Mar 21, 2020 03:10 AM
(This post was last modified: Mar 21, 2020 10:08 PM by C C.)
[EDIT] Also, related: China Is Avoiding Blame by Trolling the World
https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archiv...me/608332/
Hmm... I got to thinking this kind of falls under perspectives thriving under hysteria and national survival, so reposted/moved it here.
https://www.newsweek.com/nigel-farage-ch...nk-1493085
EXCERPT (Nigel Farage): The West appears to be facing its worst crisis since 1939 because of a new global pandemic. [...] Yet one country, China, seems to be above criticism. As China begins to expel American journalists, I am left wondering: who are the villains of this piece?
[...] When President Trump has talked about the "Chinese virus" (others have called it the "Wuhan Virus") he has been met with waves of criticism and accusations of racism. In the House of Commons, the shadow foreign secretary Emily Thornberry even said of Trump: "Now he's calling it the foreign virus, blaming it on Europe for its spread and today blaming China." I hate to break it to Ms Thornberry, but Trump is right. And it is time we all challenged China.
There is plenty for us to consider. Coronavirus is the third major public health scare this century that I can think of which can be traced back to China. [...] Experts have warned of appalling hygiene conditions in Chinese wildlife markets for years ... bacteria, viruses and parasites [...the animals...] carry mixing and mutating in direct contact with human shoppers. ... Vietnam also got the memo and announced it will be closing down all such markets with immediate effect.
It's not just about hygiene. China has won somewhat alarming plaudits for the draconian measures it imposed to stop—or, just as likely, temporarily pause—the pandemic in its epiceneter, Wuhan. [...] the fact that China suppressed the truth about the nascent epidemic even among its own people, clamping down on whistleblowers delaying a global response by month, at the cost of thousands upon thousands of lives worldwide.
Isn't it time we in the West had a grown-up conversation about China, beginning with the truth that several layers of the regime—from sanitary inspectors to secret police— are responsible for this nightmare? Isn't this the moment when we need to remind ourselves that China is a deeply unpleasant communist dictatorship, a surveillance society that executes thousands of its own people every year?
[...] The Left screams and shouts about Trump and, indeed, about anybody it perceives as being on the Right. We are all smeared as racists, fascists and homophobes. These days many of us are classed as transphobic, too. But while the Left is happy to pummel us into submission on so many subjects, they barely say a word about China. What about the oppression of Chinese Muslims? What about Tibet? Perhaps Emily Thornberry would do better by attacking President Xi rather than Donald Trump.
Similarly, the Green lobby is happy to inflict chaos on our society any time it chooses. Groups like Extinction Rebellion have brought British cities to a standstill. Yet they rarely, if ever, speak out against China, which is responsible for most of the world's pollution. I find this contradiction extraordinary.
Ironically, the Serbian leader Alexander Vucic has been complaining this week that the EU won't help his country and praising his new best friend, President Xi, who has apparently offered to step into the breach. [...] The West's supply chains have become too dependent on China. To see China now exploiting a crisis that they have caused to spread their influence further and deeper into Europe should send a chill down our spines. If nothing else, Boris Johnson must see that his decision to invite the Chinese firm Huawei to build Britain's 5G network is the wrong one.
[...] I have no ill-will against the Chinese people whatsoever; nor against Chinese doctors battling the pandemic in Wuhan, nor against Chinese scientists working shoulder to shoulder with their colleagues around the world to break the code of the disease. But the fact remains that China is an ideological state with its own long-term purpose in mind, and President Xi—now in a totally commanding position in Chinese society—is not our friend. (MORE - details)
https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archiv...me/608332/
Hmm... I got to thinking this kind of falls under perspectives thriving under hysteria and national survival, so reposted/moved it here.
https://www.newsweek.com/nigel-farage-ch...nk-1493085
EXCERPT (Nigel Farage): The West appears to be facing its worst crisis since 1939 because of a new global pandemic. [...] Yet one country, China, seems to be above criticism. As China begins to expel American journalists, I am left wondering: who are the villains of this piece?
[...] When President Trump has talked about the "Chinese virus" (others have called it the "Wuhan Virus") he has been met with waves of criticism and accusations of racism. In the House of Commons, the shadow foreign secretary Emily Thornberry even said of Trump: "Now he's calling it the foreign virus, blaming it on Europe for its spread and today blaming China." I hate to break it to Ms Thornberry, but Trump is right. And it is time we all challenged China.
There is plenty for us to consider. Coronavirus is the third major public health scare this century that I can think of which can be traced back to China. [...] Experts have warned of appalling hygiene conditions in Chinese wildlife markets for years ... bacteria, viruses and parasites [...the animals...] carry mixing and mutating in direct contact with human shoppers. ... Vietnam also got the memo and announced it will be closing down all such markets with immediate effect.
It's not just about hygiene. China has won somewhat alarming plaudits for the draconian measures it imposed to stop—or, just as likely, temporarily pause—the pandemic in its epiceneter, Wuhan. [...] the fact that China suppressed the truth about the nascent epidemic even among its own people, clamping down on whistleblowers delaying a global response by month, at the cost of thousands upon thousands of lives worldwide.
Isn't it time we in the West had a grown-up conversation about China, beginning with the truth that several layers of the regime—from sanitary inspectors to secret police— are responsible for this nightmare? Isn't this the moment when we need to remind ourselves that China is a deeply unpleasant communist dictatorship, a surveillance society that executes thousands of its own people every year?
[...] The Left screams and shouts about Trump and, indeed, about anybody it perceives as being on the Right. We are all smeared as racists, fascists and homophobes. These days many of us are classed as transphobic, too. But while the Left is happy to pummel us into submission on so many subjects, they barely say a word about China. What about the oppression of Chinese Muslims? What about Tibet? Perhaps Emily Thornberry would do better by attacking President Xi rather than Donald Trump.
Similarly, the Green lobby is happy to inflict chaos on our society any time it chooses. Groups like Extinction Rebellion have brought British cities to a standstill. Yet they rarely, if ever, speak out against China, which is responsible for most of the world's pollution. I find this contradiction extraordinary.
Ironically, the Serbian leader Alexander Vucic has been complaining this week that the EU won't help his country and praising his new best friend, President Xi, who has apparently offered to step into the breach. [...] The West's supply chains have become too dependent on China. To see China now exploiting a crisis that they have caused to spread their influence further and deeper into Europe should send a chill down our spines. If nothing else, Boris Johnson must see that his decision to invite the Chinese firm Huawei to build Britain's 5G network is the wrong one.
[...] I have no ill-will against the Chinese people whatsoever; nor against Chinese doctors battling the pandemic in Wuhan, nor against Chinese scientists working shoulder to shoulder with their colleagues around the world to break the code of the disease. But the fact remains that China is an ideological state with its own long-term purpose in mind, and President Xi—now in a totally commanding position in Chinese society—is not our friend. (MORE - details)
