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?

@PlanDeRaccordement

Can you answer the question I asked? The virus was seen in November. By December 30th, Dr. Li Wenliang was warning about infected colleagues. When did China suspend international flights and travel?

So you randomly posting about xenophobia in China due to Covid is relevant but responding by saying xenophobia is a consequence of pandemics and is also in Britain due to Covid is

That’s appears to be your go to defense when you have nothing constructive to say Bovary. Were you hoping that only the Chinese had xenophobes amongst them? That Britons were too superior and evolved to not also have xenophobia? We are all human societies and human societies react very predictably the same during pandemics.

As you are already aware: China did not suspend international flight and travel.

Bovary X
Look it up.
When did the U.K. suspend international travel? Oh wait, they haven’t.

Mango
One of the funniest parts of this twisted narrative is the suggestion either the NYT or the WaPo are carrying water for Trump...

Sigh.
Everyone has bias. It’s human. The objective is to minimise it.
The US publications have a known anti-Chinese bias. You would be silly to expect to get unbiased information about a pandemic from a country that has had poor diplomatic relations with China.
That’s why I get my information from many sources and favour international organisations like the WHO. They are less likely to be biased.

The virus was seen in November. China didn't lockdown until January 23rd The fanatical defenders of China can't answer simple questions. Their tactic is whataboutery. They will cite HIV, 19th century colonialism, any random event that pops into their cluttered heads. Anything rather than Wuhan circa November 2019 to January 23rd 2020...

Well said @BovaryX but will be ignored by China's leading cheerleader and apologist @PlanDeRaccordement

I'm angry with the Chinese government too. They are awful in so many respects. I feel most sorry for the majority of Chinese people having to suffer under them.
It's wealthy people that buy these exotic creatures. They are delicacies. I'm angry the Chinese government priortises those wealthy few over the health of millions.
We do need to put pressure on them to improve conditions.
We also need to improve our own.

That’s appears to be your go to defense when you have nothing constructive to say Bovary

The person who has nothing constructive to say is you @PlanDeRaccordement. You are silent when anyone draws attention to activities such as forcing doctors to sign confessions. You are silent about rising xenophobia in China, yet you eagerly hurl acceptable of xenophobia at people who question the official account of when this emerged and its trajectory from local virus to global pandemic. You refuse to accept reports from reputable news sources and parrot talking points and laughable whataboutery, often involving rifling through 200 years of history in a desperate and failed attempt to change the subject. It won't work.

calling a poster out for advocating an entire race of people be exterminated ?

You're damn right it's a personal attack and I make no apologies for it. Where is the condemnation for what she/he posted ? Can't see any apart from one other person besides myself.

This person is allowed to carry on spouting bile?

The level of ignorance and mis-information here is to be expected.

Well done MN racism alive and kicking 2020

accusations

@PlanDeRaccordement

Do you have any comment on president Xi looking like Winnie the Pooh?

I only ask because you appear so desperate to defend China that it seems you might be some sort of paid shill!

So, YES or NO. Does Xi look like Pooh, in your opinion?

The US publications have a known anti-Chinese bias. You would be silly to expect to get unbiased information about a pandemic from a country that has had poor diplomatic relations with China

I also linked to British, Chinese and Hong Kong sources. Are they, too, biased?

That’s why I get my information from many sources and favour international organisations like the WHO. They are less likely to be biased

The WHO, unbiased? No one believes this anymore, why, they did block Taiwan from accessing the WHO. Hardly the actions of an unbiased organisation.

www.scmp.com/news/china/policies-politics/article/2145129/taiwan-accuses-world-health-organisation-bowing-beijing

“BovaryX* See my post at 11:36. No whataboutary there, and I’m far from a supporter of the Chinese government.

However, if you’ve seen similar novel respiratory diseases with a death count in the hundreds, you might not be expecting this one to be the novel respiratory disease that kills hundreds of thousands.

The Chinese government should have been expecting it. But the fact that they missed it isn’t due to them trying to take over the world, it isn’t due to some kind of cultural conspiracy, it isn’t due to them wanting to kill of huge swathes of their population, it most certainly isn’t because the Chinese are terrible people.

It’s governmental “cover up, pretend everything is fine, protect trade and economy.” and they majorly dropped the ball and should have taken it a fuck of a lot more seriously, and need to take responsibility for the fact they didn’t.

But demanding that they should have known exactly how terrible it would become when they were dealing with their first tens of deaths? Did you expect them to have a crystal ball? By the point it was out in the population they had already lost control of it. They locked down Wuhan pretty harshly and should have done it much sooner, but the timing of their decisions suggests they were treating it as a SARS/hundreds of deaths/it will blow over. Unfortunately that was the wrong decision

Would the UK have dealt with it better if the outbreak was here? In terms of how quickly the government responded to, by that time, a known threat, I’d say no. What would go on our favour would be that our whistleblowers would be heard, and not imprisoned or disappeared. But would they be taken seriously or drowned in a sea of “lefty liberals are taking away our freedoms!!” That I wouldn’t like to guess on.

Mango,
As well you know I was talking to Bovary and her using only the Washington Post and New York Times media outlets and their known anti-Chinese bias.
I was not talking about you and your sources. Carry on.

Mango
“Less likely to be biased” is not the same as “unbiased” please do not mischaracterise my statements.

However, if you’ve seen similar novel respiratory diseases with a death count in the hundreds, you might not be expecting this one to be the novel respiratory disease that kills hundreds of thousands

You obviously didn’t live in Asia during the SARS crisis. I did, it was a scary time and it had spread throughout Asia. Just because it didn’t spread to Europe doesn’t make it irrelevant. It was a major public health disaster.

So why didn’t China learn anything from it ... is what you should be asking yourself.

Seriously @BiBiBirdie rant against the Chinese government all you like but fuck off with the casual attacks against all Chinese people. Do you realise that people are not the same as their government? That plenty of Chinese people protest and campaign about the treatment of the Uighur people, about the concentration camps, the treatment of animals? They do this risking imprisonment and worse. There’s not one homogenous group of billions of people blindly following their government and agreeing with everything it says. Try to have a more mature view and cut out the racist shit.

As well you know I was talking to Bovary and her using only the Washington Post and New York Times media outlets and their known anti-Chinese bias. I was not talking about you and your sources. Carry on

You did lob that accusation at me in another thread. That WaPo story was citing information already published by Caixin. WaPo and NYT were not supporting a travel ban and certainly have no love for Trump or his trade war.

I’d like to see proof that NYT and WaPo are biased against China. What issue do you take with them specifically?

Utterlypetfectcartoongiraffe

BiBiBirdie
as ignorant and deluded as the Chinese people who caused all this

That is a disgustingly racist comment. Be fucking ashamed of yourself.

^^ this but mild in her/his call for the entire Chinese nation to be wiped out (since deleted)

But the fact that they missed it

@UtterlyPerfectCartoonGiraffe

They did not 'miss it.' They took aggressive steps to silence doctors warning about human transmission in December. Are you unaware of this? If so, educate yourself.

Wake and Bake
No comment. And no, I am not a paid shill.
I just do not believe in blame and venegeance for a natural disaster like a pandemic.
It’s clear wrong decisions were made by many people in all the countries involved but they could hardly have known that at the time. It’s easy in hindsight to say this is worse than expected. Even the U.K. scientists with months more data than China had were initially speaking against lockdown and taking a “let the disease spread” for “herd immunity” approach. No one made a wrong decision on purpose or to deliberately harm anyone.