To be so angry at the Chinese government

[HildegardeCrowe]

Because they didn’t shut the wet markets down permanently after SARS so another pandemic was inevitable. The rest of the world is now putting pressure on China to end it’s wildlife trade but this won’t be easy. Most of the world is in lockdown because of this trade and it’s so depressing to think history will repeat itself if China doesn’t get its act together.

The more I learn about how the Chinese abuse wild animals the angrier I get - the latest thing I read about is how they make the lives of bears a misery by extracting their bile.

Surely this is a PR disaster for China?

Of course the citizens of a totalitarian state are not responsible for the actions of their government. How could they be?

Okay, thank you, yes that earlier statement did answer the question, but I don't understand why you wouldn't directly answer Giraffe's question earlier?

I actually don't think the opinions are that far apart really, we all blame the Chinese government rather than the Chinese people.

I personally agree that the Chinese government played a big part in allowing COVID-19 to become a pandemic, but the mistakes of other governments shouldn't be overlooked because of that.

@Reginabambina

I just dont understand the 'not as bad as' rationale.

Whatever OP posts about there will always be a worse problem out there.

It's not an argument it is an irrelevance.

I personally agree that the Chinese government played a big part in allowing COVID-19 to become a pandemic, but the mistakes of other governments shouldn't be overlooked because of that

I agree. I imagine most people will.

Bovary
You are free to question any statement, as are we all. Nobody suggested you could not question the statement.
What is not acceptable is your attitude towards other posters and your critique of their debating style. It is not necessary.
So now you start on a personal attack on me.

So now you start on a personal attack on me

I have not made a personal attack on you.

Thanks Bovary for answering the question.

I’m grown up enough to admit that I phrased one sentence pretty badly, but reading it back, the rest of the post is very clear. I really don’t think it warrants that level of personal “attack”.

I'm not convinced our government would have behaved any differently given their current behaviour. Therefore I find it hard to throw stones.

You tagged me on a post suggesting I could not understand something..
So why did you do that?
It added nothing to the debate. I made no comment on the original statement. So what exactly was your purpose in tagging me?

Yanbu. China is a very corrupt communist state. No idea why it doesnt get more criticism tbh, people are quick to criticise Trump but China is hideous in comparison.

@ShanghaiDiva
What are you adding to the debate by your repeated posts to me? I have not personally attacked you. I am more than happy to ignore you. I suggest you return the favour.

Yanbu. Other governments are afraid to say "wtf?!" to China when they need to. And it's not because of "cultural sensitivities". - It's because of money and power.

Wet market just means fresh food, vs a dry market which is dried and tinned goods. A wet market essentially is like our meat and veg markets.

It's just some break the law and sell wild animals.

Bovary by all means question that statement. But your language is hyperbolic. You’ve said to me - “Profoundly disingenuous”? “Ignorance?” “Educate yourself” (when actually you had misunderstood my post), “if you were ‘rational’ you would know that”.

And then you criticise my debating style I’m sure we each have our own worth!

I asked you to argue your point without making it personal, but sadly it doesn’t look like you can. Which is a shame, as you did make a good point in one post which has been lost in all this bickering.

I'm not convinced our government would have behaved any differently given their current behaviour. Therefore I find it hard to throw stones

Hmm, would the UK government silence doctors? Would they be telling the police to visit a whistleblower doctor and force him to sign a confession that he was spreading false rumours (that were totally accurate). Would they disappear the head of the ER of one of the biggest public hospitals?

Or disappear a billionaire for criticising the government response? Imagine if the UK jailed Richard Branson for saying Boris did a shit job at handling the disaster. This literally happened in China.

@UtterlyPerfectCartoonGiraffe

but Chinese people are as stuck with their government as we are with ours

This is what you wrote. These are your words. It is profoundly disingenuous to pretend that there is any similarity between the way people in the UK are 'stuck' with their group and the way people in a one party state are 'stuck" with theirs. To pretend there is an equivalence is absurd. If you didn't mean what you wrote? The problem is with your clarity. Not with me.

Government not group

Hmm, would the UK government silence doctors? Would they be telling the police to visit a whistleblower doctor and force him to sign a confession that he was spreading false rumours (that were totally accurate). Would they disappear the head of the ER of one of the biggest public hospitals?

One of the recurrent themes in this thread, as in every single thread on this topic, is the determination of some posters to deflect the discussion from the origins of this virus onto any other topic. Asteroids. HIV. It's really peculiar. The other recurrent theme is to minimise and underplay the characteristics of an authoritarian state which makes suppression of inconvenient facts an instinctive response. False equivalence. Whataboutery. Deflection. Why?

Bovary this may not compute with you, but this is Mumsnet, not a thesis. I wrote a sentence with “as” when the situations are not identical. That’s called a mistake, as I wrote in the post above. Again, because this is Mumsnet, not a political thesis. I have admitted it was worded badly, so I’m not being “profoundly disingenuous” and “pretending there is any similarity”. I’m sorry if that doesn’t meet your exacting standards, please feel free to ignore my posts if it irritates you.

giraffe
Whataboutery, deflection, false equivalence..
Am just waiting for ‘control the narrative’ and my bingo card will be complete!

I agree Boveryx about the weird deflection here. Instead of comparing recent incidents there are people using historical events from hundreds of years ago that are irrelevant as well as people comparinh diseases that are in no way similar.

Hiv is awful yet its not airbourne and look at the research that continues to try and irradicate it so people can be free to live without worrying about sexual partners or sharing needles etc. Also a very big deal has gone into trying to rid the world of the stigma and help 3rd world nations wirh better education to try and prevent its spread.

Whereas here we have a novel illness killing thousands a day that can be spread by droplets in the air and we have people fighting not to mention where and how it originated and what the place of origin can do to stop this happening again.

Yes pandemics happen but no this wouldnt have happened like this if wet markets and living conditions of these animals and people were different. The fact they have already had a very similar outbreak in very very recent history (SARS 2003) should be enough to tell you human intervention is accelorating the species to species jumps and mutations that often would not occur in nature because these animals dont naturally live amongst each other.

I’ll take a “attack the poster not the argument” please, Bob. I mean Shanghai

(Was that countdown?)

I disagree: there has been and continues to be plenty of discussion on how it originated, what action should have been taken and what action needs to be taken to ensure this never happens again.
Discussion here, in the media and by govts: lots of discussion and rightly so.

Think it was blockbuster, giraffe