About a year ago I wrote a couple of posts about the absolutely fantastic HBO miniseries Chernobyl.
Yes,the series took a few minor liberties with the science, but it was otherwise amazing.
A consistent theme of the series was the rampant dishonesty of the Soviet Union.
They didn’t acknowledge the meltdown. When people responded to what they said was just a fire they claimed the radiation was minimal. When it started to rain radiation on Europe they lied about how bad it was. They buried bodies in mass graves and covered up everything to hide the real numbers.
Then in the end you find out that the whole meltdown occurred because the Soviets covered up a reactor design flaw that they knew about.
All of this was repeated by the Chinese Communist Party with the Coronavirus this year.
They knew about it and lied. They covered it up. They gave bad information to the rest of the world allowing an epidemic to turn into a pandemic.
Now we find out that this virus might have come from a research lab that they knew was not handling dangerous viruses with proper safety procedures.
It’s the same story all over again. Chernobyl 2: Wuhan Bat Flu.
The media that loved to see Trump in Chernobyl’s portrayal of Gorbachev, has totally ignored this parallels.
For the rest of us the lesson is clear. Communist governments always lie.
Or as a wise man once said:
The question is what to do about it.
While it’s tempting to do something drastic, like ban all imports from communist China, that’s probably not the best policy.
More focused actions that more directly target the ruling clique rather than the people would be better. A very serious strategy of regime change is clearly called for. A big funding boost to VOA/RL would be a good start.
Another possibility would be to announce full diplomatic recognition of Taiwan.
China is like those men who peered into the burning reactor- already dead, but it’s going to take a while, and there will be a latency period before they fall apart.
China has been that dude who’s maxed out his credit cards and double mortgaged his house to live the lifestyle, but now his house has bedbugs, and his work hours have been slashed.
The only silver lining that will come out of this, is countries will start to actually manufacture some of their own stuff again. At least for a little while.
“China is Asshole”
words to live by.