Should the Chinese government be made to pay?

[Likethebattle]

Amig had been suggested that the Chinese government covered up the seriousness of covid19 to begin with and delayed alerting the WHO. They apparently let thousands of people leave the country knowingly infecting the rest of the world with a deadly virus.

If this is true can they be held accountable and made to pay damages to other countries? We face a recession due to their actions.

It depends on what they knew and when they knew it.
That's not proven, may never be.

Plus you are setting up a dangerous precedent. Every country is capable of fucking up. Look at BSE.
It's more likely a vast country with 20% of world pop would fuck up as against a small island nation, say.

I think they will suffer though, many countries will gather back their manufacturing to nearer home for some things anyway. Plus recessions in the West are bad for China anyway due to lack of consumer buying power.

Trump may rant and race but other countries will take a more sensible view.

It just feels so wrong that they covered this up. I totally called it in january, I knew so many people would be travelling for the Chinese New Year. I just didn’t realise how bad it would actually be. If they had been honest from the start this could have been controlled much better.

Yes.

They promised to ban the wild life trade after the SARS pandemic and they didn't. The UN, WHO and global governments didn't hold them to their promise.
The only way to get them to clean up their act is to have their GDP contract and the only wy that is going to happen is by consumers moving away from their products until they do.

FYI the wild animal trade in China is a 68 billion dollar industry. That's a lot of wildlife in one year. It's beggars belief.

Yes. There needs to be something of an unofficial global boycott at least, if there are no official ones.

Two SARS outbreaks in two decades is not acceptable.

In principle I’d like them to apologise and pay something but they’re absolutely not going to. There is no chance whatsoever of them agreeing to that.

But if this makes the West reevaluate our relationship with China, that’s a good thing. They have a corrupt government with well documented human rights abuses, and at the moment we are far too dependant on them for lots of products.

Less trade and more manufacturing at home should do the trick. Tarrifs to that end. Good for our recovery and guaranteed "payment".

Actions have consequences.

If they had been honest from the start this could have been controlled much better.

I doubt that tbh. The UK had plenty of warning of what was coming from seeing what was happening in Wuhan and then Italy. Did our government do anything? No. What difference would knowing earlier have made? None at all. We'd have just listened to Boris going on about hand washing and "it's a bad cold" for a month or two more.

I agree China should have been more open and honest but I don't think it would have made any difference. If the virus had originated in the UK would we have behaved differently? People can't even deal with lockdown now. If it was just some potential pandemic? Not a chance.

Can of worms that would be.

How would you feel if you were made to pay for the Iraq war for example?

This says it all.

"CHINA TRIED TO TALK NEW ZEALAND, PRAISED FOR ITS CORONAVIRUS RESPONSE, OUT OF TOUGH LOCKDOWN MEASURES"

(sorry, caps are in original)

www.newsweek.com/new-zealand-china-winston-peters-coronavirus-lockdown-1504016

Can of worms that would be.

How would you feel if you were made to pay for the Iraq war for example?

Agree. And Britain's two Opium Wars on China.

@PicsInRed

Sadly I can't see how to stop human nature from wanting to buy cheaper products from Amazon/Ebay, thanks to the cheap Chinese labour and raw materials, and their willingness to pollute their own homeland to be the world factory.

CHINA TRIED TO TALK NEW ZEALAND, PRAISED FOR ITS CORONAVIRUS RESPONSE, OUT OF TOUGH LOCKDOWN MEASURES"

And that's the key point. Whatever somebody asks you to do, you don't have to do it.

If someone asked somebody else to jump off a cliff, it's the cliff jumper's fault if they do as asked.

NZ is a perfect example. They said no.

Whatever China's government did or didn't do, whatever coverups, by January it was crystal clear what was happening there. Yet the UK government did nothing at all. Flights from China, including daily direct flights from Wuhan, continued as normal.

Aprilstory2

That's what tarriffs are for - they can be applied at the border too.
You'd also be surprised the magic a little "buy local" propaganda will do in difficult times.

Even if we should, how could “we make them pay”. We can’t exactly take them to court. And any sanctions would impact on us just as much, if not more. The last thing we need when the economy is on its knees is a trade war with China ffs

@Derbygerbil how about them writing off any debt owed by other countries, fines levied due to covering things up when the shit started to hit the fan. Lives have been lost and irrevocably damaged and our economy has nose dived. We should be holding them to account somehow!

As Derby said.
Additionally, if international groups imposed sanctions, who would suffer from this? Not the regime, the people would.

A US state (Missouri) and some Americans are suing the Chinese govt. Good luck with that as through which court damages could be enforced if successful, I don't know.

I suppose if countries built a case that Chinese knowingly withheld or mislead then maybe the ICJ could prosecute for something. All beyond my ken though!

Not the regime, the people would.

Revolutions evolve in a struggling middle class. If that enormous middle class begins to struggle further, it'll be game over for the regime. They know this.

Wasn’t that one of the triggers of WW2? Germany paying for WW1 and the resulting economic impact creating the right environment for the nazis to gain traction?

China fucked up massively and don’t exactly have a stellar CV but I don’t fancy history repeating itself much at the moment.

Viruses happen. It’s shit but no matter how much we point the finger it won’t change that fact.

I’d quite like a global agreement to provide a financial package to countries that identify a potential outbreak so they can contain it properly. I don’t know if it would have worked with China given they have such a strong culture of reputation and face saving, but it would go some way in taking the economic element out of the decision to quarantine an area.

Considering that we don't have a post Brexit trade agreement with them yet I don't think Boris will push this one

Hmm, Britain (well, England) pushing another nation to face up to and compensate other countries for the negative global impact.

The fucking irony of it.

@Nikhedonia exactly, a country being punished for what it inflicted on other countries....
Britain’s colonial era completely forgotten??

Yes they should.

*@Aprilstory2

How would you feel if you were made to pay for the Iraq war for example?

Agree. And Britain's two Opium Wars on China.*

This !!!

I don’t know about paying for it but the need to be forced to end their wildlife markets. The fact that they’re still going is shocking. There was also a report a few weeks ago that some countries including China were trying to hack into research centres and steal their research into a cure. That’s an abomination. They caused it and now they want to hinder the efforts to control it 😡

@cinammonbuns well, if England are willing to pay for their historical fuck ups first, eh?