Fareed Zakaria of CNN is one of my favorite journalist on television. So when CNN advertised a special report by Zakaria titled "China's Deadly Secret", I was extremely worried that this moderate journalist is joining those who are bashing China. I have already seen liberal comedian Bill Maher said that those who say that we should not call this the China Virus are being too sensitive. So with Trump bashing China to deflect his incompetence, I am afraid there will be more hate toward China which will lead to hate toward Chinese Americans and also Asian Americans in general.
So the timeline that Zakaria presented on his show goes like this:
Mid December 2019, patients start to stream into Wuhan hospitals.
Dec. 30, Doctors raised alarm about rate of new type of infection
Early January 2020, Dr. Li Wenliang reprimanded for spreading rumors on internet. Turned out he was right. Authorities in Wuhan mandated that approval needed to report cases.
Jan. 9, Virus is identified and genome sent to rest of the world.
Mid January, big banquet in Wuhan to tried to break world record for the largest pot luck party!
Mid January Lots of cases already but local authority failed to report cases.
Jan. 14, teleconference between Wuhan officials and Beijing.
January 20, China warns world
Jan. 21, First known case in U.S. occurred in Washington state.
Jan. 23, Lock down in Wuhan started.
It would seem to me that there were mistakes by the local officials in Wuhan and they were probably tried to cover it up and hoping that it will not be too bad and things will blow over. But there is little evidence from this CNN timeline that the national government knew exactly what was happening till January 14. There is a period from the 14th to the 20th that Beijing could have warn the world.
Xi Jinping did send Dr. Zhong Nanshan, the renown physician who did great work on the SARS epidemic, to Wuhan to investigate. He reported back on the 20th and while at first he thought things can be controlled and peak in February (later he revised it to April), he did believe this was going to be bad. Perhaps Xi wanted Dr. Zhong's opinion before giving the warning and start the lock down.
In any case, Zakaria makes the point that China may have delayed things by 6 days. But Trump delayed things by 6 weeks. Peter Navarro, a hawk in Trump's administration, had warned Trump about the infections based on CHINA'S information. So one can't argue that the lack of transparency by China led to the majority of cases and deaths in this country. Taiwan got the same information and first case near end of January. Today Taiwan has 7 deaths. If Taiwan has the same population as the U.S., they would have only 100 deaths. So to deflect blame to China is totally absurd.
So the program was not really China bashing. It is fairly presented, blaming China for some of its early actions or inaction, but points out that it is important for the two big powers in the world to solve problems together, not blaming each other. I don't think it changes the mind of people in this country. Trump supporters will still blame China. The problem I see for Chinese Americans is that even the Democrats are not necessary worry about hatred toward us. Biden will also blame China even as he and other Democrats blame Trump. He cannot appear soft on China while Trump appear to stand up to China.
Sunday, May 24, 2020
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That is an interesting timeline and is close to what I've seen already. I think that Trump will continue to blame China and blur the timeline and claim that they cut off travel to and from China early. The problem though is that they have no answer when they didn't block travel to and from Italy and other parts of Europe early. Also, we are such a Super Power we should have been able to contain the virus easier than other countries but statistically, we have done poorly and it's cost us lives and economically. I'm surprised that the Democrats aren't using the timeline to show how Trump delayed help. Not that it would help change minds of Trump's followers. They are riding him till the end. But maybe they can get some other Republicans like not vote for him.
ReplyDeleteIt will be interesting to see if there will be a second wave or some spikes after this weekend. We've seen some video of people not social distancing and not wearing masks. If there is not spike then maybe it's safe to go back out there and Trump was right that the virus will just go away!
-LBOAYM
The argument that China was not transparent and thus caused the lives of Americans is absurd. Trump ordered travel ban from China in January. If there is not information from China that this is bad, why the travel ban? Yet in February and March he still claimed that things are under control, it is a hoax and all cases will be gone suddenly. There was little preparation during this time. Thus it is at least 6 weeks of delay and non-transparency on the part of Trump.
ReplyDeleteYou are right in that the Democrats should be hammering Trump on the timeline. But they are also blaming China. It is a miss opportunity and also ingenuous. The truth is that while they are better than the Republicans, the Democrats were not prepared for this as well and again they don't want to look weak against China.
I see Trump is threatening to pull the GOP convention out of North Carolina. If there are no pro sports with fans in stadiums by August, how can you have a convention with thousands of people jammed together and yelling their voice off? I think both conventions should be cancelled or go virtual. It will be interesting to see if either party is willing to risk lives to get their promotions on television. And will Wisconsin and North Carolina accommodate them?
The GOP will have their convention because Trump's followers do not care about the virus and think it's a hoax. So if it's not in NC, it'll probably be in Florida. They might even pretend they've taken every precaution to keep everyone safe. I would think they could do it at the Tropicana Dome (or a dome somewhere that has a retractable roof) and keep all the delegates socially distanced and have a reduced amount. They could make it look crowded too. It would be interesting to see if anyone there gets the virus.
ReplyDeleteThe Democrats should schedule their convention after the GOP's to see if there are problems first. Why is my gut telling me that Warren will be the VP choice?
-LBOAYM