The plaintive cries from the left-wing media industrial complex that calling the virus by its common names (e.g., “Wuhan coronavirus” or (as Trump keeps calling it) the “Chinese virus” or (as some keep facetiously calling it) the “kung flu”) is somehow “racist”, entirely misses the point, and may in fact be in part to draw attention away from the fact that some brave souls inside China were trying to raise the alarm long before the problem got out of hand.
It is important not to lose sight of what is actually behind this effort.
The Chinese are seriously bought into a propaganda effort to turn the world’s gaze away from them as the source of the virus. This is obvious bullshit, in carloads. One doesn’t even have to countenance the conspiracy theories that claim the virus was manufactured in that lab in Wuhan, because there is too much evidence over the years of animal viruses making the leap to humans due to both poor animal husbandry practices (including but not limited to the overuse of antibiotics and antivirals which contribute to the rise of resistant “superbugs”) and the “wet markets” in China. (Nearly any recent flu, e.g., H1N1 “swine flu” in 2009-10, and the original SARS coronavirus in 2003 can be traced back to Chinese origins.) No matter what official sources decide to call the virus, it originated in China (probably in October or November 2019) and the Chinese have been trying like mad to destroy, cover up, and otherwise obfuscate any evidence that they could have gotten it under control before it went exponential.
The other point is just as valid. It’s clear that in the attempt to accomplish the cover-up, doctors and journalists who spoke up were silenced, some of them dying from the virus and other simply disappearing, either into the Chinese prison system or simply driven into the country and dispatched with a bullet. That we even know about them indicates pretty vast cracks in the Chinese system of control.
We need to hang on tightly to both of these points, and use them to beat the left-wing obfuscators in our midst like rented mules, because they are strongly related and both go to China’s desperate attempt to avoid blame and loss of face over the fact that this situation got out of control. It is ridiculous to think China will ever make any sort of financial restitution, but what will come of this will be a much smaller role (and significantly, attendant loss of face, which is worse for Emperor Xi and the CCP) in the world for China, and probably a faster reversal of much of the “globalization” scheme that, regardless of what people like Trump have been warning about for years, so many still thought was a great idea until about a month ago when the supply chains started being disrupted.
When this is all over, “Made in China” is probably going to become rare in our stores. And that will be a big damn punishment in and of itself.
The main question now is whether or not we will be able to roll back the fascist restrictions on our lives that are rapidly increasing due to politicians’ desperate need to be seen as “doing something”. As journalists pithily put it, “That remains to be seen.”