NOTE from Michael Roberts, 20 October 2020:
About a week back a Sri Lankan circuit of avid emailers presented an You Tube Video re China and the Covid virus. SEE ….
While I circulated it, I had immediate reservations –albeit without expertise on China. For ONE. The tentative speculative style of the charges levelled at China raised my suspicions: I read that as a technique meant to cajole readers into accepting the allegations. For ANOTHER, I had enough knowledge on China to laugh at the claim that Shanghai and Beijing were/are close to Wuhan – I have visited both cities as a tourist.
So, among those I sent the item to was/is an Australian who speaks Chinese and has considerable know-how on that arena. Here are his reports – memoranda of importance in raising consciousness about the dirty propaganda war that is being waged all over the world vis a vis Mr Covid — a war that is a continuation of longstanding contests and power-plays.
Beware the media –whether Western, Ukrainian, Chinese, Indian, Pakistani, Tamil-Diasporic, Rajapaksa-clones or One-eyed HRW advocates.
NOTE ONE, 18 October 2020
| I laughed watching this film because it is so obvious the filmmakers are attempting to manipulate viewers to take up the view that China is to blame for everything happening in the world. It is not artistic, but a propaganda film. Any form of manipulation involves propaganda, and this film is about manipulating viewers. The film contains a series of premises leading to the conclusion “something is fishy!!!” The premises taken together have a particular structural relationship. However, the premises and assumptions, taken together, do not justify or support the conclusions, and do not provide us with a good reason for believing the conclusions. This is partially because some of the premises are untrue but mainly because the film ignores many other relevant factors. One claim made in the film is: “The Coronavirus originated from the city of Wuhan in China and has now reached every corner of the world, but the virus did not reach China’s capital Beijing and China’s Economic Capital Shanghai…. the virus had no real effect on Beijing and Shanghai” When the virus started in Wuhan, the Spring Festival was just starting with billions of people travelling all over China back to their hometowns to celebrate the festival with their families. As a result, all of the major cities throughout China were affected, including Beijing and Shanghai. The reason why the virus did not take hold in Beijing and Shanghai, or other provinces outside Hubei was due to the effective and harsh measures adopted by the Government of China to stop the spread of the virus. I won’t detail those measures here. I find this film fails to understand China and the system of China. In China, the government adopted extremely harsh measures to stop the spread of the virus. For two months, the entire country was in lockdown, not just Wuhan city or Hubei province. As China has a very different system to the West, the Chinese people are very good at following instructions and therefore followed the advice of the government to save lives and livelihoods. However, Western countries do not want to learn from China’s experience. Many Westerners have chosen (wrongly) to regard the coronavirus as a political issue – i.e. that somehow it is about democracy and freedom rather than as a health issue to save lives and livelihoods. Many right-wing Westerners and the camp followers of right-wing conspiracy theorists went against lockdown and protested against measures that are needed to curb the spread of the virus on the basis that freedom is more important than people lives. These people cannot understand China’s system and the type of measures they are prepared to adopt to save lives and livelihoods and this explains why Shanghai and Beijing were spared and why their economies are quickly recovering. This shows the Chinese people are not stupid, but clever in responding to a new challenge and threat to protect themselves. It has nothing to do with biological weapons or plots to shut down the world economies and assert global dominance. That is so wrong and stupid thinking. In this pandemic, there are two choices. Do you want freedom, or do you want to live? As health experts know well, in this pandemic, you cannot have both; that for the greater good of communities, cities and countries, restrictions on freedom are needed to save lives and livelihoods. If you don’t fix the health challenge, you cannot fix the economic challenge. Many Westerners realize this, but those on the right-wing of politics continue to demand freedom over life; that there be no lockdown, that businesses should remain open through the pandemic. Many, including some right-wing US and Australian politicians, have proudly asserted that if old people die as a result, then that is acceptable. Many countries are now forced to go into lockdown, not just to save lives, but because their hospitals cannot cope with the huge numbers of people needing to be hospitalized. There are different choices that countries and individuals can make about this pandemic. Those choices have nothing to do with China, and so the argument and conclusions of the film are patently false. It is a propaganda film. The reason why the virus did not spread to other parts of China in a big way was not due to some sophisticated plot, but because of the harsh measures implemented by the Chinese government, which the West are not willing to accept. That these measures are not acceptable in the West is not China’s fault. Every country and individual must take responsibility for their own choices. There are many other factual errors in the film, for instance, it wrongly claims no political or military leaders in China have had the virus, but there have been cases from these groups in a number of provinces in China. It wrongly states Beijing and Shanghai are next to Wuhan. Wuhan is in Hubei province and is 840 km from Shanghai and 1,153 km from Beijing. Distance is not relevant. These are a few examples, but most of the premises are untrue. The argument the filmmaker is trying to persuade us is that because the virus spread around the world, that economies around the world have been “ruined” and the share-market has fallen, but China’s market has remain stable and that the virus is a biological weapon invented by China to give it global dominance is laughable nonsense. A major factor in the shrinking of the global economy has to do with a failure of many Western governments to manage the crisis. China’s success has come from going very hard in the early stages, adopting extremely harsh measures over two months, all over China, not just Wuhan, and they got on top of the virus and have since managed it well. But because China is controlled by the CCP, no Western leader, no right-wing politicians, filmmaker or journalist will give China credit because of ideology. Those on the right-wing fringe thus find comfort in creating silly conspiracy theories like the one manufactured in this film to compensate for their own failures. Many of the best leaders in the west to have demonstrated good leadership in getting on top of the virus have come from the left or left of centre side of politics. My advice to this filmmaker and to those watching it is if you are genuinely interested to improve your lives, livelihoods and economies quickly, the best course of action is to stop judging China, stop playing cheap nasty politics like this film does, and learn from China’s experience. NOTE TWO: Westerners are quick to judge China, but slow or incapable of understanding it. We should be slow to judge China, and quick to understand it Life in China is now normal. People have more freedom, no restrictions, normal life, economy doing well, and much of this has to do with China’s response to the virus in early 2020. China was the only country to impose a nationwide lockdown for 2-3 months. It was painful for their economy, but it was the right path, and they avoided the problems Western countries are experiencing, and their economy is recovering well It is stupid to think this is some crazy plot to overthrow the world and James Bond will save us. |
