Hanson trashes China

By Victor Davis Hanson, TOWNHALL

Pandemic Is But One of America's Security Concerns

Source: Xie Huanchi/Xinhua via AP

The world was a dangerous place before — and will be after — the coronavirus pandemic.While Americans debate the proper ongoing response to the virus and argue over the infection’s origins, nature and trajectory, they may have tuned out other, often just as scary, news.

Many Americans are irate at China for its dishonest and lethal suppression of knowledge about the viral outbreak. But they may forget that China has other huge problems, too.

Its overseas brand is tarnished. Importers can never again be sure of the safety or reliability of Chinese exports. They will know only that their producer is a serial falsifier that is capable of anything to ensure power and profits.

Even China’s vaunted propaganda machine that slanders its critics as racists and xenophobes no longer works. The sheer number of countries that have suffered huge human and financial losses from Chinese lying won’t believe another word from Beijing.

How will China collect its Silk Road debts from now-bankrupt Asian and African countries? Most of them are accusing China of being racist and responsible for the global epidemic that wrecked the very economies from which China planned to harvest profits.

China was beginning to lose the trade war with the U.S. even before the virus struck. Americans think that China is huge, powerful and rich. In truth, Chinese per capita income is about a sixth of America’s.

China produces only about two-thirds the nominal GDP of the United States despite having over four times as many people. Hundreds of millions of rural Chinese remain trapped in poverty.

Beijing should expect that lots of industries will return to the U.S. Thousands of Chinese students and researchers will likely go home, too. Their absorption of American science and technology was critical to Chinese industry.

China, however, will not meekly accept its new reduced post-viral status. Instead, it will act even more provocatively and desperately than ever.

Rumors have spread that China may be conducting nuclear tests in violation of zero-yield global agreements. If true, it reminds us that our adversaries are most dangerous when cornered and wounded.

Iran, battered by U.S.-led sanctions, domestic unrest, serial government lying and an inept response to the epidemic, has now sent naval vessels into the Persian Gulf to harass U.S. warships.

The Iranians concede that they could easily be blown out of the water by the U.S. Navy. But their larger intention is to goad America into getting bogged down in a Middle East standoff during the coronavirus panic — and right before the November election.

Baiting America may be a dangerous strategy for Iran, but it is running out of choices as crashing oil prices, trade sanctions and the costs of dealing with the virus have all bankrupted the country

Iran can hardly expect help from its usual patrons — China, Russia and North Korea. China is now an international outlaw facing a severe recession. Russia is reeling from crashing oil prices. And North Korea is embargoed and broke.

How all three autocracies dealt with the coronavirus is censored. But they likely face greater internal unrest and more poverty. Expect all of them to become more provocative as the U.S. election approaches. They hope Trump will be gone in 2021, replaced by a more malleable president who can be bullied.

The United Nations has been mostly absent during the global pandemic. The two democracies that the U.N. treats the worst, Israel and Taiwan, have done superbly during the crisis — in exactly the opposite fashion as U.N. pet China.

April 24, 2020 | 2 Comments »

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2 Comments / 2 Comments

  1. On the spot.
    Will the EU learn its lesson?
    The decision to let Yuhanes fly ONLY out of the country was DELIBERATE! And criminal!

  2. This seems like what happen for the Virus getting out of China. The Communist Chinese are not to be trusted or relied upon.

    It will probably not surprise you to learn I think Senator Tom Cotton has the assessment of the likelihood of SARS-CoV-2 arising from an accidental exposure of a naturally occurring virus just about right:

    While the Chinese government denies the possibility of a lab leak, its actions tell a different story. The Chinese military posted its top epidemiologist to the Institute of Virology in January. In February Chairman Xi Jinping urged swift implementation of new biosafety rules to govern pathogens in laboratory settings. Academic papers about the virus’s origins are now subject to prior restraint by the government.

    In early January, enforcers threatened doctors who warned their colleagues about the virus. Among them was Li Wenliang, who died of Covid-19 in February. Laboratories working to sequence the virus’s genetic code were ordered to destroy their samples. The laboratory that first published the virus’s genome was shut down, Hong Kong’s South China Morning Post reported in February.

    This evidence is circumstantial, to be sure, but it all points toward the Wuhan labs. Thanks to the Chinese coverup, we may never have direct, conclusive evidence—intelligence rarely works that way—but Americans justifiably can use common sense to follow the inherent logic of events to their likely conclusion.

    https://www.nationalreview.com/the-morning-jolt/moving-out-and-not-coming-back/