You keep bringing up the US’s response to earlier epidemics as some sort of counter to how badly China fucked this up, but, again, they aren’t even close. The US never covered things up. They didn’t deliberately manipulate an international body to assist them in doing so, and to deflect blame, and even give them a veneer of acceptability. It’s apples to orangutans as a comparison, especially considering that even now, today, the CCP is STILL not being open and honest. We really don’t know what the extent of the original infection was, how many people really died, how many people are continuing to be infected, or really much of anything. Anyone who thinks that, after letting this thing run wild for several weeks (almost a month) while deliberately suppressing information about it to the public, and even to their healthcare workers and during the run up to Chinese New Year, a time in China when there are huge masses of people moving about the nation, and that somehow they have numbers less than Italy or the US is…well, they can’t add IMHO. Even accounting for the draconian actions of the CCP by the end of January when they started to take it seriously (because, frankly, they couldn’t cover it up anymore), there is just no way they are being accurate with their numbers. And, now that they are, um, encouraging people go to back to work and everything is all clear (that’s what they are telling the public), there is no way we can have confidence that this isn’t already happening again wrt a cover up. We know for a fact that when Hong Kong relaxed it’s lock down on work they had a spike in new cases. Yet on the mainland nada? :dubious:
So, I think you are, as always, glossing over just how bad what the CCP did was, and trying to deflect to a US outbreak decades ago that has no relation this event.
This is plainly untrue. The virus originated and killed most of its victims in Africa. It likely spread to North America from Haiti or perhaps Europe. But keep tooting your Chinese horn.
Did you miss where I said I don’t like the Chinese government and find their human rights record appalling?
And the USA has zero standing to point fingers at anyone else imprisoning ethnic groups
The islands thing was just an example, not the sum total of Chinese activity, I’m well aware.
Still, no Chinese aircraft carriers are launching drone strikes at weddings in my neck of the woods. Or anywhere.
Funny how theocracy is only bad if it’s Iran…
And no, I disagree that the Tibet body count (which, let’s remember, is for 70 years) is anything like that combined total. Just the Vietnam War total count is more.
I pay close attention. Just like I pay close attention to what the USA is doing … and has done.
Yes, I know. It’s in the same city as Camp Lemonnier…
I’m cautiously optimistic.
It certainly can’t be worse than the IMF/World Bank development model.
Insulting me is obviously just the right tack to take for a civil debate…
Wow, so rare for someone to just own their own bigotry like that.
Again, you focus on only that part. Yes there was a cover up for 10 days by the local government. That’s appalling. There was also a very fast quarantine (even considering the cover up), sequencing of the genome and infection data, widespread testing etc. Considering all factors, this is much better than the US response to H1N1 or HIV.
Yes it originated in Africa. I just said that.
But as for killing most of its victims, in 1989 there were 145,000 cases according to WHO, 100,000 of which were in the US. So cite for most of them being in Africa at that time?
Just going to take this one part out. Why? Can you explain why the US has no standing on this? Also…why would the US having a standing or not have anything to do with what’s going on? I’m trying to understand how you are making comparisons here, especially since you seem offended but some of the things I said. So, let’s just focus on this one thing…it will give me a better idea of where you are coming from. This isn’t really a hijack of the OP, as stuff like this and the perception of folks like you on it will certainly impact China’s new place in the world post-pandemic.
It was more than 10 days, and the quarantine didn’t happen until the end of January. First case in November, first death in late December early January (if we can believe the info which all comes from the CCP), China officially ruling out human to human transmission by early January with the backing of the WHO, death toll rises by mid-January, lockdown of Wuhan by January 23rd with further lockdowns from there. That’s more than 10 days. During that time, local CCP officials went out of their way to downplay or even laugh off the virus. Encouraged the populace to take a business as usual attitude, even set up mass celebrations in Wuhan. And, of course, the whole suppressed any mention of this in the press, got the WHO to downplay it, and arrested people who tried to get the word out.
So, no. Wasn’t a ‘fast quarantine’. It was a quarantine that happened because, by then, it was too big to suppress. Even the CCP couldn’t keep it under wraps by then. And by doing what they did, and by getting the WHO to do what they did, many countries weren’t prepared for what happened next, as Chinese citizens went about their business as usual flying all over the world while infected. Their government told them it was no problem, after all! And the WHO was saying it wasn’t a big deal either, so all must be good.
Now, how does this relate to anything the US did again? How are the two things comparable in any way?
Because the USA also imprisons people on ethnic grounds.
Because I was asked whether I saw the two as the same, and then later you pointed out the ethnic imrisonment in China as though that should have an impact on my opinion. But my stance is that both the USA and China do this, so it doesn’t affect the balance of my opinion.
I was going to rip into you for posting blatantly false info and devaluing the lives and humanity of Africans. Then I remembered where you are and that you probably dont have access to factual data. The WHO actually reported 400K REPORTED cases.
The nature of the African labor market and war in this time period make it impossible to know how many people were infected at that time. Also, as opposed to North America and Europe, HIV was spread primarily through heterosexual sex.
Really? Can you give me an example? I mean, a recent example…I have no issue with saying that the US in the past did this, but recently? Not that I’m aware of. And I live here.
Also, there is the scale thing. You are aware, no doubt, of the scale of the Chinese imprisonment for ethnic reasons, yes? We are talking about millions of people for decades in Tibet’s case, and millions more in the case of the Uyghur’s. And, you know, there is the whole torture and execution, not to mention that spare parts bit that kind of makes it a bit more than even some fantasy US.
That’s fine. You are only concerned with how what they do impact you, personally. I get that. You are angry at the US for things that you don’t care about in China, and that’s fine. Most people don’t really care either, so you are in good company. Like I said, you gave a good answer, and I think it’s one that really does impact the question asked by the OP. Assuming the CCP survives all of this, their new place in the world is going to be guided by thinking exactly like your own. Which probably means it will be a CCP golden age. If that’s the case, it would be interesting to circle back to this in, oh, say 20 years, and see if your thinking is the same wrt how China has impacted Africa as a whole, and South Africa specifically.
No; 10 days between the start of the cover up (the block of the report from the epidemiologists) and informing the WHO. The case in November was retrospectively found to have been the first case of coronavirus; no medical system in the world has a magic tricorder where you scan someone and it tells you “New virus detected, human to human transmissible.” that’s not how it works.
Sadly, you do need a lot of cases to even know you are looking for such a pathogen.
Agreed. Like I’ve said previously, it’s partly a cultural and systemic issue in that nobody wants to reveal negative news prior to chinese new year and the party conference. And, like other world leaders I can think of, they just didn’t think it was such a big problem. They were very wrong.
Cite for getting the WHO to downplay it?
And as for suppressing any mention in the press, apart from the aforementioned 10 day cover up, they didn’t do a great job of that, did they? Because news articles were being published internationally on the same day as the WHO were told.
You live there, but you’re completely unaware of the extremely disproportionate incarceration rates by ethnicity in your prison-industrial complex?
…and millions of Blacks and latinos have passed through your prisons - while you have a smaller population overall.
Tu quoque.
You keep coming back to this, as though the body horror of it somehow outweighs the everything else.
Well, for me, it does not. It’s terrible, but it’s not a trump card for me.
You apparently get jack.
I’ve spoken quite specifically about international impact. Not just me, but the whole world. The USA does more than the PRC to make the whole world a worse place. And is not showing the slightest sign of changing, either. In fact, it seems to be getting worse the more and more you slide into partisan internal fracturing.
Keep in mind the stuff the China-posters are saying are just the same arguments the Soviets used to justify their authoritarian hell hole for its entire existence. Blasting the U.S. on its racial policies and etc, while ignoring grave bigoted and monstrous policies in their own countries.
Yeah and while I live in China, I’m British. Look I’ll prove it: c’or blimey mirry popinsh
Seriously I’m British though.
Although anyone just blanket saying they won’t listen to anyone Chinese, is, obviously, being bigoted. Not every American is a Trumpista and not every Chinese person believes state media.
(And even if we’re just talking state media, I’d rather sit someone down in front of Xinhua or CCTV than FOX. There’s nothing to compare to the level of editorializing the latter does)
No, I’m aware you live in the collapsing shithole that is South Africa as opposed to the robust but authoritarian shithole that is the PRC.
I’m old enough that I actually lived through the Cold War, you didn’t have to be a Russian to spew Soviet propaganda anymore than you have to be ethnic native born Han Chinese to spew PRC propaganda.
When I said “*almost *word-for-word”, Tamerlane, it was with the thinking that there would be a "around half of " before “its people” in the America-flipped version.
This thread certainly isn’t disabusing me of that notion. Case in point:
