A lot has happened since my 2 April 2020 blog: Why did China lie to us about its coronavirus deaths? Ever since that blog, I have noticed an avalanche of articles with a similar scope. Since April 8, Facebook is – and retroactively – blocking all of my Google (!) blog posts. More recently, the American state of Missouri has started a lawsuit against China (eg, BBC).
A similar event happened after my 12 June 2019 blog: Why is lying a Russian habit? Within days, my number of Russian viewers dropped to zero. I guess my blogs have been blocked for weeks. Many Russian viewers have come back since.
To many of us, Donald Trump is a compulsive and pathological liar (eg, Guardian, Wiki). This habit of lying to the world, erodes Trump’s credibility when he accuses China of falsifying, manipulating and/or withholding evidence from a biosafety level 4 lab in Wuhan, China.
China has been dealing with the fallout of the coronavirus pandemic by applying the first three of the five stages of processing grief, a 1969 model developed by Elizabeth Kübler-Ross: Denial, Anger and Bargaining. The first two stages are clear. The third stage is visible in the comments by the Chinese ambassador in Washington, USA (eg, Bloomberg, SCMP).
In 2016, I wrote my blog: Politics – the art of believing rather than lying. Most politicians make sure that they cannot be caught by a plain lie. They prefer falsehoods and misstatements by stretching the truth and by deliberate omissions of unwelcome and/or contradicting information.
For countries, the bar must be held (much) higher than for individual politicians. Historian Niall Ferguson takes a similar approach in his six questions to the Chinese president. See the Dutch, English and German version of his April 5 article.
Trump’s accusations may suggest that China was experimenting with biological warfare. I do not believe this for a second. The coronavirus pandemic shows that viruses can neither be contained nor be directed to specific adversaries. It’s much more likely that the BSL 4 Wuhan lab made a grave error in its “research on bat coronaviruses“:
Wiki: “In an opinion column in the Washington Post, Josh Rogin wrote that US State Department cables from 2018 raised safety concerns about WIV’s research on bat coronaviruses.”
China is accountable for COVID-19, either through its “wet markets” or its BSL-4 lab. China is also responsible for the coronavirus pandemic by hiding correct, complete and timely information to the rest of the world (my blogs). I doubt that China can be held liable given the – presumed – absence of malicious intentions. I just hope my presumption is not wrong.
I lie and I cheat (1987) by Won Ton Ton
artists, lyrics, video, Wiki-1, Wiki-2
Note: all markings (bold, italic, underlining) by LO unless stated otherwise.
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