President Biden has quickly caught up with the former President in deciding China is the new bogeyman, as Nick Drew wrote so eloquently last week.
The big issue raised is what does the world do if China is found, either through malice or incompetence, to have released Covid-19 on the rest of us?
One idea might be to hit them where it hurts. The Chinese take much pleasure in selling the West goods and lending us the money to buy, all created out of the hidden Central Bank of China. No one really knows if the Chinese accounts all add up - for China, as Communists, what so they care, the Capitalist system was there to be used against it.
But since they have adopted State Capitalism in China, we could en masse potentially exploit this position. If China refused reparations, the West and indeed practically every Country in the world could cancel bonds to the tune of the reparations demanded.
Normally, this wholesale abuse of the rules would be heavily punished by the markets, but if all Countries did it, investors might well believe this was a one off - plus in this scenario China is guilty and refusing any other punishments under international law or protocols.
Hitting China's debt would be a doubly beneficial punishment, it would reduce the Chinese appetite for lending at crazy rates around the world to further political ends. it would help the rest of the world cope with the debts of the covid crisis, meanwhile hitting the founder of it and causing them the pain which they had inflicted economically.
I know the Governments are busy working up their ideas for retaliation, I wonder if this might be one.
33 comments:
I think we have the cart before the horse.
"The economic pain they caused"
After the decades of economic relief that they bestowed us through their own hard work and low pay - easing the slippery economic slope the West were on because of reduced worker ability and productivity and welfarism.
It's true that our own layabouts live a lifestyle that the hardest working Chinese can only dream of - often enjoying the hi-tech goods that they've produced but cannot own themselves.
The cost of that was the creation of a communist colossus.
The virus was an inevitability - man made or not, leaked deliberately or not. It's certainly a viable weapon against the West now and China knows it.
Most of the debt has been caused by our over reaction to the virus.
Our fault, not theirs.
Any retaliation of the bond strike sort will lead us on the path to war - and we might not even know we're at war. More lethal variants just keep popping up.
Perhaps the most practicable answer is to make our people poor and unable to afford Chinese goods.
Maybe that's what Green is really about. Maybe that's what lockdown is really about.
Matt Hancock is the person who needs retaliation. He wants us all gene sequenced and wants shot of the Hippocratic oath ("only the jabbed should be entitled to use the NHS")
When the so-called Scientific Consensus held that the lab leak hypothesis was a bonkers conspiracy theory I knew better and pointed out that the hypothesis was entirely plausible.
Now that the American Left claims that a Wuhan lab leak undoubtedly caused the pandemic I repeat: the hypothesis is plausible. But until there's conclusive evidence that's all it is.
Christ, why do people choose to be so stupid and excitable?
Answer: because they see an opportunity for a nice little earner.
China will never allow proof the virus escaped from the WIV to come out.
They've had 18 months to destroy any such evidence, so at best it's going to be circumstantial.
China will continue to deny and deflect by claiming things like it came from a US military lab.
The world will just mutter how China is acting like a guilty person would act, whilst still buying cheap crap from them and accepting their loans and giving up control until it's too late and China are powerful enough to really flex their muscles and show the world what they are capable of.
Western governments are now permanently in bed with big pharma. New variant? Just produce a new vacccine and get it in those arms. Mental health issue? Here have this new wonder drug. Vaccine giving you nasty blood clots? Well we have a cure for that. Ad nauseam.
Boring existing condition? We're too busy with all this vaccine stuff to bother with you. Just go away and die. In the meantime keep taking the medicine.
Billy Gilmour (Scottish footballer) tests positive for covid showing typical symptoms - ie feeling and looking perfectly normal.
My area is awash with the Delta variant. You know what ? I've not heard one person say "God. I had that Delta variant the other week. Couldn't move for days."
If I may make an off-topic mention of the first Gulf War seen on an American blog:
"In regards to the misc class of threat, would you add friendly fire from CIWS to that? It is my understanding that it can be a problem. I believe in first Gulf war an UK ship shot up the chaff cloud the Missouri(IIRC) used against a missile attack."
A reply said:
"That's not quite right, it was the CIWS on a US ship (the USS Jarrett) that fired on Missouri. No injuries, but one bullet did penetrate the bulkhead (https://gulflink.health.mil/du_ii/du_ii_refs/n52en417/8023_034_0000001.htm).
Meanwhile the British ship (HMS Gloucester) shot down the Iraqi missile - it was the first ever successful missile to missile engagement at sea during operations. Quite an interesting incident actually."
I like the idea of cancelling the bonds they hold but there would be relative winners and losers from that process. And whoever is looking into possible retaliation has to consider how the Chinese would retaliate back. Maybe they would release another virus?
Back to China. On the Precautionary Principle we should nuke Wuhan.
@China will never allow proof the virus escaped from the WIV to come out
One of the most compelling things I've seen on this (can't find link tho) is some painstaking Bellingcat-style analysis of a series of emails & social meejah traces, detailing actions that key Chinese folks were taking (lab people, politicians etc) very early in the piece, which is strong circumstantial evidence they were indeed acknowledging (privately) a leak, and acting to clean it up / cover it up. Long before the earliest acknowledged incidence of virus in the outside world
If that's all cached, they can delete all the lab records they like & it won't make a blind bit of difference. All they can do is claim the cached records are faked
Incidentally, while I'd certainly seen - almost from the start - some vigorous Chinese BTL trolling to pooh-pooh terming Covid a 'Chinese virus' as being outright western racism (and some fellow-traveller woke-ists saying the same stuff) ...
... I never met a mainstream "liberal meejah" refutation of the "brewed in a lab" thesis as being fake-lunar-landing style nut-job bonkers. (Though I met several blatant vested-interest denials)
Was it really 100% baked in that no sane person could entertain that proposition? Literally everyone I personally know always considered it a prime possibility; and wouldn't view that as an opinion one didn't dare mention out loud, either
"Was it really 100% baked in that no sane person could entertain that proposition?"
In the public sphere it was. You would never have been invited onto any MSM outlet to propound such a theory while a certain Orange Man was in the White House, nor would your Youtube channel have remained up or your Twitter account etc. Don't forget Zero Hedge was taken off Twitter for saying this very stuff last year. You were a non-person if you attempted to say this publicly. It was filed in the same folder as Pizzagate and all that sort grade of conspiracy theories.
Obviously actual real people thought it, it was the most obvious explanation from the very beginning. But you just weren't allowed to say so in public.
Stumbled upon this. Some rather useful background info on where China is heading.
https://www.theepochtimes.com/mkt_app/roger-garside-a-coming-coup-will-end-chinas-communist-dictatorship_3863237.html
Thoughts?
M.
Interesting interview with Garside. I think he's too optimistic.
As for the virus, my opinion today is that it's 50:50 between an animal in the market and an accident in the lab. Either is possible.
I would blame the government more if it was the market. They should have stopped the sale of wild animals, dead or alive, in open markets years ago.
Don Cox
The USSR always denied everything. First response, first action, is denial. Whatever it was.
Still does it to this day.
Doesn’t mean we don’t know they shot down the airliners.
The USA traded very tough, very risky propaganda coups with the USSR.
Airliner KAL 007. Shot down in the usual sorts of errors and panic that these events happen, by soviet aircraft, in 1983. No survivors.
The USSR denied everything. Continued to deny it. Said they had no idea what had happened. Even thought they knew exactly what had occurred and where the airliner crashed. As they shot it down.
They continued to deny it from 1983, when they did it, to 1993, when they were themselves suddenly no more.
The USA risked exposing many secret intelligence assets to leak the records and the tapes. The commands and commanders who gave orders and covered up. To gain that propaganda victory of the Russians.
The USSR continued to protest, but the documentary evidence was there.
Wiki suggests US intelligence post KAL was significantly hampered by the soviets changing their codes once they knew just how much the USA was able to read. The USA did this as it showed the USSR to be the evil empire.
(*in 1988 the USA shot down an Iranian airliner in not dissimilar circumstances. A panic reaction by the USN ship. The difference was the USA cam clean within 24 hours.)
They might do the same with the Chinese. If they could wipe a few gazillions of $ off the debt.
For all the talk, nobody wants to take on China now the Orange One has gone. They are only making noises because the natives are restless.
Anon - M
Garside is interesting enough. Though a pessimist would point out that we all thought the internet would be the crack which broke the dam
China has weaknesses allright - the total lack of success in team sports, including Xi's much-loved soccer - speaks volumes for lack of creativity & willingness to take personal risks & responsibility
but the Catholic Church will tell you: if you have enough priests, central control over the Received Truth, and a doctrine & network designed to keep everyone on a very short psychological leash, you can keep that up for a very long time
my own (limited) dealings with PRC Chinese, is that they are rather well informed - studied at western universities in many cases - and cynical (they took great delight in pointing out to me who the commissars were in the group: they told me the coded ways of saying things). But the same could be said about the educated Catholic laity in any era
Peter Daszak of EcoHealth Alliance put a lot effort into shutting down debate around the lab-leak theory.
He was behind this message in the Lancet:
https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(20)30418-9/fulltext
This along with the fact Trump suggested lab leak was likely, was enough for the US narrative to be set that anyone suggesting lab leak was a conspiracy theorist.
At this stage it's looking possible the US in part funded gain-of-function research at the WIV, so could be partially responsible and therefore liable for the consequences for a lab-leak.
Don Cox: 50:50 animal or lab ?
The most virulent disease to have hit the world in 100 years happens to come from the Chinese town with a virus research lab in it. And no-one can trace it back to a source animal.
But I do understand. Let's offer the most generous odds in favour of the CCP in the interests of diplomacy and avoidance of a cold war.
Part of my reason for wanting a brave reaction to this disease is not just that the all-clear sirens should have sounded by now (we should be free today) but that our behaviour is being watched by communists both here and there.
It's like throwing your arms in the air and confessing to your potential enemy that your missiles are made of rubber because one of their drones flew overhead.
With China buying up properties and companies at the rate they do, if the West does anything monetary, all the Chinese have to do is evict and residents of their buildings and shut down the companies they own, plus foreclose on any loans they have made, knowing the borrower will be unable to pay it back. I shudder to think what will happen if/when Beijing demands that New Zealand pay back the money borrowed. No doubt the Chinese bailiff's fleet sailing into Auckland may cause a few headaches.
The Chinese follow the view that, to own somebody, you put them in your debt. How many countries, political parties, or politicians are owned by China in this manner, I have no idea.
As the Chinese place great store on maintaining 'face', perhaps one way of punishing them is to ban them from international sporting events. No Olympic team from China; no entry into the World Cup, etc. The humiliation may concentrate their minds somewhat.
E-K said...
Don Cox: 50:50 animal or lab ?
The most virulent disease to have hit the world in 100 years happens to come from the Chinese town with a virus research lab in it. And no-one can trace it back to a source animal.
But I do understand. Let's offer the most generous odds in favour of the CCP in the interests of diplomacy and avoidance of a cold war.
Part of my reason for wanting a brave reaction to this disease is not just that the all-clear sirens should have sounded by now (we should be free today) but that our behaviour is being watched by communists both here and there.
It's like throwing your arms in the air and confessing to your potential enemy that your missiles are made of rubber because one of their drones flew overhead.
9:04 am
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It's a lab escape FFS. One the clearly human created spikes from other viruses (such as HIV). 2. The initial infections were all clustered around the metro stations on the main line into Wuhan which ends near the lab. But the makeup of the virus is the giveaway. Sorry Don, you are flailing and sound like the Today programme.
Don Cox, my oldest friend (we met at school) and godmother to my daughter told me of the "terrible pain" she was in because I mooted the possibility of a lab leak. She said this theory caused her anguish, and although she had considered it as a possibility, she has "now seen the error of her ways". Of course the problem was uncivilised people eating bat meat! (She likes to think of herself as antiracist.....but I didn't say anything) That's North Oxford for you...it's a place where everyone is right and smarter than the rest of the country and very cross that the little people have informed opinions.
It is really hard to have an informed opinion as articles are constantly being deleted and top scientists denigrated, leading me to believe that scientific discussion of this issue is very partial.
Fund Jihad in Xinjiang, insurgency in Tibet, incentivize mfg moves to Vietnam, Philippines, slap sanctions on COSCO…..and recognize Taiwan.
... and (my new cry) ... Rescue New Zealand!
http://www.cityunslicker.co.uk/2021/06/ok-cold-war-it-is-weekend-essay.html
(... though I see NZ is fielding a trans woman in the Olympics weightlifting, so maybe a lost cause)
As you say Nick....if New Zealand can field a man in the women's team then perhaps they are lost. (I have a cousin in the Rowing! Let's hope she doesn't find herself competing against men.....)
Rest assured only the real women can demonstrate a decent snatch, Nick.
I think this one's going for the jerk ...
*Screaming*
Thanks EK you made my day LMAO
ND - "the total lack of success in team sports"
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2008_Summer_Olympics_medal_table
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/China_at_the_2008_Summer_Olympics
I think the wet market theory is pretty dead, they've been looking for the animal link for 15 months now.
A couple of people have noted the fact that 300 American military servicemen had just visited Wuhan as part of the World Military Games, that there were reports in November 2019 of a mysterious virus in Wuhan, and that the virus spread with remarkable speed to Iran, and suggested the virus might have come from Fort Detrick rather than Wuhan Institute. I'm sceptical because it would have to be an unauthorised attack with the potential for nuclear war as the result.
https://www.timesofisrael.com/us-alerted-israel-nato-to-disease-outbreak-in-china-in-november-report/
"the pain which they had inflicted economically."
"They" did no such thing.
The destruction of our economy, culture and freedoms are directly attributable to Johnson, Hancock, Whitty and Ferguson.
In a more sane time they would have all been hung which they truly deserve, as do the majority of the supine and hollowed out parliament.
The ever moving goalposts and subsequent official figures would make Stalin blush.
E-K 9.04: "The most virulent disease to have hit the world in 100 years"
Sorry that is simply not true. It would never have even reach pandemic classification if the WHO hadn't changed the definition away from actual harm caused in the naughties.
Lilith 12.21: the deletion of scientific papers and the stifling of debate is truly the destruction of science. In our MSM that's the OFCOM notice not to contradict the govt. policy. The deletion of scientific papers is the devil's own spawn of academic funding from industry, Silicon valley censorship and the odoius reach of Gates and his cohort.
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