Covid 19: Sino global relations

Alan Harper's Tash said:
I don’t think I can be angry at a diet. I’m not a vegan. Chickens are dirty bastards, but we eat them daily.

This might be contrary to your view of me, as you probably have me down as a commie, Corbyn supporter, but I simply can’t hate a nation like you do. Labour has lost its shit over Israel because of how they hate the regime there. You’ve spent months castigating those people in the politics subforum for blind hatred. I agree. However, you seem to be doing the same with China in this instance.

I am massively uncomfortable with their treatment of their Muslims (Israel comparison?), but I am not in a position to do anything and don’t think it is relevant in our politics.

I can see you are a heart on your sleeves kind of guy and it’s admirable in many ways, but it’s not great online as the passion overtakes rationale and it becomes divisive and makes it passionate and aggressive where rationaled debate is better,
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I don’t hate the entire nation of China, it’s too many people and stereotyping isn’t my thing.

I am just fucked off at the lifestyles of a minority of them and think they need to sort their own shit out.

Had this happened in England, with people eating particularly gruesome stuff, to cause it. I’d be all over stopping it myself but they are seemingly letting it happen still, apparently the wet markets where it happened are back open, according to the Telegraph, Mirror etc. which I’m sure you can take for a pinch of salt but still, it wouldn’t surprise me.

The Easter European who reports into me came back from China. She’s not normally racist and has been all over the Far East, subcontinent, south east Asia etc. She’s already been to Cambodia and Myanmar in January this year for example and loved it. Her exact words were and apologies to anyone for any offence “I Love Asia and the people, but the Chinese are dirty bastards, I realised it quickly there”.

I appreciate this is inflammatory language but she was speaking to me honestly and confidentially and she said others in the region thought that of them.

Well Israel is complicated considering its surroundings and I agree it’s another thread, so I won’t comment on that.

I don’t see you as a commie, I suspected it though, there are a few on here no doubt.
 
Ban-jani said:
Scientists across the world are unanimous in thinking this was natural and not purposefully made in a lab, so that rules out conspiracy theories that China or anyone else did this on purpose.

However I think I’m fairly confident that they’ll use this current situation to get one over on America.

I just hope the world rallies behind the US.
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They're doing their best to make sure we don't though, most recently stealing face masks due for Berlin because they were made by a US company (in Thailand).

But yeah, China is full of shit. I don't believe any official figures coming out of there. I think all countries are finding it difficult to measure exactly how many people have the virus, but authoritarian regimes have more incentive than most to keep the true figures under wraps and create a narrative where the quick action of a competent government stopped it. The official number of deaths caused by Chernobyl still stands at just 31, for example.

Perhaps an issue that needs addressing going forward is Chinese influence of major international organisations like the WHO and their attempts to control Western companies. This prevented information for being freely share with Taiwan, for example. I think the ongoing pandering to China's delusions on this issue needs to stop and we need to call their bluff on that one. People act like China holds all the cards, but in reality, they'd be hurt just as much by any restriction in trade. And in recent years, we've seen China increasingly throwing their weight around on issues like this, trying to ban Western companies that list Taiwan and Hong Kong (quite reasonably, given they have a different currency) as separate territories on their website, or using their large number of international students to try and influence what is taught in our universities.

The other thing that needs to change is the grossly unequal access to each others' markets where they basically use access to the Chinese market to take Western companies' technology and then 5 years later, are able to use that technology to freely bid on projects in Western countries on equal terms.

Having said that, all of those are issues that predate coronavirus.
 
Ban-jani said:
You’ve missed my point about the economy in China.

Like us, they didn’t act quick enough because acting would undoubtedly ruin the economy.

We waited and waited because the measures needed were very strong and economic suicide. It was hard to do whilst it wasn’t ravaging Britain.

Similarly the CCP didn’t want to kill their economy but they covered it up for weeks and weeks, burying their heads and were far more sinister in their denial.

I understand it, I just don’t forgive them for it as it will eventually cost hundreds of thousands of lives.

You’re underestimating the CCP if you think the local government covered it up over the CCP. There’s no way they didn’t know in December and there’s no way they haven’t lied, hugely, since.

I’ve no doubt the West weren’t naive and slow mate, very much so too.
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Sorry folks. Ignore us both if you wish...

The difference is that the Chinese didn't know what they were dealing with. We did.

Unless you can furnish some evidence that they knew it could be transmitted between humans. ...

It was pneumonia. It was identified as caused possibly by a SARS virus. The initial cases were seemingly linked to a particular market. By your own admission it was being discussed between doctors in Wuhan and in Taiwan whether it might be transmitted human to human.

Now I can't imagine how the virus might have spread worldwide if China had announced "we have a new SARS outbreak that can be passed on" (think of last week's scenes in India).

Your stance on this is coloured by your references to "the CCP" rather than China or the Chinese.

Has China been totally open about this? No.
Has our government? No.
Has Trump? No.

The difference is that the Chinese didn't know what they were dealing with. We did.
 
Ban-jani said:
I don’t hate the entire nation of China, it’s too many people and stereotyping isn’t my thing.

I am just fucked off at the lifestyles of a minority of them and think they need to sort their own shit out.

Had this happened in England, with people eating particularly gruesome stuff, to cause it. I’d be all over stopping it myself but they are seemingly letting it happen still, apparently the wet markets where it happened are back open, according to the Telegraph, Mirror etc. which I’m sure you can take for a pinch of salt but still, it wouldn’t surprise me.

The Easter European who reports into me came back from China. She’s not normally racist and has been all over the Far East, subcontinent, south east Asia etc. She’s already been to Cambodia and Myanmar in January this year for example and loved it. Her exact words were and apologies to anyone for any offence “I Love Asia and the people, but the Chinese are dirty bastards, I realised it quickly there”.

I appreciate this is inflammatory language but she was speaking to me honestly and confidentially and she said others in the region thought that of them.

Well Israel is complicated considering its surroundings and I agree it’s another thread, so I won’t comment on that.

I don’t see you as a commie, I suspected it though, there are a few on here no doubt.
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We have trillions of bacteria in every g of gut content, and alongside the bacteria are billions of viral particles. You, like the Chinese, eat animals and plants to survive. Animals and plants are just one branch of an extraordinary interconnected web of life. The vertical inheritance that Darwin envisaged turned out to be a very simplified version. The branches of life are connected both vertically and horizontally (primarily by viruses).

Contrary to the old testament modern life owes its current existence to evolutionary biology and something that disgusts you is actually intrinsic to your very being. The cells in your heart and skeletal muscle contain tiny sub-units called mitochondria which are thought to have originated from a process of endosymbiosis whereby one prokaryotic cell ingested another. Likewise plants owe their green colour to chloroplasts which are another vestige of an ancient ingested prokaryote.

Keeping animals together in close proximity isn't a good idea if you want to stop viral transfer between species but China are not alone in this. We domesticate animals. Mankind has domesticated animals for tens of thousands of years. Open your curtains at dusk and you might if you are lucky see bats. Walk in the countryside and you'll see bat-boxes in the trees, and bat-droppings on the ground if you look closely. You can see where this is going.

Bats are not the only animal that hosts viruses. All animals do so. The focus is on bats because they have a powerful immune system which makes them ideal hosts for coronaviruses but the epidemic could just as well have come from influenza, or in another time Yersinia pestis the bacteria carried by rats that produces the black death in humans (in fact black death survives to this day). No doubt you'll tell me the rats came from China.

The virus will be stopped by human collaboration and good science, not by prejudice.
 
Vic said:
Sorry folks. Ignore us both if you wish...

The difference is that the Chinese didn't know what they were dealing with. We did.

Unless you can furnish some evidence that they knew it could be transmitted between humans. ...

It was pneumonia. It was identified as caused possibly by a SARS virus. The initial cases were seemingly linked to a particular market. By your own admission it was being discussed between doctors in Wuhan and in Taiwan whether it might be transmitted human to human.

Now I can't imagine how the virus might have spread worldwide if China had announced "we have a new SARS outbreak that can be passed on" (think of last week's scenes in India).

Your stance on this is coloured by your references to "the CCP" rather than China or the Chinese.

Has China been totally open about this? No.
Has our government? No.
Has Trump? No.

The difference is that the Chinese didn't know what they were dealing with. We did.
Click to expand...

id like to join in this discussion but can’t on here as I opened another thread on this issue in the politics thread. I can confirm though that I now know I am a racist which has been a liberating moment in my journey posting on BM and would like to thank some members on here for helping me come out of the closet.

I have even upgraded on my face mask to the KKK5 model which now gives me additional protection and saves me having to explain my views on who is to blame for this to the Chinese delivery man.
 
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