Post- coronavirus crisis: Reparations from China, invasion, forcing regime change and other options - Politics Forum.org | PoFo

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#15088557
None of that is going to happen. China will however take a major hit in its prestige, particularly since:

1) There's a lot of skepticism around its figures, to the point of even some European governments have implied that they were misleading and making the virus look less of a threat than it is.

2) The virus started there. Even if it wasn't man-made (which is something conspiracy theorists need to prove), there were already scientists pointing out that the wet markets with little sanitary regulations there represented a time bomb.

3) China's neighbors have shown that they were able to respond quickly, transparently and effectively, the same neighbors China doesn't get along with.

4) There have been very publicised cases of faulty equipment made by Chinese corporations and sold to several European governments that only serve to foster distrust of the Chinese way of doing business. In at least some cases, this has also been the result of European governments not following the Chinese government's advice on which providers are recognised by it as being reliable and within Chinese law (this happened to the Spanish government for example) but it still hurts China's reputation.

But there won't be a payment of reparations or anything like that. Simply put, some governments will be more skeptical about doing business with China, and their internal affairs will be under a lot more scrutiny thereby hurting their system's appeal abroad.

Also, I find it a lot more interesting to think about what's going to affect how business is conducted after this than about the loss of prestige of China. Will there be some re-shoring? Will the slow-ish trend to a switch to working from home that had already began before the pandemic accelerate and become a permanent fixture globally? If so, how will this radical change in the daily lives of much of the world's population affect the rest of the economy? How will it affect society? How will it affect politics? Will this crisis also accelerate the robotization of much of the economy that had also began? How will this affect the economy, society and politics? Will this be a kiss of death for the Left throughout the West as we know it? PS: Oh, and also, what will the environmental effects of this switch be? Will CO2 emissions substantially decrease due to less demand for transportation since there will be less people commuting to work?
#15088642
@Istanbuller, you are the living proof that it's best not to associate with Turkey in any way. Not so long ago you were trying to ally with Russia and China to piss at the EU and the US. Now you turn around and want to topple the Beijing government. You are lucky that you have reached total pariah status and nobody takes you serious anymore. But you could always send weapons and your jihadist proxy forces to Xinjiang when they get thrown out of Syria. Believe me, you don't want the monster you have created anywhere near you.

You have created so many enemies that one day soon somebody is going to put an end to it so that Constantinople and the west can return to Europe, the Kurds can have the east, and the caliph can keep the arid land inbetween. :D
#15088924
I guess it is right time to talk about this as the virus starts losing its momentum.


So tell me. How is it that you have come to believe that this virus is "losing its momentum"? It is far from it. We in the US are at about 100K deaths and heading for, perhaps, three times that number. Maybe more. This virus hasn't even gotten revved up yet.

Chinese failure and disinformation lead to a pandemic. World powers shouldn't let them go without punishment
.

No it didn't. What lead to pandemic was systematic bad choices by individual governments. This could have been dramatically slowed if governments did not ignore the experts and put profit ahead of lives. As if that was not totally predictable.

It would be an exercise in absurdity for the US to call China on its handling of the virus when we are still not even testing people in sufficient numbers and are obviously cooking the books ourselves.
WHO also should be defunded since it is trying to cover up Chinese misbehaviour.


What a spectacularly bad idea. In a world that is endlessly fighting epidemics of all flavors let's de-fund the only chance we have in the world for a watchdog. I have no problem demanding reforms and even demanding veto power but to do away with it. Lunacy.
#15088979
There is some evidence that American scientists were collaborating with Chinese scientists at the lab in Wuhan.


https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=R6y8dlhoMpo


So they were working together researching SARS and bat viruses, using function additive methods to figure out what the potential of nastiness the virus might have. The lab is within a few kilometres of the initial location of the virus. It doesn’t take much conspiracy conjecture to imagine some lab tech taking a few research animals down to the wet market and selling them.

In terms of blame, it would appear that both the US and China are responsible. Also, this theory would explain why the Chinese keep trying to blame it on America. Though they can’t quite tell the real story without having to share responsibility.

Anyway, this is going to make a great movie plot.
#15088999
@foxdemon Conspiracy Theories and fantasies are often really good things to make movies out of. You are right, there.

USA has huge problems because of its government's uncoordinated response, and how it's people are coping with the pandemic. China's not to blame for that.

Thailand is a good example of doing things right, as they probably had more Chinese tourists in a month than USA has in a year. Yet, the Covid cases are extremely low because the government acted quickly. Thailand is only about 150 miles from China, you know...

Still, less than 3,000 Covid cases and only 54 deaths.

China's rep might have taken a hit, but that's only a short-term thing, and unlikely to have any long-term consequences.
#15089208
Godstud wrote:@foxdemon Conspiracy Theories and fantasies are often really good things to make movies out of. You are right, there.


I can’t wait for the Korean film. They have quite a tradition of bio-experiment goes wrong movies. Usually with the Americans behind it. But now they can have both the Americans and Chinese as villains.


USA has huge problems because of its government's uncoordinated response, and how it's people are coping with the pandemic. China's not to blame for that.



So some guy gets drunk, drives off in his car and then drives toward a crowd. Those who have their wits about them jump out of the way, and the rest get run over. Are you saying the drunk driver is not at fault?


Regardless, here’s the next video. The plot thickens....


https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=uZUJhKUbd0k


So, the SARS-2 has a 12 base insert that is involved with a furin cleavage site. Have you studied genetics or evolution?

That is incredibly suspicious.

You don’t just get 12 base insertions out of nowhere. And the very function gain that turns the bat virus into a very contagious human disease. The researchers at the Wuhan lab and they American colleagues have been publishing research papers on this type of virus and are known to be involved in gain of function research. Then the virus shows up a short distance from the lab.

But, we don’t yet have a confession, witness or other compelling evidence that would hold up in court. Yet, it is certainly enough evidence to launch of police investigation. That makes it an allegation rather than a conspiracy theory.

I think the scientists involved with gain of function research have some questions to answer. :eh:
#15089267
Godstud wrote:Comparing a disease to a car? That even dumber than when people compare guns to cars. :knife:

:lol: Youtube videos are your conspiracy source material. Of course they are!!! :lol:



Hmm. The first video mentioned that gain of function research was halted in the US in 2014 for ethical reasons, but resumed in 2017. So stopped under Obama and started again under Trump. I thought you didn’t like Trump. Why didn’t you jump on that as a reason to caste blame for this pandemic? Too dumb? :D

I noticed you didn’t answer the question of whether you had studied genetics or evolution. So the answer is no? Which would explain your inability to construct a counter argument.

The alternative hypotheses is it evolved in the wet market environment. We already know holding stressed wild animals in close proximity is an ideal environment for cross species viruses to evolve. I previously suggested on another thread that two viruses simultaneously infected a cell could produce a chimera virus.

From a study some years ago on the SARS 1 virus.

https://jvi.asm.org/content/84/7/3134#sec-1


Thus, clear evidence for SARS-CoV tracking along ACE2 receptor orthologs was established by these studies, especially between civet and human hosts. However, the receptor for Bat-SCoV in bats remains unclear. It is possible that the immediate progenitor for the SARS-CoV epidemic strain has not been identified; alternatively, recombination insertion of variant RBDs may have mediated the initial cross-species transmission event from bats into other mammals.



The article previously explains how the region’s of the spike protein could be modular, thus facilitating rapid adaption of entry to host cells.


The article is also of interest as it warns of future covid epidemics.

The next article puts it is simpler terms.

https://theconversation.com/coronavirus-origins-genome-analysis-suggests-two-viruses-may-have-combined-134059


So it is certainly possible for the binding site region to change rapidly.


https://www.nature.com/articles/s41591-020-0820-9

Image


The region marked ‘a’ is the binding region that has changed to match the ACE2 receptor site. Low similarity between the SARS-2 and RaTG13 virus in the region (overall they are quite similar, but not at this binding region) doesn’t mean much as we know from the earlier article that region can change dramatically. This also means a pangolin stage is not absolutely necessary for the evolution of SARS-2.

It is the region labelled ‘b’ that is in question. SARS-2 has a complete section which codes for the cleavage site (this allows the virus membrane to merge with cell membranes by being cut table by human enzymes).

Could it be the result of recombination between viruses in hosts at a wet market or was it done in a lab?

If you think it was not done in a lab, you need to explain how it could occur naturally. Simplify crying conspiracy theory because you don’t understand the issue is not good enough.
#15089559
@Godstud where have you gone?


This extract is from an article attempting to debunk the claim that the virus might have come from a lab. Shi Zengli is desperate to show it wasn’t her bat Flu research that led to the outbreak. She claims the new virus does not share enough similarity with the Ratg13 virus her team has been studying.

https://www.livescience.com/coronavirus-wuhan-lab-complicated-origins.html

Bat coronaviruses can be cultured in lab dishes with cells that have the human ACE2 receptor; over time, the virus will gain adaptations that let it efficiently bind to those receptors. Along the way, that virus would pick up random genetic mutations that pop up but don't do anything noticeable, said Nikolai Petrovsky, in the College of Medicine and Public Health at Flinders.

"The result of these experiments is a virus that is highly virulent in humans but is sufficiently different that it no longer resembles the original bat virus," Petrovsky said in a statement from the Australian Media Center. "Because the mutations are acquired randomly by selection, there is no signature of a human gene jockey, but this is clearly a virus still created by human intervention."

If that virus infected a staff member and that person then traveled to the nearby seafood market, the virus could have spread from there, he said. Or, he added, an "inappropriate disposal of waste from the facility" could have infected humans directly or from a susceptible intermediary, such as a stray cat.



So it seems such genetic distance comparisons don’t mean much. If Shi were to sequence the current forms of research virus in her lab, would they have the same sequence as the original wild samples or a sequence more like the SARS-2 virus?


Alas, information from China is very restricted. Why have they been so enthusiastically locking down scientific study into the virus?

The Chinese act like they are hiding something.


Let’s sum it up:

    SARS-2 happens to be closely related to the virus under study at a lab right where the virus first shows up.

    The researcher is noted for function adding research on that related bat virus.

    There have been concerns raised about safety at the lab in the past.


Why did it happen there? China is a big place and has zillions of wet markets selling bat soup. So why does a novel virus show up right next to the lab doing gain of function on bat viruses?


Other scientists, who have worked with Shi in the past on the same research, claim it couldn’t be human made due to computer models not being able to predict the effectiveness of it. But research involves methods besides computer modelling and has done so for decades.

It seems from these weak excuses that it isn’t just the Chinese that have something to hide.

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