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INTERNATIONAL EDITION | WEDNESDAY, JULY 21, 2021 Reaching Beijing looks the many to make tech unvaccinated a loyal arm of the state THE NEW NEW WORLD Ross Douthat Unlike other regulators, China is pursuing goal of ‘data nationalization’ OPINION BY LI YUAN Late last week Michael Brendan Dough- erty of National Review stirred up a mix When Pony Ma, head of the Chinese in- of interest and outrage among journal- ternet powerhouse Tencent, attended a ists by arguing that more understand- group meeting with Premier Li Keqiang ing should be extended to unvaccinated in 2014, he complained that many local Americans, whose hesitancy about governments had banned ride-sharing getting Pfizered or Modernafied often apps installed on smartphones. reflects a reasonable uncertainty and Mr. Li immediately told a few min- wariness after a year of shifting public- isters to investigate the matter and re- health rhetoric, blunders and mislead- port back to him. He then turned to Mr. ing messaging. Ma and said, “Your example vividly The alternative perspective, judging demonstrates the need to improve the from responses to his column, regards relationship between the government the great mass of the unvaccinated as and the market.” victims of deliberately manufactured By then Tencent had invested $45 mil- paranoia, the blame lion in a ride-sharing start-up called Didi The U.S. could for which can be Chuxing, which later became a model in try to expand laid partly on their the government’s push to digitize and own partisan self- modernize traditional industries. When vaccinations delusion and partly President Xi Jinping met with global by going in for on wicked actors in tech leaders in Seattle in 2015, Didi’s heavy-handed the right-wing founder, Cheng Wei, then 32 years old, interventions media complex — SIMA DIAB FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES joined Jeff Bezos of Amazon, Apple’s — or some- from conspiracy It took six days, a team of high-powered dredgers, more than a dozen tugboats and an unusually high tide to dislodge the Ever Given, right, when it was still stuck, in March. Tim Cook and Mr. Ma at the gathering. thing much theorists flourish- But the relationship between Beijing more simple. ing online to vac- and the tech sector has splintered badly cine skeptics inter- in the past year. Didi is now a target of viewed by Tucker the government’s regulatory wrath. Carlson to Republi- Days after the company’s initial public can politicians who have pandered to offering in New York last month, Chi- vaccine resistance. Leviathan in a narrow canal nese regulators pulled its apps from app The sheer numbers of unvaccinated stores on the grounds of protecting na- Americans — upward of 80 million CAIRO shielded its pilots from any blame and tional data security and public interests. adults — means that these perspectives has neither acknowledged the oversight At the heart of the Didi fiasco, and to a can be somewhat reconciled. On the one nor moved to change its procedures. large extent China’s increasingly ag- hand, there is clearly a hard core of On other issues, Egypt has promised gressive antitrust campaign, is the vaccine resistance, based around tribal Shipping industry receives changes. question of what Beijing expects from right-wing identity, that’s being nour- One of the fundamental causes of the private enterprises. The answer is a lot ished by both online conspiracy theories a shock but has yet to act grounding was the comical mismatch more complicated than it would be in the and the bad arguments and arguers that on issues raised in Suez between the size of the Ever Given and United States or Europe. some Fox News hosts and right-wing the width of the canal; Egypt has an- (This week, the Biden administration personalities have elevated. BY VIVIAN YEE AND JAMES GLANZ nounced plans to widen the canal’s nar- for the first time accused the Chinese On the other hand, the ranks of the rowest passage, where the ship got government of breaching Microsoft unvaccinated are much larger than the stuck. The canal authority has also said email systems used by many of the audience for any vaccine-skeptical When the Ever Given — one of the larg- it would provide more training for its pi- world’s largest companies, govern- information source and far more varied est container ships ever built, more side- lots, though it has not given any details. ments and military contractors, as the than the stereotype of Trump voters ways skyscraper than boat — got stuck But despite calls from maritime United States rallied a broad group of al- drinking up QAnon-style conspiracies. in the Suez Canal for six days in March, safety experts for the industry to re- lies to condemn Beijing for cyberattacks The vaxxed-unvaxxed divide is widest it dammed up worldwide shipping and assess the size of container ships, which around the world. The coalition included between Democrats and Republicans, froze nearly $10 billion in trade a day. have grown to leviathan proportions as the European Union and, for the first but it’s also an education divide, an age For the internet, it was a bottomlessly it looked for savings, and for ports and time, all NATO members.) divide, a gender divide, a racial divide, amusing spectacle. For global shipping, canals to make adjustments to accom- China’s Big Tech wields as much an urban-rural divide, an insured-unin- it was a worst-nightmare lesson in the modate them, there have been few indi- power as the American tech giants in sured divide and more. (My strong perils of operating a new breed of mega- MAXAR TECHNOLOGIES, VIA AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE — GETTY IMAGES cations of changes to come. the national economy. Like their Ameri- impression, based both on vaccine- freighter in a tight space. Strong winds were a factor in throwing the ship off course, and the Egyptian pilots The Ever Given is one of the largest can counterparts, the Chinese compa- hesitant people I know personally and It was, said Richard Meade, the editor appear to have made matters worse. The ship became wedged against both canal banks. container ships ever built. Its keel nies have appeared to engage in anti- anecdotes that show up in reporting, is in chief of Lloyd’s List, a maritime intel- floated only a few yards from the canal’s competitive practices that hurt con- that it’s a “good experiences with official ligence publication, “a wake-up call” for bottom. Well before it ran aground, it sumers, merchants and smaller busi- medicine”-“bad experiences with offi- the shipping industry. ning the public relations battle and in found that commands by the Egyptian was showing signs of trouble. nesses. That deserves scrutiny and cial medicine” divide as well.) But four months later, neither the ca- squeezing more compensation out of the pilots appear to have made matters Just before dawn on March 23, the regulation to prevent any abuse of The Kaiser Family Foundation has nal, a linchpin of the global supply chain, ship’s owner than in pinpointing what worse, sending the ship out of control to weather at the canal zone was wors- power. DOUTHAT, PAGE 11 nor the shipping industry that depends went wrong or taking steps to avoid a re- slam its bow and stern into opposite ening and the winds from the south had But it’s important to keep in mind that on it, has addressed some of the most peat. banks of the canal. The Suez Canal Au- picked up, cuing a burst of concerned ra- the Chinese tech companies operate in a The New York Times publishes opinion critical issues that led to the grounding. While strong winds — the original thority had failed to provide tugs that dio chatter among the ships waiting to country ruled by an increasingly auto- from a wide range of perspectives in Though it is leading the official inves- cause given for the grounding — were a could have helped keep the ship on cross. The canal authority had no sys- cratic government that demands that hopes of promoting constructive debate tigation into the incident, Egypt has of- factor in throwing the ship off course, an track, in violation of the authority’s own tem in place for monitoring weather the private sector surrender with abso- about consequential questions. ten appeared more interested in win- investigation by The New York Times rules. But the canal authority has CANAL, PAGE 5 CHINA, PAGE 8 He created a museum to show his love for art LOS ANGELES founded in 2013, Museo Jumex. Every work on display there during the Zona Maco art fair in May was by an artist from or living in Mexico, Artnet noted. The A collector helps elevate With Museo Jumex, designed by David Chipperfield and situated in the Ezra Klein the contemporary scene in Polanco neighborhood of Mexico City, Mexico with his treasures López joined the ranks of collectors Show who have started their own private BY ROBIN POGREBIN museums. Every Tuesday and Friday, “Jumex was as transformational to Ezra Klein invites you into To your left in the foyer are Damien Mexico City as was the opening of the a conversation about Hirst’s dots. Over the fireplace is a great anthropology museum in 1964,” something that matters. Louise Bourgeois spider. Opposite the said Marc Porter, the chairman of master bed are Cy Twombly’s swirls.