I figure that there is so much tension around China and other countries like Austalia and the United States of America, I’d want to better educate myself in matters before I say something (which would probably be critical of Trudeau) that makes me look silly. I also want to read about what’s going on in the world as I seemed to have hyper focused on how Canada is dealing with the COVID-19 pandemic. I know over Facebook, in conversations with people, I have criticized the China’s handling of the this, and how similar it is to the first incident involving a corona virus; SARS. SARS is another topic that deserves attention, and also how China really didn’t learn from the first coronovirus outbreak. The Chinese Inquiry section will be where I will have posts related to various countries relationship with China, the handling of COVID-19 and all else related.
According to an article featured April 20th, by The Daily Mail UK, 8 of 10 Britons want inquiry into handling of CoronaVirus and 3 quarters of people believe that this is Beijing’s fault for mishandling the disease, as well as allowing the disease to spread1. Also, 7 of 10 people believe that ministers should try and take legal action against the Chinese Government, the accuracy of China’s death toll reporting has also been questioned.
The United States of America has urged its allies not to use China’s Huawei to set up 5G towers, over security concerns. Perhaps this is where the misinformation surrounding the 5G towers causing COVID-19 came from. The Henry Jackson Society, a UK based think tank that provided the UK with much of this data, suggested that the UK could win Hundreds of Millions win legal action against China over the outbreak, and the Government said that after this pandemic, relations between the UK and China will no longer be “business as usual”.
To make matters worse, on April 24 China rejected calls for an independent Investigation into the origins of COVID-19. A top level Chinese diplomat situated in the UK, Chen Wen, said that the demands were politically motivated and that would cause China to divert attention away from fighting the pandemic2 . The European Union accuses China of spreading disinformation, and the bloc’s External Action Services says that both Russia and to a lesser degree, China, have “targeted conspiracy theory narratives” in EU and neighbouring countries. Of course, the US continues to attack China, and the state of Missouri is suing the Chinese government over how it handled the prevention of the spread of the virus.
Not soon after, on April 29th, Australian Prime Minister stated that the call for an investigation is “entirely reasonable and sensible”3. Of course, Donald Trump has been met with substantial criticism from the Chinese state media, when he made accusations the Beijing could have done more to prevent the spread of the virus. While the US has stopped funding the US, PM Scott Morrison has said the government will continue to pursue this investigation.
Around this time, the world has already seen 3M people infected with COVID-19 and 200, 000 people have succumbed to the disease world wide. Globally we are suffereing, and for China to just throw up their hands and get angry, just seems like a very adolscent thing to do, especially when you’ve been caught in a lie.
Australia’s stance has angered Beijing, as Chines state media has made inflammatory statements, including that Australia was “gum stuck to the bottom of China’s shoe”, doing the work of America, yet “without holding any influence and risking long term damage to it’s long term bilateral relationship and trading partnership with China.
China also released a call from Australia’s Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, and in further move to embarrass the Morrison government claimed the DFAT secretary had said that “this is not the right time to commence the review now and Australia has no details of the proposal”. China’s ambassador to Australia has had warned over consumer boycotts, which was seen as “threats of economic coercion”. To make matters worse, A Tuesday night edition of the Global Times (the english language Chinese newpaper) accused Australia of “panda bashing” (haha, I’m not even joking) and victim blaming, also accusing PM Morrison of “adventurism” which can damage the Australian-China relationship beyond repair.
In my next post on The China Trials, I am going to focus more on how the United States plays in this, in almost every instance the US is implicated by China as being a mastermind behind this play. Perhaps Trump is trying to plot a war against China, before the pandemic there was trade tensions between America and China; still, China can say whatever they want, the virus originated there, whether it was in a lab, or in the wet market. At least I know why Australia views China as a bully.
Sources:
Andeluuu 