Hi
What would happen if China were asked to pay damages for the corona virus outbreak? If indeed countries like Singapore and Japan (now on the brink of recession) ever sought damages, would it happen and how would it be done?
I look forward to your feedback
You’d have a new mortality wave as a bunch of Chinese government officials died laughing?
Good question.
I think China has a decent defense in that they tried to contain the spread and were forthcoming to the rest of the world. Sure they were slow and not entirely honest but I think they have a reasonable case. Not to mention, good luck suing China.
I think that the passengers confined to the cruise ship in Japan are going to be much more successful in any possible litigation.
Ding Ding Ding!
(right answer)
China’s economy is large enough that they could probably tell any other nation to fuck off who asked it for reparations.
I do wonder if this virus combined with the trade war is what kicks off a global recession.
China would refuse to pay.
It would set a bad precedent. It would be like fining Japan because of Fukushima leaking radioactive water into the sea.
It’s not obvious to me why that (Fukushima) is a bad precedent, given the negligence involved.
Has a state ever been found liable for an epidemic at the international level? I think historically, plagues have always been considered a natural part of life, like the weather - they’re not anyone’s fault.
How much does the US owe for 2009’s H1N1? Given 284,000 are thought to have died to this, there’s a big bill for someone.
(Yes I know the virus started in Mexico, but why should the origin be the sole determining factor and not where the virus incidence spread out of control? If China showed evidence that, say, a visitor from Mongolia brought covid to Wuhan, would that remove any responsibility from China?)
In summary: bad idea
Your summary is right, but your analogy sucks. The US didn’t try and cover H1N1 up, nor did we fuck up by the numbers in the early handling of it, substantially adding to it’s spread not only across the nation but getting out to the world. Whether the virus started in Mongolia, it was the CCP that DID try and cover it up, down play it, stifle discussion about it, and basically tell countries like the US early in January that there wasn’t any problem and they didn’t need any help.
That said, there is little any other country could do to compel China to pay damages, and it WOULD set a very bad precedence. I think the shit the CCP is getting in China and with any news organization or health organization that doesn’t have their nose so far up the CCPs ass is punishment enough, as this has seriously hurt their image going forward and has made a whole lot of folks on the Chinese mainland really, REALLY angry and questioning a lot of things. It’s also made companies who manufacture stuff in China think that maybe it’s not such a good idea after all, when this sort of thing could happen at any time if you have a government who does this sort of stupid, silly shit.
Believe it or now, repressive government, and red tape notwithstanding, tourism is more than 10% of China’s GDP. For comparison, it’s less than 3% of the US’s GDP. This fucks China up pretty bad, so it IS paying, and is going to continue to pay, because this is going to have repercussions for a while, even if the virus is tamped down, and tourism picks back up.
That’s laughable. China doesn’t want the virus to spread - it’s hurting them more than any other country. There are Chinese companies that are unable to operate right now because they can’t let their employees into their offices. None of that is good for China. So even if there are things they aren’t telling the rest of the world, that does not equate to them not trying their hardest to contain it.
Besides, what disease was it that originated in US? There was one that they believe formed in another country, but the first infected person was in Kansas.
Plagues and diseases have been happening since the beginning of time. They will continue to happen.
I don’t think that’s a fair summary. Yes, a couple of weeks were wasted by the government initially trying to censor, and even arresting some doctors. (The reason for this BTW is thought not to be to save face in any sense internationally, but to play down any bad news ahead of Chinese new year). Already some officials have been fired over this, but reforms are being put in place such that you can be sure that false positives will be more likely than censorship going forwards.
But since then the response has been as comprehensive and open as the world has ever seen; very fast sequencing and distribution of scientific information, statistics publically released, and extreme measures taken including quarantining tens of millions of people and a curfew on hundreds of millions.
I think it would take extraordinary mental gymnastics to claim that the US is not liable for utterly failing to contain the spread of a virus that has gone on to kill hundreds of thousands, but China is liable for covid, despite the extreme measures taken and the almost non-existent effect on other countries to date.
(And again, in case there’s any misunderstanding: I don’t think any country should be held financially accountable for damages caused by contagious disease. Unless one is used delibarately as a bioweapon)
Your countryman, Yuval Harari had an interesting point in one of his books. That until the 19th century what passed for ordinary conditions in most countries on earth were so bad that if they occurred in a country today, that country would be occupied to general approval and its leaders shot.
Leave it to Tom Cotton to get to the bottom of all this:
What rationale would there be for holding China liable?
China is suffering more than anyone else from this, from the ill and those deceased to factories and businesses that have been shut down for weeks. Sure, they were slow to react in the beginning but that’s the norm. Certainly now they have exerting efforts to contain this new disease.
What neglience is that?
NO ONE anticipated the need for a nuclear plant to survive a major earthquake (which, by the way, it did just fine) and ALSO a 50 foot tsunami afterward. Even after that it limped along for a bit. With the benefit of hindsight we can plan and design for such double-disasters but what point to claiming “negligence” for an event absolutely no one foresaw?
And I don’t think this is a fair or accurate account. It’s come out that Xi knew about this on January 7th. And did nothing about it. Local officials not only did nothing but actually encouraged a business as usual attitude AND pushed for the continuation of a major outdoor event hosting 40,000 FAMILIES, when they KNEW about the virus. The fact that they went on to censor the news, modify the narrative and also rejected other countries such as the US (in the form of the CDC) offering assistance (then tried to lie about that and say the US has offered no help) really isn’t even the major failure of their government at all levels. To really stop something like this you have to react quickly once the threat is identified. Had they done that, they probably would have contained this mainly to central China. Now it’s all through China, all through the region and has gone global. We are lucky this thing isn’t as deadly as, oh, say really virulent versions of the flu because if it was, the series of fuckups by the CCP at all levels would have some VERY serious ramifications for the world, let alone for their own country and the citizens they are supposed to be protecting.
Probably why the Chinese people are extremely angry. I seriously doubt that the almost symbolic scapegoating of some local officials and party members is going to assuage that, but I guess hope springs eternal. It’s worked so well for them in Hong Kong, after all…
:dubious: That sounds like what most of the media is selling. Look how quickly they built a hospital! Aren’t they wonderful, and on tops of things!! And, frankly, they are STILL in cover up mode and still censoring information and comment, though a lot of really brave Chinese people still manage to get the word out despite the fact that many have and are still being silenced.
Horseshit. Seriously, just plain horseshit. Not really even worth addressing this as it really takes those mental gymnastics to say what you said earlier with a straight face (and presumably FROM FREAKING CHINA) and say this about the US response to a much earlier epidemic. :rolleyes:
Just to end this on a positive note (:p), I agree with you. I don’t think China deliberately shot itself in the foot. It’s their government system and some cultural quirks that caused this to be such a disaster, not anything deliberate. I certainly don’t see any way anyone COULD get China to pay damages or even to admit that the fuckup was their own and stemmed entirely from their failed government at all levels, from local all the way up to the Presitator for Life, Xi, and everywhere in between. This isn’t some sooper sekrit bio-weapon the Chinese developed and that got out into the wild or was released on purpose for shadowy reasons. It’s just a disaster that went global because of incompetence and the need of the CCP to control everything, and to try and brush any bad news under the rug, especially when it is inconvenient or might impact the bottom line.
I think that China is already suffering enough to add monetary penalties. But they are responsible in a way that the US isn’t for H1N1. The consumption of infected wildlife from a market in Wuhan is what started the outbreak. This isn’t a new phenomenon either. Other viruses, including SARS and MERS, originated due to consumption of wildlife such as bats and snakes. Yet they continued to have markets where such wildlife was on offer for consumption.
Right, who could possibly have foreseen that a tsunami would follow an earthquake, what an unlucky coincidence!
The Tepco executives were (controversially) acquitted of criminal liability, but:
Which is 8 days after it had been announced in China and the WHO had been informed. The rest of your first paragraph is similarly ill-informed.
So you use the dubious emoticon, mentioning nothing about what is supposedly incorrect about anything I said, and then talk about the hospital building which is perhaps one of the most verified events in history, being watched 24 hours by millions of people.
It seems a lot of my points are “not worth addressing”, as your profanity and ad hominem laced post seems devoid of actual arguments. But here we are all about fighting ignorance, so spit it out. What’s the argument?
Mistakes were made in the early days, just like mistakes were made with H1N1. It’s impossible to say the extent to which these actions caused deaths, you seem to be assuming that a perfect response would have completely contained the virus. Furthermore, China is now taking extreme measures, beyond which almost any other country would be able to. Why do they get blame for one thing, and not credit for the other? Or put it this way: China handles covid exactly the same way the US handled H1N1…do you think it would spread beyond China?