When I first encountered this tweet, I had to make sure it wasn't satire. Sure enough, here we have the editor-in-chief of a prominent and globally-known medical journal arguing that we should be grateful that the pandemic originated in China, and that rightfully blaming the regime in Beijing amounts to "bias." I can't imagine how pleased the Chinese Communist Party's propaganda machine must be to have Western "experts" aiding and abetting their cause:
“China Lied People Died” is complete & utter rubbish.
— Aaron Bastani (@AaronBastani) February 8, 2021
Not only should we not blame China for Covid-19, we should be grateful this started in a country with outstanding science and a robust public health infrastructure.
Richard Horton explains.https://t.co/Jl8ZWe44ia
The Chinese government deliberately lied about Coronavirus in the early going, withholding crucial information about human-to-human transmission while circulating misinformation laundered through their henchmen at the World Health Organization. They falsely blamed the US military for starting the pandemic. They punished and disappeared internal medical whistleblowers, with other prominent critics vanishing. They have stonewalled and manipulated investigations into the origins of the pandemic, bullying and extorting nations that want a full and independent accounting, and using various threats and pressure to water down truthful criticisms about Beijing's program of disinformation. They covered-up the true extent of their outbreak and death toll, according to US intelligence, and literally welded doors closed to trap infected residents in their Wuhan apartment complexes. They shipped faulty and defective PPE and other supplies across the globe in a cynical public relations ploy, and they're selling governments an under-performing vaccine.
China did lie, and people did die. To pretend that accurately placing blame on the CCP is "biased" is, in fact, "complete and utter rubbish." It's embarrassing for the Lancet – which has endured its share of embarrassments – for their leader to echo this propaganda. This clip of a longtime American Sinophile columnist appearing on CNN might be almost as embarrassing:
On CNN, longtime commie backer Tom Friedman argued that China's system is better because they have fast trains and don't vote people like MTG and Trump into office.
— Nicholas Fondacaro (@NickFondacaro) February 9, 2021
And downplaying the "bad stuff with the Uighurs," he says America is "so deeply unserious as a country right now." pic.twitter.com/nlz8v3h4Uu
China has fast bullet trains, in which the CCP can efficiently transport any political prisoners or dissidents they may feel like from one re-education center or forced labor camp to another (although it looks like they use other trains for such things). Friedman barely acknowledges such unpleasantness as ethnic cleansing, human rights abuses and systemic rape as he lavishes praise on the "seriousness" of the Chinese regime, compared to the United States. No mention of crushing democracy in Hong Kong, or anything mentioned above, either. He cites the controversy over Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene as another unserious distraction that America, unlike China, is dealing with – which is true. China doesn't bother itself with the silly mess of "elections," in which undesirable people might actually be chosen to serve. And there's less of a concern about non-government-approved conspiracy theories spreading too dramatically because wrong think is criminalized. "I can add nothing," chirps the CNN anchor, who is a real piece of work himself.
I'll leave you with a Washington Post reporter attempting to dunk on Fox News anchor Bret Baier, swallowing whole a determination by the WHO – which is compromised by China, having spread misinformation on its behalf – disseminated with the permission of the Chinese regime. How convincing:
Ah yes, the WHO which was shown to have colluded with China to suppress info about the initial outbreak went to China months after any evidence could have easily been eliminated and trusted the official line from Chinese officials on the ground as to what happened. I'm convinced. https://t.co/FlwMMyirF4
— Noam Blum (@neontaster) February 9, 2021
UPDATES - WHO is compromised and non-credible, and Joe Biden's about-face is really something:
This WHO investigation leader tells us definitely trust the Chinese government but definitely don't the trust U.S. intelligence community. And he was receiving U.S. government funding to work with the Wuhan labs studying bat coronaviruses. https://t.co/9HjPFtFSdI
— Josh Rogin (@joshrogin) February 10, 2021
“China is going to eat our lunch? C’mon man!” - Joe Biden, during the campaign https://t.co/Z8YPPPq2s0
— Guy Benson (@guypbenson) February 11, 2021