdowns and mandates, in Melbourne, Australia, on Sept. 22, 2021.
38 I N S I G H T October 15-21, 2021
Plan to Reopen Australia in December While other countries have already removed all their health restrictions and vaccine passports around COVID-19, Australia is enacting a national plan that might see lockdowns continuing into 2022. Denmark has removed all COVID-19 restrictions, except external border requirements on Sept. 10, after it reclassified COVID-19 as no longer a critical threat to human life. The downgrading of this classification means vaccine passports are no longer necessary. Norway announced on Sept. 24 that it would be removing all domestic COVID-19 restrictions. Down under, state and territory leaders have affirmed a four-phase plan to transition Australia’s national COVID-19 response from its current pre-vaccination settings that focus on the suppression of transmission to post-vaccination settings that focus on the prevention of serious illness, hospitalization, fatality, and the public health management of other infectious diseases. The phases will be triggered by vaccination thresholds being achieved. The third phase would see authorities manage the virus consistent with the flu. The last stage would see the full return to normal with no lockdowns or border closures, and quarantine only for unvaccinated travelers. ■ Mimi Nguyen Ly and Daniel Teng contributed to this report.
THIS PAGE, FROM TOP: WILLIAM WEST/AFP, WILLIAM WEST/AFP, CON CHRONIS/AFP/GETTY IMAGES; RIGHT: DARRIAN TRAYNOR/GETTY IMAGES
A protester lays on the ground after being pushed down by police during an anti-lockdown rally in Melbourne, Australia, on Sept. 18, 2021.
attention in September due to the authoritarian nature of the police response. Police fired pepper ball rounds and large-sized projectiles at unarmed civilians on Sept. 22. During one of the almost daily protests in Melbourne against Victoria’s sweeping vaccination mandate for all of its 1.25 million “authorized workers,” a video from citizen journalist Rukshan Fernando on Oct. 2 showed the protesters marching peacefully and yelling slogans such as “my body, my choice” and “freedom now!” In the video, crowds can be seen chanting “no more lockdown” and “sack Dan Andrews,” referring to the state’s premier. Videos from that day showed police spraying protesters with pepper spray, sometimes unprovoked. Protesters were also seen throwing projectiles such as bottles at police officers. In a live video by Fernando, officers can be seen tackling several protesters to the ground and arresting them. Some police officers on horseback chased the protesters in the park, while a helicopter could be heard flying overhead. Police tried to thwart protesters by prohibiting access to both Sydney and Melbourne’s central business districts (CBD) on certain days when rallies were planned. Police also monitored groups on the Telegram app to gain intelligence on potential planned activities. Despite the dissent, the government’s statistics show that the majority of Australians have chosen to be vaccinated.
A large crowd gathers to protest lockdown restrictions, at the Shrine of Remembrance in Melbourne, Australia, on Oct. 23, 2020.
I N S I G H T October 15-21, 2021 39
Chinese leader Xi Jinping.
C H I N E S E R E GI M E
Nationalism and ‘common prosperity’ belie intense challenges—from power shortages to political struggles—facing the communist regime and its leader
40 I N S I G H T October 15-21, 2021
I
n August, the Chinese state-run paper Economic Information Daily ran a scathing 6,000-word article that condemned the country’s online gaming industry as promoting “spiritual opium,” raking in billions while creating a “new drug” addiction among the people, especially the youth. The article was republished in dozens of outlets and was followed by similar commentaries in state media and official social media posts. Within days, Chinese gaming giants such as Tencent and NetEase saw their stocks plummet by 300 billion yuan. On Aug. 30, Beijing imposed strict regulations on online gaming, limiting minors to three hours of playtime per week. The onslaught by the press and authorities against the gaming industry came on the heels of significant incidents involving other major players in China’s massive tech sector. On June 30, rideshare app Didi Chuxing debuted on the New York Stock Exchange without Beijing’s approval, earning it a swift punishment. And starting in 2020, the Chinese Communist Party has been steadily dialing up pressure on Jack Ma, founder of e-commerce giant Alibaba and one of China’s richest men. What would have been a record-breaking $30 billion initial public
FROM TOP: FENG LI/GETTY IMAGES; NOEL CELIS/AFP VIA GETTY IMAGES
Beset With Crises, China’s Xi Looks to the Masses
By Leo Timm
China Regime in Crisis
offering (IPO) by Ma’s Ant Group was canceled abruptly in November 2020. According to The Wall Street Journal, the IPO would have presented serious financial risks for the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). Ma disappeared for months and now keeps a low profile. The CCP crackdown on the tech sector is just one aspect of Chinese leader Xi Jinping’s ambitious project to reshape society, which, in addition to increasingly invasive forms of surveillance and censorship, has recently included a blanket ban on extracurricular tutoring and a crusade in China’s pop culture business that saw billionaire actress Zhao Wei scrubbed from the internet and male stars accused of promoting an effeminate “sissy boy” aesthetic. On Aug. 17, Xi chaired a meeting of a CCP economic commission that focused on the promotion of “common prosperity” across the Chinese population. The program called for a “universal” system of socialist redistribution to ensure the “people’s livelihood.”
Control Versus Chaos It’s often said that Xi’s heavyhanded approach to governance—summed up by his frequent declarations that “the Party leads everything”— takes direct inspiration from Mao Zedong, the founding leader of communist China. Many of Xi’s moves, and especially the recent clampdowns, have been likened to Mao’s infamous Cultural Revolution, which plunged China into a traumatic decade of deadly political fanaticism between 1966 and 1976. Where Mao had the “Little Red Book,” today’s Communist Party mandates the “Study Xi Strong Country” app for Chinese citizens to gain proficiency in “Xi Jinping Thought.” The “wolf warrior” diplomacy of Chinese officials under Xi is reminiscent of the Cold War-era flashpoints between the CCP and its rivals. And despite Xi’s assurances that economic reform is still on the agenda, both Western and Chinese observers blame him for throwing out the policies of previous Party leaders that stressed growth and profit over outward displays of ideology— often featuring a lot of red. Similarities between Xi and Mao run deep, but so do differences.
Factional struggle in the CCP has come to a head as Xi prepares for the 20th Party Congress, scheduled to be held in late 2022. Mao had launched the Cultural Revolution in a bid to retake power after being sidelined for his role in the disastrous Great Leap Forward campaign that resulted in the starvation deaths of an estimated 45 million people. One of Mao’s short essays, “Bombard the Headquarters,” captured the spirit of reckless violence and rebellion that soon gripped the country and swept him back to primacy. By contrast, Xi’s rhetoric and policies contain little of the call to grassroots iconoclasm and destruction that gripped China under Mao. While millions of Party officials have been disciplined in Xi’s anti-corruption campaign, the purges are carried out exclusively by the Party’s disciplinary agency and Chinese courts. Instead of condemning China’s ancient past, as was the theme of the Cultural Revolution’s slogan of “smashing the four olds,” the CCP under Xi has rolled Chinese culture and history into a narrative of national greatness. Private businesses
Paramilitary police stand guard at Tiananmen Square in Beijing on March 10, 2021. I N S I G H T October 15-21, 2021 41
China Regime
Chinese people walk in a commercial and tourist area in Beijing, China, on Oct. 3, 2020.
and financial services are to be brought under official management rather than attacked outright. The political shifts under Xi have a strong social and ideological motivation, particularly as crises such as the COVID-19 pandemic, food shortages, and overheated real estate markets threaten instability and perhaps even endanger the CCP itself.
‘Common Prosperity’
42 I N S I G H T October 15-21, 2021
FROM TOP: KEVIN FRAYER/GETTY IMAGES; STR/AFP VIA GETTY IMAGES; WANG HE/GETTY IMAGES
The Aug. 17 meeting of the CCP Central Financial and Economic Affairs Commission produced 10 key points reported by state media, with most of the points focused on the goal of achieving “common prosperity.” The meeting summary calls for wealthy Chinese individuals and enterprises to “give back to society more.” The Party also plans to “clean up and standardize unreasonable incomes, rectify the order of income distribution, and resolutely ban illegal income.” According to Ming Chu-cheng, emeritus professor of political science at National Taiwan
The meeting summary calls for wealthy Chinese individuals and enterprises to 'give back to society more.'
University (NTU), “common prosperity” may succeed in parting the rich from their wealth, but ordinary Chinese citizens are unlikely to benefit substantially. “This is not a program to aid the poor, but to aid the CCP,” Ming said on “Era Money,” a Taiwanese talk show. A variety of factors have severely impacted the Chinese economy, from the U.S.–China trade war to the global economic downturn caused by COVID-19 lockdowns. “Foreign trade has shrunk. The unemployment rate is high. All this weighs on the national budget,” Ming said. Evergrande, China’s largest real estate developer, missed two offshore bond payments in September, raising fears that the company could collapse, popping China’s real estate bubble and leading to a “Lehman moment” for the country. China also currently faces a massive power shortage affecting more than 20 provinces in what are normally the wealthiest and most productive regions. According to state-run media,
China Regime
electricity limits are being imposed due to rapidly rising coal prices. The lack of electricity will prove highly arduous—and perhaps deadly—as China enters winter, especially in areas such as the northeast, where subzero temperatures and heavy snowfall are common. Ming said the turn to “common prosperity” by the CCP reflects Xi’s inability to push through the economic reforms needed to foster healthy free-market growth.
What would have been a record-breaking $30 billion initial public offering by Ma’s Ant Group was canceled abruptly in November 2020.
The logo of Chinese ride-hailing giant DiDi Chuxing in Hangzhou, Zhejiang Province, China. After DiDi became a target of the CCP’s censorship, company president Liu Qing and her father, Lenovo founder Liu Chuanzhi, also were caught up in the storm of public opinion.
Jack Ma, founder of the Alibaba Group, at an event in Hangzhou, Zhejiang Province, China, on July 12, 2017.
In the beginning, Xi didn’t want to impose socialist-style redistribution policies, the academic said, “but after being in power, he found that China had gotten to the point where it was basically impossible to enact reforms.” SinoInsider, a New York-based risk consultancy firm that specializes in Chinese political analysis, wrote in an Aug. 19 newsletter that common prosperity is a convenient “feel-good” catchphrase that the CCP hopes will help it weather the economic crisis. The newsletter noted that Xi had previously championed a strategy of “dual circulation,” which called for the country to spend less on foreign exchanges without giving up profitable exports. However, global economic shocks, plus the regime’s alienating behavior, have cooled foreign trade. Now the regime is desperate to shore up its coffers—and direct public outrage to the ultra-rich. “Should financial risks explode, the CCP has laid the groundwork to sacrifice the wealthy elite and emerge as the ‘people’s savior,’” the analysis reads. “But ‘redistribution’ runs the risk of further stifling economic activity and engendering fierce elite pushback against Xi.”
Political Showdown Beyond bringing society more firmly under CCP control and bracing for hard times ahead, much of Xi’s recent activity reflects a longstanding struggle between him and political rivals within the Party itself. I N S I G H T October 15-21, 2021 43
China Regime in Crisis
The CCP crackdown on the tech sector is just one aspect of Chinese leader Xi Jinping’s ambitious project to reshape society.
44 I N S I G H T October 15-21, 2021
A man wears a mask while walking through an Evergrande-built community in Wuhan, hubei Province, China, on Sept. 24, 2021. Evergrande, China’s largest property developer, is facing a liquidity crisis with total debts of around $300 billion.
A competitor plays a mobile game during the 2019 e-Sports and Music Festival Hong Kong on July 28, 2019.
see his bid for a third term jeopardized, according to the article. Recent moves by the CCP’s Central Commission for Discipline Inspection (CCDI) have targeted more Jiang affiliates in the regime’s security apparatus. On Oct. 2, the CCDI announced a probe into Fu Zhenghua, retired minister of justice and former vice chief of the Ministry of Public Security (MPS), China’s police force. The state-run Xinhua accused Fu of “overweening political ambition and very poor political integrity,” saying that he had spread groundless criticism of Party policy, as well as political rumors. Just two days earlier, the CCP expelled Sun Lijun, also a former deputy MPS head, from the Party, with authorities accusing him of “holding improper discussions about the central government” as well as “forming gangs to take control of key departments,” in addition to the same accusations leveled against Fu. Radio Free Asia (RFA) noted in its report on Fu that the purges build on the sentencing of Bo Xilai and Zhou Yongkang, two powerful Politburo members with connections to the security state. All four of the disgraced officials are allies of Jiang. While most officials have been officially charged with corruption, the Party has occasionally hinted at more serious offenses. For instance, the RFA piece notes that Liu Shiyu, Chinese securities regulator, said in 2017 that senior figures in the regime had “conspired openly to usurp party leadership.” ■
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While communist regimes tend to present a monolithic “united front” to the public, they’re given to complex infighting among different factions, a dynamic often overlooked in Western mainstream media reporting. These intra-regime struggles can play a crucial role in driving policy and rhetoric. In February, Lingling Wei of The Wall Street Journal wrote that according to more than a dozen Chinese regime insiders, a key reason the CCP canceled Ant Group’s November 2020 IPO in Shanghai was “growing unease in Beijing over Ant’s complex ownership structure—and the people who stood to gain most from what would have been the world’s largest IPO.” According to Wei, would-be stakeholders who “stood to gain” included those with ties to Jiang Zemin, the former CCP leader who was general secretary from 1989 to 2002, but who “remains a force behind the scenes.” Many of the officials purged in Xi’s anticorruption campaign have been connected to Jiang’s faction, including scores of high-ranking Party cadres and top generals in the People’s Liberation Army. Ming said even the clampdowns in the entertainment industry have played a role in the Xi–Jiang feud, given the influence of Zeng Qinghong—former Chinese vice president and a close ally of Jiang—over the government offices that manage the entertainment industry. Factional struggle in the CCP has come to a head as Xi prepares for the 20th Party Congress scheduled to be held in late 2022. While Xi is expected to take a norm-breaking third term as general secretary, the SinoInsider analysts believe he faces challenges in this endeavor. “Xi has added many new enemies over the past nine years with his anti-corruption campaign and other uncompromising policies,” SinoInsider wrote in a Sept. 15 piece. The article notes that the leader’s nine years in power have seen many setbacks for the regime—such as the COVID-19 pandemic and the rallying of democratic nations to oppose Beijing and support Taiwan—and few victories that Xi could claim as “legitimate political achievements.” Without taking stronger measures, Xi could
P OL I T IC S • E C ONOM Y • OPI N ION T H AT M AT T E R S
Perspectives
Issue. 02
Chinese students stand together at a ceremony marking the 100th anniversary of the Communist Party at Tiananmen Square in Beijing on July 1, 2021.
China's Global Influence War The Chinese regime aims to extend its totalitarian model through three tactics: targeting think tanks, sponsoring rap music, and operating a secret military propaganda department. 46
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BITTER TASTE OF FOOD INFLATION 47
A REAL DANGER FACING EUROPE 48
CHINA’S CONTROL OVER BETTER THAN GOLD: ‘ALGORITHMS’ 49 THE VALUE OF FRIENDSHIP 50 I N S I G H T October 15-21, 2021 45
ANDERS CORR is a principal at Corr Analytics Inc., publisher of the Journal of Political Risk. He is an expert in political science and government.
Anders Corr
Beijing’s New Propaganda War
Front organizations, Chinese rappers, and a fake hotel support the CCP's propaganda war
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new study of China’s global influence operations, produced by the French military, is taking France by storm. Le Monde, Le Parisien, Le Figaro, L’Express, Libération, the country’s Senate, and others have all covered the 646-page report, most positively and many breathlessly. Breathless is the right reaction to newly discovering the depths of China’s influence operations, which the new report achieves in spades. The authors of the report, published Sept. 20 and titled “Chinese Influence Operations: A Machiavellian Moment,” are Paul Charon and Jean-Baptiste Jeangène Vilmer at the Institute for Strategic Research (IRSEM). The IRSEM is associated with the French Ministry of Defense. The report makes three new contributions to the field of Chinese influence operations: the activities of the Chinese military’s secret propaganda department, called Base 311; the means through which the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) targets French universities, think tanks, and political parties for influence; and the key role of the Chinese Communist Youth League (CYL) in the CCP’s attempts at expanding influence among the world’s youth. According to the study, the CCP’s “one-off partners,” which are targets of its influence, include “think tanks, foundations and research centers.” Some of these “useful idiot” groups may actually take the initiative to offer their services, usually for a fee. “These partnerships are very useful to the Party because they allow it, instead of through what would require extreme efforts, to extend its contact surface and its acceptability on foreign soil. When a reputable think tank organizes an event with China, it is the ability of this organization to convey the Party rhetoric that is sought after by Beijing.”
46 I N S I G H T October 15-21, 2021
The CCP holds party-to-party forums in China and Brussels, for example, and reaches out to as broad a spectrum of political parties as possible. “This is why several delegates from the same country, but from different political parties, can be targeted,” according to the authors. The CCP “for example, invited Francis Wurzt, former president of the Party of the European Left/Nordic Green Left (PEL/NGL) and member of the French Communist Party, but also Thierry Mariani, former vice-president of the UMP [Union for a Popular Movement].”
Base 311, a secret Chinese military organization, engages in propaganda and lawfare globally. The Union for a Popular Movement, called the Republicans since 2015, is a center-right political party in France founded by former President Jacques Chirac and led by former President Nicolas Sarkozy, who on Sept. 2 was convicted for illegal funding of his unsuccessful 2012 election campaign. According to the authors, the plethora of political parties that the CCP compromises is attractive to it because of their “compatibility with Chinese discourse and their ability to be heard by a large segment of the population.” The authors deeply researched the CYL, which influences youth globally through, for example, Chinese rap bands and Chinese student associations. The rap bands hijack American and European cultural looks and musical forms that appeal to Chinese youth, according to the authors, as a means to harshly criticize the American government. State-sponsored Chinese rap lyrics include, for example, warnings against color revolutions of the type found in
democratizing countries. The “CYL is responsible for uploading a video on Aug. 1, 2016, accusing the United States of fomenting a color revolution in China like those of Georgia, Ukraine and the Arab Spring,” according to the authors. “The video, posted on the Supreme People’s Procuratorate’s Weibo site, was viewed more than 10 million times in just 24 hours.” It’s the Chinese military that coordinates much of Beijing’s global influence operations and its lawfare against proponents of democracy and human rights in China. The authors devote much of their original research to a secret Chinese military organization called Base 311, which engages in propaganda and lawfare globally, including through front organizations. Base 311 is China’s main information warfare operation, “which has its headquarters in the city of Fuzhou, and which is dedicated to the application of the ‘Three Warfares’ strategy,” according to the authors. The Three Warfares strategy includes public opinion warfare through the media, psychological warfare to influence foreign elites, and legal warfare to condition the global legal environment that the CCP seeks to dominate. Base 311 “also manages media companies that serve as civilian front organizations, and operates a bogus hotel which is actually a training center,” according to the authors. Base 311 is hidden behind a public swimming pool in Fuzhou, and there’s no way to reserve a room at its fake hotel. Defeating Beijing’s global influence operations, which seek to extend its totalitarian model through underhanded tactics, is critical to defending the ideals of democracy and human rights. Look for your nearest Chinese consulate and what they are doing close to you. It may at first seem harmless, but not when examined more closely.
EMEL AKAN is a senior reporter in Washington, D.C. Previously, she worked in the financial sector as an investment banker at JPMorgan and as a consultant at PwC.
Emel Akan
Bitter Taste of Food Inflation
The Biden administration seeks to rein in food prices by policing the competition
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he prices of everything from cars to groceries to gas have inflated due to overheated demand and supply shocks. While there’s widespread concern about inflation, soaring food prices are perhaps the most worrisome for many, including the Biden administration. Beef and pork especially have taken a wild ride in the past few months. The Labor Department’s September inflation report showed that meat, poultry, fish, and eggs were up 10.5 percent over the past year and 17.4 percent from prices in September 2019, before the pandemic. President Joe Biden’s economic team, which closely monitors meat prices, blames corporate consolidation for the rising costs. The White House released a report in September that unveiled an analysis of the food inflation problem. The report said “a lack of competition” in the meat processing sector along with strong consumer demand is driving up prices. Four big producers, including Tyson Foods and JBS, came under fire for “pandemic profiteering.” The sector saw double-digit increases in prices over the last couple of months, the report found. To control prices, the administration promised to crack down on consolidation and price-fixing in the meat industry. Critics, however, argue that the White House is not getting it right and is dismissing factors such as increased demand from restaurants, the rise in labor costs, and extreme drought conditions that have lifted the prices in the sector recently. They also say concentration levels in the beef sector, for example, have remained the same for the past 25 years, defying arguments that high prices are attributable to a lack of competition. High meat prices increase the infla-
Beef prices jumped 17.6 percent, and bacon was up 19.3 percent over the past year. tionary pressures on the economy and pose a challenge to those who claim the current bout of inflation is a short-term phenomenon. Beef prices alone jumped 17.6 percent over the past year, and bacon was up 19.3 percent during the same period. While Biden administration officials have been playing down inflation fears, they’re moving quickly to rein in food prices and police the competition. The White House, for example, provided $600 million in loan guarantees to
expand capacity for meat and poultry processing in the country. In addition, the administration announced about $150 million to $160 million in assistance and help to keep the smaller and more regional processors in business. “We need more competition,” White House press secretary Jen Psaki told reporters on Oct. 4. “And we can do that by helping small and mid-sized farmers and small and mid-sized processors.” Consumers are seeing price hikes not just in meat, but also in many food products due to supply and shipping bottlenecks. Recent floods and droughts are also contributing to food price inflation around the world. Retailers across the country have been affected by recent port congestions, container shortages, and the limited availability of trucks and drivers. Companies like Costco are taking extraordinary measures such as chartering their own ocean vessels to help ensure products arrive on time for the holidays. General Mills, Campbell Soup, and J.M. Smucker are among food-makers that have raised wholesale prices in response to rising ingredient and freight costs. All these actions are swelling grocery bills for consumers. And increasing energy crises around the world are expected to make things even worse. Federal Reserve officials say inflation is elevated mainly because of factors that are “transitory.” Once these factors dissipate, they say, inflation will return close to its 2 percent target. However, food inflation could stick around longer. The New York Fed’s September survey of consumer expectations showed that food prices are likely to rise by 7.0 percent in a year, higher than the overall inflation expectation of 5.3 percent. The survey also found record-high levels of uncertainty around inflation over the next three years. I N S I G H T October 15-21, 2021 47
DANIEL LACALLE is chief economist at hedge fund Tressis and author of “Freedom or Equality,” “Escape from the Central Bank Trap,” and “Life in the Financial Markets.”
Daniel Lacalle
A Real Danger Facing Europe Europe needs a balanced and nonideological energy mix
T
he wholesale price of electricity recently exceeded the psychological barrier of 200 euros per megawatt-hour in most countries of the European Union. Although the daily price currently only affects 15 percent of the energy sold, since the rest is locked for almost 12 months since last winter at much lower prices, it’s a sign of future risk. Thousands of contracts are going to have to be revised with huge price increases in the next three months when the locked contracts expire. The price of liquefied natural gas has soared to $34 per million British thermal units delivered in December and January. In comparable energy terms, it would be about $197 per barrel of oil equivalent, according to Morgan Stanley. Meanwhile, the price of natural gas has risen more than 200 percent in 2021. The price of CO2 emission rights has increased more than 1,000 percent since 2017, and about 200 percent in 2021. This concept, which is a hidden tax for which the governments of the European Union are going to collect more than 21 billion euros ($24 billion) in 2021, adds to the inflationary spike. These extraordinary tax revenues should be used to mitigate the price increases in consumer bills and avoid an energy crisis in Europe that will sink the recovery. Two key factors explain the rise in energy prices, and in both, there’s a responsibility of governments: The forced closure of the economy is a key factor to understand the damage generated in the supply chains, and the prohibition of investment in gas resources and the abandoning of nuclear in Germany has led to a more volatile and expensive energy
48 I N S I G H T October 15-21, 2021
The energy crisis can bankrupt 25 percent of companies in Europe, according to estimates. mix in peak demand periods. This, coupled with a political decision to impose a volatile and intermittent energy mix, has left Europe much more dependent and exposed to gas price fluctuations. Renewable energies work 20 percent of the time, and when they don’t work, the only guarantee of supply is to use natural gas, which tends to happen as Asia demand rises and when its price has skyrocketed. Of course, demand is a very important factor, but we can’t forget that with natural gas, as with coal, there’s no supply problem. There is, in fact, excess capacity. Under normal circumstances, the price of natural gas and CO2 would have moderated after the base effect dissipated—in June—but we forget the disastrous impact of monetary and government interventionism. The rise in the price of CO2 emission rights is directly the fault of the tax voracity of European governments, which have massively limited
the supply of these rights so that the price rises. Additionally, the increased cost of many goods and services is directly due to the massive money supply growth in 2020, well above the demand for money, generating inflation by political decree. I don’t understand how the fiscal voracity of some governments blinds them to two important risks: an energy crisis that leaves businesses and families suffocated by a price increase caused by political decisions, and a massive reaction of the population against environmental policies when they see prices skyrocket due to planning errors (a more volatile and intermittent energy mix and dependence on gas) and legislation (charging citizens with the full cost of environmental policies and making those who pollute pay, and those who do not, pay even more). The most cautious estimates warn that the energy crisis can leave up to 25 percent of companies (small and medium enterprises) in Europe in bankruptcy—since for them, energy is 33 percent of their costs—and erode up to 1.5 percent of growth of the eurozone, which is already poor. Europe needs a balanced and non-ideological energy mix and a competitive energy transition where it’s essential to have nuclear and natural gas as backup and where technology and competition drive competitiveness. Additionally, the eurozone can’t create extractive mechanisms that destroy the purchasing power of citizens’ wages and savings and then blame others for inflation. What Europe needs is more competition, technology, and innovation, and less interventionism. This energy crisis isn’t going to be the fault of the market, but of the ideological stubbornness of politicians who ignore economic calculations.
Fan Yu
FAN YU is an expert in finance and economics and has contributed analyses on China's economy since 2015.
China’s Control Over Algorithms Beijing wants algorithms to promote CCP values
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ue the references to a “Matrix”-like dystopian future where Chinese citizens are trapped in a simulated reality managed by state-controlled computer algorithms. It’s not too far-fetched to imagine. The Cyberspace Administration of China (CAC), the country’s cyberspace watchdog, announced recently that it would set up governance and rules to tighten its grip on algorithms that companies use to interact with its users. Algorithms are widely deployed, used by companies to interact with users on a daily basis. Think of them as the engine that drives our internet search results, restaurant recommendations based on our location and taste preferences, show and movie recommendations based on our viewing history, the route our GPS app takes us on based on traffic and other patterns, etc. We depend on various algorithms, whether we realize it or not. And today—when every company needs to be a technology company—investments in algorithms, artificial intelligence, and machine learning are increasingly mandatory. For Chinese consumers, that all translates to what videos they see on Douyin (China’s version of TikTok), what recommendations they see on Alibaba’s Taobao shopping platform, dispatch decisions on platforms such as logistics apps Didi and Meituan, and the topics trending on Weibo (China’s Twitter-like application), for example. It’s unclear how the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) intends to regulate the algorithms underpinning such technologies. But a few general guidelines have been laid out. “A multi-pronged regulatory approach should be established to monitor algorithm safety, archive, and illegal behavior,” according to the CAC’s statement in Chinese, while em-
Regulations for algorithms would take around three years to roll out. phasizing that technology innovation should be preserved. The announcement, which said the guidance would take around three years to roll out, comes a month after the CAC released a set of draft guidelines on how algorithms should behave. Some of this may stem from legitimate concerns around certain tech companies using algorithms to manipulate results or rankings, and fabricate the popularity of certain topics over others, or make them more addictive to users. The CAC is careful to state that such regulations would “benefit consumers and online users.” One particular provision will be far-reaching in its impact. It says technology algorithms must promote mainstream values (read: CCP- approved), and requires that algorithmic models demote (read: eliminate) content that may upset the economic or social order. Similar to rules placed on China’s populace, its technology algorithms
must also be censored, loyal to the CCP, and must abide by the all-important “Xi Jinping Thought on Socialism with Chinese Characteristics.” If this seems like an excessive overreach, then one hasn’t been paying attention. In recent months, Chinese leader Xi Jinping has started campaigns to remold Chinese society and its future development, in everything from childhood education to video games to worker rights. And regulations to control how computer algorithms interact with human users necessarily need to be part of that effort. We know Xi has ambitions to control or influence the global internet, given its strategic importance in shaping social and political discourse. And it’s easy to see how this recent development fits within that framework. Computer code becomes a form of costless labor force multiplier in the CCP’s quest to influence and police one’s thoughts. From an economic perspective, especially for U.S. investors who hold positions in Chinese technology companies increasingly subject to these state control mechanisms, the calculus gets even more convoluted. Companies such as Didi and Alibaba are listed on the U.S. stock market, and millions of Americans hold their shares either directly or indirectly via mutual funds or ETFs. U.S. pensions—through venture capital and private equity—are also shareholders in firms such as TikTok’s parent company ByteDance. In addition to perusing earnings reports and keeping up with the income statement and balance sheets of these companies, shareholders also must be aware of governance issues and increasing CCP control over corporate management. Shareholders must necessarily accept that the companies they “own” will be subject to follow Xi’s future agenda. The question then becomes, should U.S. investors be complicit in this? I N S I G H T October 15-21, 2021 49
JEFF MINICK lives and writes in Front Royal, Va. He is the author of two novels, “Amanda Bell” and “Dust on Their Wings,” and two works of nonfiction, “Learning as I Go” and “Movies Make the Man.”
Jeff Minick
Better Than Gold: The Value of Friendship Deep friendships are invaluable—and they’re good for your health
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f all the gifts we might desire in life, surely friendship stands near the top of the list. Those of us who have a close friend or two feel blessed. We share our dreams and secrets with these companions of the heart: our joy and our sadness, our victories and our defeats. And when we goof up in some big-time way, we know that our friend will stand beside us instead of wagging a finger in our face. Yet making good friends can be a tough proposition, especially when we enter adulthood. The single man whose company transfers him from Boston to Tucson, Arizona, where he knows no one, may keep in touch with his Massachusetts buddies electronically, but it’s not the same as sharing a beer with them after work at the Harvard Gardens on Beacon Hill. In Harvard Magazine’s “The Loneliness Pandemic,” Jacob Sweet offers a detailed analysis of the causes and consequences of loneliness. Citing a dozen or more experts on this subject, Sweet points out that in addition to the social isolation brought about by COVID-19, a widespread pandemic of loneliness has long afflicted huge numbers of people living both in the United States and abroad. Young and old alike say, “I don’t really feel like anybody knows me.” And as Sweet reports, this sense of isolation can affect not only our mental health, but also our physical well-being. Some researchers contend that acute loneliness has the same impact on the body as alcoholism or smoking 15 cigarettes per day. Others are exploring the relationship between loneliness and the damage done to the body’s immune system. 50 I N S I G H T October 15-21, 2021
Some researchers contend that acute loneliness has the same impact on the body as alcoholism or smoking 15 cigarettes per day. So what can we do? If we feel shut off from others, how can we break out of this prison and find some friends? Setting aside time from the frenetic pace of modern life to develop and deepen friendship is crucial.
The guy who works from dawn to dusk and then collapses in front of his television, beer in hand, has locked the door on friendship. The working mom—and in my book, all moms are working moms—who becomes so caught up in her job or in child care, or both, may be kissing friendship goodbye. They may not realize it, but both may be missing the delights and strength friendship could bring them. Finding some common ground can also lead to a more profound relationship. When the young woman knitting in a coffee shop attracts the attention of her waitress, who also knits, she might initiate a conversation that leads beyond needles and yarn and opens the door to fellowship. And then there’s engagement. If an anxious acquaintance is telling us about her fear of failure at work, and we’re silently wondering whether to make spaghetti or pizza for supper, we’re cutting short the possibility of enhancing that relationship. We need to be all ears, commenting or asking questions, and truly sharing in the moment. When I was teaching seminars to homeschoolers, a concerned mother approached me to ask why her daughter had no friends in her classes. I gently explained that while the other students talked and horsed around during their breaks, Sarah sat at her desk and read a book. Her mother must have spoken to Sarah, for the very next week I found her in the break room, listening to a small group of girls laughing and talking together. As Ralph Waldo Emerson said long ago, “The only way to have a friend is to be one.”
Environmental Warriors Conservative Hunting
Ted Nugent: Nature Will Heal the Soul
T
By Nathan Worcester ed Nugent is a rock and roll guitarist, bow hunter, and American icon. He recently spoke with The Epoch Times about his childhood in Detroit, conservation, wanton waste laws, legendary bowhunter Fred Bear, and his own environmental war cry—“Get out there and heal thyself!” EPOCH TIMES: How did you become so
passionate about nature? TED NUGENT: I am extremely thank-
COURTESY OF TED NUGENT
ful that our little Detroit neighborhood where I was born in 1948 was at the edge of a wildlife paradise along the winding, enchanted Rouge River, where the “Spirit of the Wild” immediately grabbed me hard. Like all kids in those days, my cousin Mark Schmitt and I couldn’t get enough
of bowhunting and exploring the woods and swamps near our homes in southern Michigan. We didn’t play baseball, hockey, football, or anything else. We hunted and explored, period. We were driven to learn how to sneak up on critters and make increasingly better shots with our bows all the time. Our pure, uninhibited youth facilitated our natural instinct to be the reasoning predators that God designed us to be. We were and remain nature’s children, thank God! EPOCH TIMES: Some people seem to
believe that hunting is always and only harmful to nature—and you’ve been criticized in the past for your advocacy of hunting and the Second Amendment. What is the place of safe hunting in the conservation of our wildlands?
“Hunters are the hands-on, boots-on-the-ground, eyewitness, down-to-earth, grounded environmental army monitoring our beloved woods, waters, forests, swamps, mountains, and wild grounds.” Ted Nugent musician, writer, and bow hunter MR. NUGENT: As hunters, we know
very well why nature remains healthy and productive, for like hard-working ranchers and farmers, hunters are the hands-on, boots-on-the-ground, eye-witness, down-to-earth, grounded environmental army monitoring our beloved woods, waters, forests, swamps, mountains, and wild grounds. Overfishing a body of water is no worse than underfishing it. So much water can only support so much life, and with inadequate annual harvest, it won’t take long for a massive dieoff to occur if the population growth overruns the habitat carrying capac-
ity of that body of water. Meat hunters are perfect conservationists. Sport hunters are perfect conservationists. Casual hunters are perfect conservationists. Gung-ho hunters are perfect conservationists. And shout it out loud and proud, trophy hunters are perfect conservationists, because we all pay our way and reverentially utilize the precious resources from God’s miraculous renewable pantry. It was the hunting families of America that created the demand for intelligently regulated, sustain yield, sound science game laws that include the wanton waste laws making it a crime to waste the sacred venison of the hunt. The horrible, lying, dishonest propaganda media of the world has done a phenomenal job of brainwashing some of the citified, comfortably numb, embarrassingly disconnected populations of the world in all sorts of dangerous ways, but when it comes to intentionally misrepresenting our perfect, honorable hunting culture, they rival the Joseph Goebbels Nazi propaganda ministry of repeating a lie often enough to become the norm in a mushy-brained society. EPOCH TIMES: Because our series is fo-
cused on “environmental warriors,” we like to ask people about their environmental “war cries.” What would be your environmental war cry? MR. NUGENT: Based on the amazing
and always emotional feedback to my song “Fred Bear” about our dear friend and conservation visionary, the instinctive battle cry to get out there and heal thyself with the dynamic powers of nature as a conscientious participant is well understood and readily embraced and acted upon. Simply reading the input from people around the world on my social media proves that the Spirit of the Wild is truly contagious and will indeed cleanse the soul! Nathan Worcester writes about the natural environment for The Epoch Times. He lives in Chicago. I N S I G H T October 15-21, 2021 51
Nation Profile
THOUGHT LEADERS
The Alliance of Big Government, Big Business, and Woke Dogma ‘Companies relentlessly criticize the United States for social injustice,’ says Vivek Ramaswamy, author of ‘Woke Inc.’
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n an interview with Jan Jekielek on “American Thought Leaders,” Vivek Ramaswamy outlined “the unholy alliance of big government, corporations, and woke dogma.” He also addressed the ongoing intrusion of communist China into the United States through its promotion of “wokeism.” Ramaswamy is the founder of several successful companies, including Roivant Sciences, a biopharmaceutical company, and author of a new book, “Woke Inc.: Inside Corporate America’s Social Justice Scam.” Here are excerpts from this important interview:
52 I N S I G H T October 15-21, 2021
MR. JEKIELEK: You make
a pretty interesting case, and in some ways, it’s kind of counterintuitive. You basically say that stakeholder capitalism is supposed to create accountability, but it actually does the exact opposite and empowers America’s enemies in the process. Incredible. MR. RAMASWAMY: It's
counterintuitive because stakeholder capitalism is the philosophy that a business ought to serve not just its shareholders, by pursuing profit, but also ought to serve other societal interests, including those of not only employees, but other societal stakeholders, ranging from minority communities to the climate. Now on the face of it,
that sounds pretty benign. But the argument I make in the book is, first of all, it’s actually a violation of American democracy to concentrate in the hands of a small group of investors and executives the power to not only decide what products get voted to the top, but also what ideas get voted to the top. And that’s the role our democracy plays, where everyone’s voice and vote count equally. MR. JEKIELEK: It’s actu-
ally quite fascinating to learn some companies do have the Chinese regime as a major stakeholder, but don’t really disclose that very much and instead focus on all the much prettier-look-
Vivek Ramaswamy.
Nation Profile
Ramaswamy is the founder of several successful companies, including Roivant Sciences. ing stakeholders here in America. MR. RAMASWAMY: The
great policy error over the last 30 years in the United States was thinking that we could use capitalism as a vector to spread democracy abroad, that we could export Big Macs and Happy Meals and think it would somehow spread democracy in places like China. What we’ve learned over the last 30 years is that China has actually turned that model on its head. Instead of using our money to get them to be more like us, they’ve now used their money to get us to be more like them. They’ve sent back Disney movies and Nike sneakers as Trojan horses to advance their values. I’ll tell you what I mean. Companies relentlessly criticize the United States for social injustice, as the woke brand of stakeholder capitalism or what we call woke capitalism does. Nike criticizes racial injustice. Disney criticizes injustices ranging from transphobia to states’ policy on abortions. As these companies criticize the United States, they also don’t say a peep about actual human rights abuses in China, such as what’s happening
in Xinjiang Province today, where over a million Uyghurs are enslaved in concentration camps and subjected to forced sterilization in some of the worst human rights abuses committed by a major nation since the Third Reich in Germany. These companies don’t say a peep about it. MR. JEKIELEK: Vivek,
frankly, I have the same worry, deeply. There’s a famous quote: “The issue is not the issue. The issue is the revolution.” We’ve heard this a lot. In all of these Marxian systems that we’ve seen over the years, the issue is the revolution. The division is actually a major part of the purpose of the ideology, even if many of the people participating in it don’t fully realize that’s the case. MR. RAMASWAMY: You’re
spot on. I heard a really dark joke, but it reveals the way in which foreign actors have recognized that very fact, to be able to divide us from within. I talked earlier on the show about how China is using wokeism. By the way, they even have a Chinese word for wokeism—“baizuo.” They’re using that to divide us, using that as a chink
I N S I G H T October 15-21, 2021 53
Nation Profile
The great policy error over the last 30 years in the United States was thinking that we could use capitalism as a vector to spread democracy abroad. — Vivek Ramaswamy in our armor to divide us from within by getting corporations to criticize injustice here without saying a peep about injustice over there and deflecting accountability for their human rights abuses. The joke was that, let’s say that Mao Zedong suddenly wakes up from the dead and returns to China
in his second coming, and he’s talking to a farmer in the countryside. He asks the farmer, “Oh, do we have a food shortage? Do we have enough food for our people?” And the farmer first tells him, “Oh, yes, the food shortage ended a long time ago. Now we have so much food. We have too much
lence, our own culture of the unapologetic pursuit of excellence through our system of free enterprise, and through our democracy in ways that require seeing past the superficial demands of the woke movement. MR. JEKIELEK: As we fin-
ish up here, you actually have a very interesting idea about how to create a common U.S. identity again, and this is through civic engagement. You argue for mandatory civic engagement. I find that a pretty fascinating idea. MR. RAMASWAMY: One of
the ways I talk about doing that is weaving civic service into education. For example, taking the institution of summer break itself, you don’t have to change a thing about life structure. You don’t have to change a thing about infringing on the liberty of free adults, because taking children to school is already mandatory. But let’s weave into school the component of civic service, of actually serving your country. Our civic duties ought to be shared equally. That’s something we can instill starting at a young age that builds solidarity around the idea of a shared American identity, rather than a fractious group identity, which is the woke way. Reviving that shared Americanism and that shared American identity dilutes the woke agenda to irrelevance. This interview has been edited for brevity and clarity by Jeff Minick
PHOTOS COURTESY OF VIVEK RAMASWAMY
54 I N S I G H T October 15-21, 2021
food that our people are actually starting to get sick from diabetes.” And Mao Zedong goes, “Oh, OK, very good. Very good. But weren’t we supposed to produce more steel than Britain within a few decades?” This is something that Mao Zedong actually laid out as part of his central plan as well. And they said, “Actually, even one of our provinces today alone produces more steel than all of the United Kingdom put together.” And he says, “OK, very good, very good. But most importantly, what about the Cultural Revolution led by the proletariat in the field? How is that going?” To that, the modern Chinese farmer says, “Oh, we don’t do that anymore. We outsourced that to America.” There’s something dark in that joke, but that actually reflects the essence of what’s going on. Ironically, communist China has embraced our capitalist worldview, the American pursuit of excellence, and the inner American animal to be No. 1. They’ve now imported that as their own and have exported their modern wokeism, which is really the avatar of the old school Chinese communism—the Red Guard was effectively sent over here to undermine us from within. And I’m sorry to say it’s working masterfully for them. This becomes the beginning of the end of American greatness and the American empire, unless we’re able to actually turn that around and harness and rediscover our own culture of excel-
T R AV E L • F O O D • L U X U R Y L I V I N G
Unwind
Marvels of Artistry and Technology Wood boats are no longer "Granddad's rowboat." Get ready learn why wood is wonderful. 61
Issue. 02
MOTORCYCLES are practical means of transportation that turn short journeys into adventures and mild-mannered riders into leather-clad heroes. 60 YOU MAY NOT BE able to find Liechtenstein on a map, but this virtual guided tour of its castles and scenic wonders will have you dusting off your passport. 64 WHOLE HOG BARBECUE is an art, and pitmaster Rodney Scott has been perfecting it since age 11. Take notes as he shares his secrets. 66 I N S I G H T October 15-21, 2021 55
Epoch Booklist
Are there books you’d recommend? We’d love to hear from you. Let us know at features@epochtimes.com
NOTEWORTHY READS HISTORY
Debunking the 1619 Project
By Mary Grabar
Exposing the Plan to Divide America
The 1619 Project was key in introducing critical race theory into schools. Mary Grabar’s in-depth research debunks its claims about slavery and exposes the tricks used to misrepresent figures such as Abraham Lincoln. An essential read.
Our picks of the week, including a debunking of the 1619 Project, a study of U.S.–China policy, and a biography about the adventurous Marquis de Lafayette.
ing the French monarch to do so—and making him a fugitive), his bravery in battle (chock-full of brilliant maneuvers), and his relationship with George Washington. Lafayette finally gets his due in this extensively researched, enjoyable read; a fine addition to the massive collection of American Revolution scholarship. PUBLICAFFAIRS, 2021, 512 PAGES
NONFICTION
Our Wild Calling REGNERY HISTORY, 2021, 320 PAGES
Hero of Two Worlds
By Mike Duncan
Lafayette in the Age of Revolution An insightful book about French nobleman and military officer Marquis de Lafayette’s roles in the French and American Revolutions. Duncan details his arrival as a 19-year-old, disobey-
By Richard Louv
Howling With the Wolves
Take a deep dive into the natural world around us and see how connecting with animals, both domestic and wild, can enrich our lives and potentially save theirs. Through shared stories, studies and reportage, and cutting-edge science, Richard Louv presents the case for protecting and promoting a caring habitat for human–animal coexistence, a “habitat of the heart.” Strengthening our bonds with living creatures can transform us on many levels. In this digital age, real connection is possible. ALGONQUIN BOOKS OF CHAPEL HILL, 2019, 320 PAGES
56 I N S I G H T October 15-21, 2021
The World Turned Upside Down
By Clyde Prestowitz
Confronting the Chinese Communist Party
This treatment of the entire U.S.–China relationship, from the beginning up to now, is eminently simple and readable, and detailed at the same time. In China, the buck stops with the Chinese Communist Party. The CCP reigns supreme, and every person, every corporation is subject to it. As such, it is able to shape behavior on a very fundamental level. A fascinating read. YALE UNIVERSITY PRESS, 2021, 344 PAGES
FICTION
Hamnet
By Maggie O’Farrell
Human Bonds, Heart, and Healing In 1580, the Black Death plagues the land. William Shakespeare,
then a penniless Latin tutor, is smitten by Agnes. They marry. She becomes the electrifying force in their lives as they grieve the death of their 11-year-old son. Their brokenness is brilliantly conveyed and sets the stage as the playwright’s career skyrockets. What happens is breathtakingly redemptive. VINTAGE BOOKS, 2021, 320 PAGES
CLASSICS
A Tale of Two Cities
FOR KIDS
The Old Man and the Boy
By Robert Ruark
Adventures With Grandpa
Robert Ruark’s account of boyhood days spent hunting and fishing with his grandfather begins, “The Old Man knows pretty near close to everything.” We can all learn from this man’s wisdom. A classic, especially for teen boys. HOLT PAPERBACKS, 1993 REPRINT, 320 PAGES
By Charles Dickens
Love and Sacrifice
“It was the best of times, it was the worst of times.” So begins “A Tale of Two Cities,” a classic tale about the French Revolution. In a time of mobs and executions, we marvel at a daughter’s care for her broken father and cheer for the dissolute but brave Sydney Carton who goes to the guillotine speaking the book’s last line: “It is a far, far better thing that I do, than I have ever done; it is a far, far better rest that I go to, than I have ever known.” One of Charles Dickens’s most popular works, and with good reason. PENGUIN CLASSICS, 2020, 234 PAGES
I Capture the Castle
By Dodie Smith
Prose That Glitters
“I write this sitting in the kitchen sink.” So begins witty narrator 17-year-old Cassandra as she hones her writing skills, helps her poor family, and falls in love. In the end, she captures the castle and readers as well. WEDNESDAY BOOKS, 2017 REPRINT, 400 PAGES
Epoch Watchlist
Ian Kane A U.S. Army veteran, filmmaker, and author, Kane enjoys the great outdoors and volunteering.
MOVIE REVIEWS
This week, we cover films including action-thriller “Copshop” and historical drama “The Auschwitz Report,” which is based on a true story.
ACTION | CRIME | THRILLER
DRAMA | HISTORY | WAR The Auschwitz Report (2021)
Copshop (2021 ) Shady swindler and con man Teddy Murretto (Frank Grillo) is being hunted by even shadier assassins who are out to get him. Desperate, Teddy purposely lands in a small-town jail cell for shelter from his pursuers. Unfortunately, Teddy’s plan goes south when he sees that the man across from him is none other than apex hitman Bob Viddick (Gerard Butler), who wants him deader than dead. Added to the mix is a young rookie cop, Valerie Young (Alexis Louder), who is trying to figure out just what’s going on as the chaotic criminal hijinks ensue. Buckle up for this taut ode to ‘70s grindhouse cinema.
MOVIE INFO
Release Date: Sept. 17, 2021 Director: Joe Carnahan Starring: Frank Grillo, Gerard Butler, Alexis Louder Runtime: 1 hour, 47 minutes MPAA Rating: R Where to Watch: In theaters
CLASSICS North by Northwest (1959 )
Call Northside 777 (1948 )
Pale Rider (1985 )
Dashing and debonair ad exec Richard Thornhill (Cary Grant) lives a charmed life. But one day while out meeting some clients, Thornhill is subjected to the worst case of mistaken identity imaginable. As a group of dastardly spies begins to close in on him, Grant’s charm and humor will have you rooting for him through his various trials and tribulations.
During the early ‘30s in Chicago, a policeman is gunned down in an illegal speakeasy during Prohibition. Frank Wiecek (Richard Conte) and his friend Tomek are arrested and sentenced to serve many years in the state penitentiary. Years later, ace reporter P.J. McNeal (James Stewart) begins to dig into the case, sensing that something isn’t quite right.
A small band of homesteaders finds their village terrorized by a powerful mining syndicate and their menacing leader, who begins using violence to run them off. A mysterious man, known only as “Preacher” (Clint Eastwood), rides into the lives of the humble villagers and attempts to pull them together in order to defy LaHood and his insidious mining company.
There have been many films that revealed the horrors that transpired at the Auschwitz–Birkenau concentration camp operated by the Nazi German regime. However, “The Auschwitz Report” illuminates an oft-overlooked angle, as it shows the real-life escape of Rudolf Vrba (Noel Czuczor) and Alfréd Wetzler (Peter Ondrejicka), two Slovak Jews who would later write the Vrba–Wetzler Report—a detailed account of what was really going on there. While distressing to watch, it’s a worthwhile endeavor to
follow the men in their desperate attempt to get their crucial message out to a world still largely ignorant of what was happening in the camps. MOVIE INFO
Release Date: May 7, 2021 Director: Peter Bebjak Starring: Noel Czuczor, Peter Ondrejicka, John Hannah Runtime: 1 hour, 34 minutes MPAA Rating: Not Rated Where to Watch: DirectTV, Vudu, Amazon Prime, Google Play
ACTION | DRAMA East of the Mountains (2021 ) Ben Givens (Tom Skerritt) is a retired doctor who is still mourning the death of his wife. He tells his only daughter, Renee (Mira Sorvino), that he’s going on a hunting trip, but what he doesn’t disclose is that he has terminal cancer. The film’s understated and scarce dialogue lets the actors’ brutally raw performances shine. There’s plenty to marvel at if one has the patience. A perennial (and reliably great) support-
ing actor, this time Skerritt takes the lead role, in this beautifully composed film. MOVIE INFO
Release Date: Sept. 24, 2021 Director: S.J. Chiro Starring: Tom Skerritt, Mira Sorvino, Annie Gonzales Running Time: 1 hour, 33 minutes MPAA Rating: Not Rated Where to Watch: Amazon Prime, DirectTV, Google Play, Apple TV
I N S I G H T October 15-21, 2021 57
Ulvsnes Island, Vestland, Norway, $2,596,913.
ESCAPE TO THE UNIQUE PRIVATE ISLAND OF ULVSNES Norway is one of the best places to wait out the Delta wave, according to Bloomberg By Laura Evans
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Ulvsnes: One of a Kind Opportunity Journey to Ulvsnes and discover an island retreat with huge potential as a private and exclusive home or a summer getaway. Equally, you may see the isle 58 I N S I G H T October 15-21, 2021
N O R W AY
Ulvsnes
Traveling to This Magical Island
EUROPE
Vestland is a county located in Western Norway, famous for its unique vistas of high mountains and deep blue fjords, including the UNESCO-listed area of Nærøyfjord. The county is centered around Bergen, the country’s second-largest city. From Bergen International airport (Flesland), there are several options to reach Ulvsnes. By car, it’s 45 minutes to Vaksdal, followed by a short boat ride from the mainland, where there’s both a parking space and docking for a boat, should you own one. By train? It’s just 20 minutes to Bergen city cen-
ALL PHOTOS COURTESY OF JAMESEDITION
esearch by Bloomberg places Norway among the top 10 in its Covid Resilience Ranking for the third month in a row. Deemed one of the safest countries to wait out the Delta wave, the Scandinavian nation has vaccinated 60 percent of its population while keeping fatalities low and opening up borders to inoculated travelers. With life moving closer to pre-pandemic days, Norway certainly holds much appeal. JamesEdition currently lists a rare lot: A private island called Ulvsnes, located in the scenic fjords.
as an investment for a boutique hotel or guesthouse. Either way, the 23-acre (9.3-hectare) estate offers a peaceful escape from urban life. On the market for approximately $2.6 million, the plot is situated close to Bergen, the capital of the Norwegian Westland.
Luxury Living Real Estate
A total of 29 buildings are scattered on the island, including the 20,000-squarefoot main house, several greenhouses, and workshops.
“Vestland County is famous for its vistas of high mountains and deep blue fjords.”
ter, then half an hour from there by speed boat to the island dock. And for helicopter owners, cruise 15 to 20 minutes up in the air before landing directly on Ulvsnes. With a history dating back thousands of years, it’s thought that Ulvsnes was once Crown land, and later under church rule.
Life on Ulvsnes Surrounded by crystal clear waters and with huge potential, there’s nature all around and total safety. Relax, rear livestock, grow herbs— the choice is yours. In the past, the property was run as a farm, adapted for eco and organic operations with greenhouses. If you fancy self-sufficiency and a green way of life, this is the place for you. For the thrill-seekers out there, head into the fjords by speed boat and enjoy watersports. Or how about trying your hand at fishing—perhaps you’ll catch something for dinner? And if you’re business-minded, consider renting out some of the preexisting buildings on a long- or short-term basis, be that via Airbnb, for summer camps, or other forms of tourism. There’s the chance to build a community or keep the island entirely private—that will be
down to the desires of the next lucky owner.
Ulvsnes: The Details Protected by steep mountains, Ulvsnes comes with a capacious primely positioned 20,000- square-foot main residence, five freestanding houses, a medium-sized barn, plus several workshops, storage houses, and garages. That’s not all: There’s also a boathouse, as well as a handful of greenhouses, a playground, smokehouse, and sheds. In total, there are 30 buildings spanning more than 32,000 square feet. Lush gardens and meadows, a wide variety of trees and plants, a football pitch, a private wharf, wonderful hiking trails, and unparalleled 360-degree views wherever you are on the island complete the impressive picture. The municipality of Vaksdal is just across the water, where grocery stores and public services can be found. Back on Ulvsnes, there are modern amenities aplenty, such as 4G and Wi-Fi coverage, upgraded electric systems and drainage, new water heaters, camera systems, and a floating dock. All in all, this is a multifaceted opportunity for a unique buyer.This article was originally published in James Edition.
ULVSNES ISLAND $2,614,397 23 ACRES OF WOODS AND MEADOWS MORE THAN 32,000 SQUARE FEET BUILT FEATURES: • 4G/WI-FI COVERAGE • STABLE AND UPGRADED ELECTRIC SYSTEMS • DEEP WATER DOCKING • SHORT BOAT RIDE TO VAKSDAL WITH GROCERY STORES AND PUBLIC SERVICES
I N S I G H T October 15-21, 2021 59
Luxury Living Motorcycles
2-WHEEL ESCAPE PODS: ADVENTURE WITH A PRACTICAL SIDE Remember, always ride safe and wear all safety equipment. A driver’s license motorcycle endorsement can be obtained by completing a practical riding class, such as those offered by the Motorcycle Safety Foundation (see MSF-USA.org). By Bill Lindsey
The Superheroes’ Superbike
Take on the World BMW R 1250 GS ADVENTURE 40TH ANNIVERSARY. MSRP: $24,020
The aptly named Streetfighter V4 is a 208-horsepower race-ready bike inspiring a steady flow of adrenalin. Weighing a mere 443 pounds, this stealthy black sportbike tames challenging mountain roads and city streets alike.
BMW perfected dual-sport bikes for on- and off-road use with the 1250 GS. This model features a “bumblebee” paint scheme. Add a set of panniers and it’s ready to take on Alaska’s Dalton Highway right out of the showroom.
Own the Road
INDIAN ROADMASTER ELITE. MSRP $38,999
Set up for coast-to-coast rides with roomy saddlebags, passenger seating, a premium audio system, adjustable flared windshield, and heated grips, it’s also a great choice for making a run to the grocery store. Offered in thunder black vivid crystal over gunmetal flake with red pinstriping, it stands apart from all other v-twins.
Renewable Riding Fun ZERO FXS E-MOTORCYCLE. MSRP $9,495
Its compact size tames city streets and tight parking. A top speed of 70 mph keeps rides “electrifying,” but with a max range of 50 miles (20 miles on the highway), make sure you can recharge for the ride home. 60 I N S I G H T October 15-21, 2021
The Ultimate Classic V-Twin HARLEY DAVIDSON STREET BOB 114. MSRP: $14,999 IN VIVID BLACK
The thumping Milwaukee Eight 114 V-twin engine makes it a great choice for twisty roads. Set up to carry a passenger in a pinch, it transforms the dreaded daily commute to the office into a grand adventure.
CLOCKWISE FROM TOP L: COURTESY OF DUCATI; COURTESY OF BMW; COURTESY OF INDIAN MOTORCYCLE; COURTESY OF ZERO MOTORCYCLES; COURTESY OF HARLEY-DAVISON
DUCATI S4. MSRP: $24,595
MASTERPIECES Wooden boats that marry classic elegance and modern technology
I N S I G H T October 15-21, 2021 61
Modern “classics” feature the latest electronic technology and creature comforts.
W By Bill Lindsey
ood gleams, glows, and adds personality to any object it’s used to craft. For centuries, wooden boats have been treasured for their beauty and their connection to nature. Unlike modern recreational boats that are built in a matter of days on production lines using fiberglass molds and machines, wooden boats were slowly handcrafted by artisans using the plank-on-frame process, requiring hundreds of individual pieces coming together in a manner similar to a jigsaw puzzle. THESE BOATS USED wood that had
been air-dried for months to eliminate moisture, then milled into pieces to achieve uniform alignment of the grain, stuffing cotton into seams to provide a degree of water tightness that was 62 I N S I G H T October 15-21, 2021
more optimistic than actual. It’s an understatement to say each boat was a unique piece of art with a distinctive soul and personality—and a tendency to take on water. BY THE 1930S, recreational boaters
were embracing the notion of boats propelled by engines versus sails, thrilled by the speed and increased practicality. Naval architect John Hacker is credited by many with leading the wooden powerboat revolution. In 1911, he built Kitty Hawk, a race boat that, with a top speed of 50 mph, was the fastest boat in the world. Through his firm Hacker-Craft, he and his craftsmen transformed mahogany into some of the most famous powerboats of the era. Magnificent runabouts, “gentlemen’s racers,” and commuter boats from Hacker, ChrisCraft, Grand Craft, and other builders transformed rivers and lakes into busy thoroughfares. However, the huge amount of time and effort required
Traditional wood style can now be had without the traditional headaches that usually accompanied owning a wood boat. for their manufacture meant only the most affluent could pay the price of access to the water. Just as Henry Ford’s assembly line reinvented the process of building cars, so too did the widespread acceptance of fiberglass revolutionize boatbuilding. The relative ease of using fiberglass allowed for the mass production of boats built in much less time by less experienced workers, and thus, they
Lifestyle Boating
The art of building plank-on-frame boats is still very much alive.
Custom builders work with owners to incorporate personal preferences into the design. High-tech materials and techniques blend aesthetics to create floating heirlooms. were priced lower than their wood counterparts. The use of fiberglass also eliminated the issue of leaks, wood rot, and insect damage traditionally associated with wooden boats. Consumers and accountants were happy. By the 1970s, the majority of boatbuilders had switched to fiberglass.
ALL PHOTOS COURTESY OF VAN DAM BOATS
HOWEVER , THE APPEAL of wood is
far from dormant, with Hacker-Craft, Van Dam, Grand Craft, and other builders busily creating modern plank-onframe wooden masterpieces. Their process involves cold-molding techniques first widely used in the construction of World War II aircraft. Epoxies are used to fill gaps in the wooden framework, add structural integrity, and provide a watertight seal. This creates hulls that don’t leak and are essentially impervious to the elements, decay, and termites. Equipped with modern electronics and powerful, reliable engines, these pleasure craft mirror all of the aesthetics associated with the classic age of
boats; they are eminently practical yet stunning pieces of moving art. Because the typical owner of a modern wooden boat has a strong sense of individuality, Van Dam Custom Boats takes the process a step further. Instead of replicating a Chris-Craft 22foot Sportsman or other classic design, they work with their customers to create a truly bespoke, 100 percent custom wooden boat with a lifetime guarantee against rot or water entry that integrates practical features in an unobtrusive manner. AN EX A MPLE IS bow thrusters. Un-
heard of when Hacker was creating a design, they’re invaluable when maneuvering into tight docks. Rather than offering a line of models that may differ only in color or interior appointments, each Van Dam boat is one-of-a-kind, perfectly embodying its owner’s vision. Schools such as the Wooden Boat Building Program at The Landing
Equipped with modern electronics and powerful, reliable engines, these pleasure craft mirror all of the aesthetics associated with the classic age of boats. School, the Northwest School of Wooden Boatbuilding, and Great Lakes Boatbuilding School offer programs to educate a new generation of artisan boatbuilders, thereby preventing the old ways from fading into history. This is a great thing, as the demand for these floating marvels shows no signs of abating. Bill Lindsey is an award-winning writer based in South Florida. He covers real estate, automobiles, timepieces, boats, and travel topics. I N S I G H T October 15-21, 2021 63
Travel Liechtenstein
A ceremony in Vaduz honors Liechtenstein's national holiday on Aug. 15, 2017.
Tiny Nation, Big Adventures
The German-speaking principality of Liechtenstein feels like a medieval kingdom
I
By Tim Johnson t’s the first time I’ve taken a city bus to a whole other country. Winding high into the Alps, most of the journey took place on a train, crossing the breadth of Austria, then climbing into the snow-capped peaks in Switzerland. Finally, I disembarked in the small Swiss town of Buchs. Taking in the colorful flower boxes on balconies and a busy little shopping street, I got directions the rest of the way from a friendly, mustachioed man working at the station. Looking a little concerned, he noted that I would need to change buses to get to my destination. “Take the number 12, descend to the platform, wait five minutes, and then board the number 11,” he said with a German accent, his expression reflecting that he doubted I could make such a complicated travel maneuver. Despite his doubts, everything went well. A
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60
Square Miles The diminutive Liechtenstein is the smallest country in the world to border two countries.
simple sign marked the border. The entire trip, including the transfer, took less than 20 minutes, right into the heart of Vaduz, the capital of Liechtenstein. Liechtenstein is a funny place. A micro-state sandwiched between Austria and Switzerland, skirted by the mighty Rhine River, its very existence includes a couple of interesting quirks. Covering little more than 60 square miles, just 15 miles from north to south, it’s the smallest country in the world to border two different countries. And one of just two to be doubly landlocked (meaning you need to cross two different countries to reach the sea). In some ways, this German-speaking country feels like a medieval kingdom, and perhaps that’s not surprising. Liechtenstein is still ruled by a prince, and the castle he inhabits with his family rests on the flanks of a mountain visible to many of his subjects, who inhabit the spreading valley below, and who number fewer than 40,000 altogether. The principality takes its name from the rul-
Travel Liechtenstein
ALL PHOTOS BY LIECHTENSTEIN MARKETING; TOP LEFT: MICHAEL ZANGHELLINI/LIECHTENSTEIN MARKETING
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Vaduz Castle is the day-to-day residence of Prince Alois and Duchess Sophie.
SWI
ing family who occupied Liechtenstein castle in Lower Austria as far back as 1140, and over the centuries collected vast lands across Europe, in Moravia (now part of the Czech Republic), Silesia (present-day Poland), and Styria (Slovenia and Austria). They acquired two neighboring lordships—Vaduz and Schellenberg—in 1699 and 1712; in 1719, Charles VI united them and declared Liechtenstein a principality in the Holy Roman Empire. When Napoleon took control of the empire in 1805, he dissolved feudal arrangements, meaning Liechtenstein no longer owed obligations to the crown. In 1866, with the dissolution of the German Confederation, the country gained its independence. It remained neutral through the two World Wars and industrialized in the postwar period. Later, under Prince Hans Adam II, the principality joined the United Nations, the European Free Trade Association, and the World Trade Organization. Through a series of constitutional amendments, the prince sought to increase his power. These came to a referendum in 2003, and Liechtensteiners voted to affirm his ability to veto legislation, although they reserved the right to remove him by a vote of no confidence, should they deem that necessary. Today, the 130 rooms of Vaduz Castle are the day-to-day residence of Prince Alois and Duchess Sophie. An actual, functioning residence, the
AU S T R
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LIECHTENSTEIN
Liechtenstein is sandwiched between Austria and Switzerland..
Alte Rheinbrücke, the old bridge that connects Liechtenstein and Sevelen, Switzerland. gates of this 900-year-old place remain closed for 364 days every year, swinging open to provide a glimpse inside only on Aug. 15, Staatsfeiertag, the principality’s version of the Fourth of July. But that doesn’t mean the prince is aloof. As I walked down a pedestrian street in the heart of Vaduz, passing high-end boutiques, watch shops, and the Tre Cavalli, a dynamic
1866,
bronze statue of three horses, I entered the naIf you go tional museum. Chatting with the young When to Go: Liechtenstein woman working at the is a year-round front desk, she said she destination. sees Prince Alois all the Summer invites time—everybody does. hiking, swimming, and mountain “They always bicycle biking, while its right through town,” high-altitude she said. location in the The museum is housed Alps makes it a in a building that dates great spot for winter sports. back to 1438 and was once home to a tavern, The closest and the seat of governairports are ment (but not at the Zürich-Kloten, St. Gallensame time). It’s fasciAltenrhein, and nating, though some Friedrichshafen. of the finer points get a Liechtenstein is little lost in translation. well-connected to the rest of Europe A series of antlered via trains, buses, heads—made from and highways. multi-colored plaid maThe public bus terial—line the uppernetwork within most reaches near the the country is convenient and ceiling over the main inexpensive. stairwell. One room is dedicated to cat portraits. And in addition to detailing Liechtenstein’s history, and displaying historic paintings, the museum exhibits stuffed examples of the principality’s wildlife, including mountain goats, beavers, and various birds of prey. It’s a reminder that, despite its diminutive size, there are still wild places here. Striding out, I passed handsome little residential homes and found the Rhine—broad but shallow, and the water a little murky and blue, in the way that mountain streams often are. A long, wooden covered bridge, the Alte Rheinbrücke (or Old Bridge) spanned the river, stretching more than 440 feet and connecting Liechtenstein to Switzerland. Having entered on a lumbering city bus, I marked another first—exiting a country on foot, by covered bridge. A one-of-a-kind experience, in a strange and wonderful little country. Tim Johnson is based in Toronto. He has visited 140 countries across all seven continents.
Vaduz Castle in Liechtenstein.
In with the dissolution of the German Confederation, the country gained its independence.
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Food Chefs
SLOW AND STEADY: RODNEY SCOTT ON GOING WHOLE HOG The legendary pitmaster and restaurateur shares the secrets to whole-hog barbecue— and making sure that ‘every day is a good day’ By Crystal Shi
CLOCKWISE FROM TOP L: ANGIE MOSIER; COURTESY OF RODNEY SCOTT'S BBQ; JERRELLE GUY, REPRINTED WITH PERMISSION FROM "RODNEY SCOTT’S WORLD OF BBQ: EVERY DAY IS A GOOD DAY" BY RODNEY SCOTT AND LOLIS ERIC ELIE, COPYRIGHT 2021 BY RODNEY SCOTT’S BBQ, LLC, A SOUTH CAROLINA LIMITED LIABILITY COMPANY, PHOTOGRAPH COPYRIGHT 2021 BY JERRELLE GUY, PUBLISHED BY CLARKSON POTTER, AN IMPRINT OF PENGUIN RANDOM HOUSE.
T
he first step of cooking a whole hog, says Rodney Scott, “is to get you some patience. Because you’re gonna need it.” Scott would know. The James Beard Award-winning pitmaster, owner of Rodney Scott’s BBQ in Charleston, Birmingham, and Atlanta, has been perfecting the art of whole-hog barbecue for nearly four decades—since he cooked his first at age 11. “It's going to take you about 12 hours. You can't rush it,” Scott said. There are no shortcuts, from burning the hardwood down into coals; to repeatedly shoveling them under the 180-pound pig to maintain the right heat; to flipping the whole hog over—a two-man feat of strength and finesse; to crisping the skin and finishing it off. (There are tricks, however, like learning to judge the right temperature by the rhythm of the fat dripping onto the coals.) Scott learned how to cook his hogs from his late father. He grew up in the small town of Hemingway, South Carolina, in a family whose philosophy he defines in a word: work. While his friends went to parties, he was picking tobacco on the family farm, minding the store, or helping his father cook hogs for their barbecue business. His hard work has since paid off, but not without heartbreak—he became estranged from his father when he left home to open his own place. Scott detailed his rocky journey in a cookbook memoir, “Rodney Scott’s World of BBQ,” released in March 2021. He’s not shy about sharing secrets—including recipes for his famed sauce and dry rub—but the real secret ingredient he credits for his success lies outside of the bar-
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THE FINAL HOUR: Flipping the hog, one of the last steps in cooking it, requires coordination and trust.
I try to find the best of every bad moment. If you're alive, you’ve got an opportunity.
RODNEY SCOTT Lives: Charleston, S.C. Age: 49 The perfect BBQ plate: Chicken, pulled pork, pork skins, ribs, baked beans, and mac and cheese And to drink: Sweet tea Culinary heroes: My mom and Anthony Bourdain Best part of the job: Meeting new people, creating new memories, and informing people that every day is a good day.
IF YOU GO: Rodney Scott’s advice? “Definitely order the Rod’s Original Whole Hog Pork Sandwich [pictured], ribs, chicken, collards, mac and cheese, and brisket.” Full menu, locations, and contact info at RodneyScottsBBQ.com becue pit: his optimism. “I constantly repeat ‘Every day is a good day.’ I just refuse to have a bad day,” Scott said. “I try to find the best of every bad moment. If you're alive, you’ve got an opportunity. “Be patient, approach everything calmly, give it a minute to understand it, and see how to make it to the next step.” His rules for life echo his rules for the pit. While that hog is cooking, “you take a deep breath and say, ‘OK, all right, take it easy, enjoy the moment,’” Scott said. “You set the pace, you set the tone. And you try to pass that energy off with every ounce of pork that you serve.”
Style Luxury Goods
Hermès Kelly bag
INVESTING IN LUXURY GOODS These brands have stood the test of time By Many Ngom
L
Chanel shoe
uxury products set a standard when it comes to quality, durability, and authenticity. Although the world of luxury goods is a mystery for many customers, their extraordinary craftsmanship, ingenuity, and timelessness make them noteworthy investment vehicles.
(CHANEL) STEPHANE DE SAKUTIN/AFP VIA GETTY IMAGES; (HERMES) STAN HONDA/AFP VIA GETTY IMAGES; (FEDERER) MICHAEL STEELE/GETTY IMAGES; (ROLEX) IAN WALTON/GETTY IMAGES
Some Tips To invest wisely and get a good resale price in a couple of years, always go with the original style and original color. Another tip: Never toss the original packaging (whether that’s a box, bag, certificate, or label), as it will help you confirm the authenticity of the brand.
Women’s Shoes: Chanel The iconic Coco Chanel two-toned slingback was created by Italian shoemaker Massaro in the late 1950s for Chanel. She wanted a shoe that would elongate the legs and give the impression of small feet. The shoe comes in nude to blend with the skin tone, while the black cap toe creates the illusion of smaller feet. Today, the Chanel website lists a pair at $925, while a gently used pair retails from $895 upward to $1,200 on
Rolex ambassador Roger Federer lar during auctions and are worn by many celebrities. Today, a Rolex, such as the Perpetual Submariner, costs between $10,000 and $12,000, while the same watch from 2012 currently goes for $18,500.
luxury resale websites.
Men’s Shoes: J.M. Weston J.M. Weston is a pioneer when it comes to timeless, good-quality shoes. After traveling to Weston, Massachusetts, and learning from U.S. shoemakers, Eugene Blanchard created his own company in Limoges, France, in 1891. It takes about 150 steps and two months on average to finish a pair of J.M. Weston shoes. Now, how much does this marvel cost? A pair of classic Oxfords purchased in 2015 would have cost you $800. Today, a brand-new pair costs $1,275.
Watches: Rolex What makes a luxury watch is its precision and durability. Even under the most extreme weather conditions, the time on a Rolex will remain accurate. As for durability, the watches are usually made out of durable metals, such as stainless steel or gold. They’re very popu-
Bags: Hermès Hermes is known for its bags and silk scarves, but the 170-year-old French brand got its start with saddlery goods. Initially, the Kelly bag was made for horse riders to store equipment. To get one, you may have had to wait as long as three to four years. It’s handmade from start to finish by a single craftsman, using 36 pieces of leather, 680 hand stitches, and 16 small nails. Today, it costs about $9,500, but a vintage version can be worth up to $300,000. Some fashion lovers choose to invest in luxury goods.
The Rolex wristwatch
Resale Websites Websites that specialize in reselling luxury goods will pay you upfront if you have a nice, rare product, or they’ll pay you once someone buys them. They could be articles of clothing, high-end jewelry, or accessories—as long as the product is well-branded, rare, and of good quality, you’re in business. Websites that resell luxury products include Vestiaire Collective (us.VestiaireCollective.com), The Outnet (TheOutnet.com), Tradesy (Tradesy.com), and The RealReal (TheRealReal.com). I N S I G H T October 15-21, 2021 67
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