Can We Hate China Now?

[JimL]

From what I read, for weeks China knew that its citizens from the Wuhan area were infected. They covered it up and even jailed doctors who were blowing the whistle. Then they let citizens from this region fly all over the world. And they get upset when we call it the China Virus?

I think we all know now that China, for whatever reason, tried to cover up, the same way Trump, for whatever reason, tried to downplay the situation. But it isn't a chinese virus and calling it that is misleading bigotry to chinese people all around the world, including those here in the U.S.

[seanD]

They screwed up, royally. Now it's all about the leadership not taking the blame. Hence the cover-up, bizarre stories about it being the U.S. who started it and the like.

Very true in regards to how we'd respond. That would be a clear pretext for us to attack because we have the military to do it. They don't. Instead, they'd have to concede a vicious offensive against them that they don't have to ability to respond to. It makes them look vulnerable and weak.

I'm not arguing either for or against this. I'm just struggling to believe a Chinese official would publicly make that accusation out the blue. If they're that willing to believe such paranoid and outrageous things that have no basis in fact, then we're in serious trouble, being that they're a very unhinged nuclear superpower.

[Mountain Man]

It sort of makes you wonder why they went to such great lengths to do this. Their actions seem to imply this wasn't a natural pandemic situation.

They certainly seemed to know what they were dealing with while the rest of the world was still trying to figure it out.

[seer]

I think we all know now that China, for whatever reason, tried to cover up, the same way Trump, for whatever reason, tried to downplay the situation. But it isn't a chinese virus and calling it that is misleading bigotry to chinese people all around the world, including those here in the U.S.

That is just silly, we need to remember where it came from and why it spread around the world.

[Darth Executor]

Very true in regards to how we'd respond. That would be a clear pretext for us to attack because we have the military to do it. They don't. Instead, they'd have to concede a vicious offensive against them that they don't have to ability to respond to. It makes them look vulnerable and weak.

I'm not arguing either for or against this. I'm just struggling to believe a Chinese official would publicly make that accusation out the blue. If they're that willing to believe such paranoid and outrageous things that have no basis in fact, then we're in serious trouble, being that they're a very unhinged nuclear superpower.

Or they're lying to deflect blame from their malice and incompetence in the original response.

I guess that WOULD be far fetched and the most obvious and sane answer is that Xi "Honest Abe" Jinping actually believes the US unleashed a biological weapon.

[RumTumTugger]

Very true in regards to how we'd respond. That would be a clear pretext for us to attack because we have the military to do it. They don't. Instead, they'd have to concede a vicious offensive against them that they don't have to ability to respond to. It makes them look vulnerable and weak.

I'm not arguing either for or against this. I'm just struggling to believe a Chinese official would publicly make that accusation out the blue. If they're that willing to believe such paranoid and outrageous things that have no basis in fact, then we're in serious trouble, being that they're a very unhinged nuclear superpower.

Why are you having trouble thinking the Chinese leadership would make such a false accusation like this and it wasn't out of the blue. China covered up what was happening when it happened in October they did not tell the world till January what do you think they would do when their cover up was discovered? Exactly what they are doing now putting the blame on someone else so they can remain in power.

[seanD]

Why are you having trouble thinking the Chinese leadership would make such a false accusation like this and it wasn't out of the blue. China covered up what was happening when it happened in October they did not tell the world till January what do you think they would do when their cover up was discovered? Exactly what they are doing now putting the blame on someone else so they can remain in power.

It's not that I'm having trouble accepting they would make it up. It's the reason they'd do it that disturbs me. No one's going to believe an extraordinary claim like that without evidence, so everyone would just assume they're obviously flailing. Yet to claim they were attacked this way, justifies a response. That's pretty scary, considering they don't have a conventional military to match us. Their only retaliatory ways to respond -- cyber attack, their own bio-weapon, nukes.

[Darth Executor]

It's not that I'm having trouble accepting they would make it up. It's the reason they'd do it that disturbs me. No one's going to believe an extraordinary claim like that without evidence, so everyone would just assume they're obviously flailing. Yet to claim they were attacked this way, justifies a response. That's pretty scary, considering they don't have a conventional military to match us. Their only retaliatory ways to respond -- cyber attack, their own bio-weapon, nukes.

That's not how they responded last time they made similar false allegations, under considerably crazier and more evil people:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opini...ing-dangerous/

In early 1952, the three-year-old People’s Republic of China faced a public relations crisis in the middle of the Korean War. After agreeing to let prisoners of war decide where they wanted to go after hostilities ended, officials were dismayed to learn that more than half of the 170,000 Chinese POWs had opted not to return to mainland China, an embarrassing public rejection of the communist system taking root there.

Desperate to divert the world’s attention from the POW debacle, on Feb. 22, 1952, the Communist Party’s mouthpiece, the People’s Daily, claimed that U.S. forces were waging biological warfare against China. An international commission, organized by the Soviet-controlled World Peace Council and staffed by leftists from the West, predictably corroborated the charges. But the allegations were bogus. According to material in the Soviet archives, Lavrenty Beria, then head of Soviet intelligence, noted that the Chinese created “false plague regions” and were dressing up ordinary burials as those of germ-warfare victims.

On May 2, 1953, the Presidium of the USSR Council of Ministers dismissed the accusations as “fictitious” and advised China’s leader Mao Zedong to knock it off. But China officially insisted that the allegations were accurate all the way until 2013, when Wu Zhili, who had served as the chief surgeon of Chinese forces in Korea, admitted that the claims were false and that he had been ordered to fabricate evidence.

[RumTumTugger]

here is the timeline about how long China knew about the virus

partial time line from the link

Why it matters: A study published in March indicated that if Chinese authorities had acted three weeks earlier than they did, the number of coronavirus cases could have been reduced by 95% and its geographic spread limited.

This timeline, compiled from information reported by the Wall Street Journal, the Washington Post, the South China Morning Post and other sources, shows that China's cover-up and the delay in serious measures to contain the virus lasted about three weeks.
Dec. 10: Wei Guixian, one of the earliest known coronavirus patients, starts feeling ill.

Dec. 16: Patient admitted to Wuhan Central Hospital with infection in both lungs but resistant to anti-flu drugs. Staff later learned he worked at a wildlife market connected to the outbreak.

Dec. 27: Wuhan health officials are told that a new coronavirus is causing the illness.

Dec. 30:

Ai Fen, a top director at Wuhan Central Hospital, posts information on WeChat about the new virus. She was reprimanded for doing so and told not to spread information about it.
Wuhan doctor Li Wenliang also shares information on WeChat about the new SARS-like virus. He is called in for questioning shortly afterward.
Wuhan health commission notifies hospitals of a “pneumonia of unclear cause” and orders them to report any related information.

Dec. 31:

Wuhan health officials confirm 27 cases of illness and close a market they think is related to the virus' spread.
China tells the World Health Organization’s China office about the cases of an unknown illness.

Jan. 1: Wuhan Public Security Bureau brings in for questioning eight doctors who had posted information about the illness on WeChat.

Jan. 2: Chinese researchers map the new coronavirus' complete genetic information. This information is not made public until Jan. 9.

Jan. 7: Xi Jinping becomes involved in the response.

Jan. 9: China announces it has mapped the coronavirus genome.

and people are wondering why china is spreading the lie about it being America's fault and not the responsiblity of the Chinese Government for it's coverup?

[seanD]

here is the timeline about how long China knew about the virus

partial time line from the link

Why it matters: A study published in March indicated that if Chinese authorities had acted three weeks earlier than they did, the number of coronavirus cases could have been reduced by 95% and its geographic spread limited.

This timeline, compiled from information reported by the Wall Street Journal, the Washington Post, the South China Morning Post and other sources, shows that China's cover-up and the delay in serious measures to contain the virus lasted about three weeks.
Dec. 10: Wei Guixian, one of the earliest known coronavirus patients, starts feeling ill.

Dec. 16: Patient admitted to Wuhan Central Hospital with infection in both lungs but resistant to anti-flu drugs. Staff later learned he worked at a wildlife market connected to the outbreak.

Dec. 27: Wuhan health officials are told that a new coronavirus is causing the illness.

Dec. 30:

Ai Fen, a top director at Wuhan Central Hospital, posts information on WeChat about the new virus. She was reprimanded for doing so and told not to spread information about it.
Wuhan doctor Li Wenliang also shares information on WeChat about the new SARS-like virus. He is called in for questioning shortly afterward.
Wuhan health commission notifies hospitals of a “pneumonia of unclear cause” and orders them to report any related information.

Dec. 31:

Wuhan health officials confirm 27 cases of illness and close a market they think is related to the virus' spread.
China tells the World Health Organization’s China office about the cases of an unknown illness.

Jan. 1: Wuhan Public Security Bureau brings in for questioning eight doctors who had posted information about the illness on WeChat.

Jan. 2: Chinese researchers map the new coronavirus' complete genetic information. This information is not made public until Jan. 9.

Jan. 7: Xi Jinping becomes involved in the response.

Jan. 9: China announces it has mapped the coronavirus genome.

and people are wondering why china is spreading the lie about it being America's fault and not the responsiblity of the Chinese Government for it's coverup?

That was one option.

[Terraceth]

Was the initial cover-up (i.e. the telling of doctors who were trying to alert people to instead shut up and not talk about it) actually ordered or orchestrated by the national Chinese government? The impression I got from reading about it before now was that it was the local government independently performing the clampdown.

[JimL]

That is just silly, we need to remember where it came from and why it spread around the world.

It's well known where and how the virus originated, but calling it "the chinese virus" is simply stigmatizing a race of people, the chinese people. It isn't "a chinese virus," it's "a virus" the name of which is Corona or Covid-19.

[Mountain Man]

It's well known where and how the virus originated, but calling it "the chinese virus" is simply stigmatizing a race of people, the chinese people. It isn't "a chinese virus," it's "a virus" the name of which is Corona or Covid-19.

And calling it "the Spanish flu" stigmatizes all Spaniards. And calling it "the swine flu" stigmatizes all pig farmers. And calling it "Lou Gehrig's disease" stigmatizes all baseball players. And...

[JimL]

And calling it "the Spanish flu" stigmatizes all Spaniards. And calling it "the swine flu" stigmatizes all pig farmers. And calling it "Lou Gehrig's disease" stigmatizes all baseball players. And...

And that it was done doesn't make it right, does it. The Spanish Flu didn't even originate in Spain, the first reported case was in Kansas U.S.A. And ALS didn't originate with Lou Gehrig either.

[Mountain Man]

And that it was done doesn't make it right, does it. The Spanish Flu didn't even originate in Spain, the first reported case was in Kansas U.S.A. And ALS didn't originate with Lou Gehrig either.

It's a bird! It's a plane! It's the point going over your head!