cecinestpasunbot

This article is motivated reasoning at its best. It’s drawing conclusions about the likelihood of a lab leak based purely on circumstantial evidence. That’s not how science works! That kind of reasoning is the basis for race science, climate change denialism, and all sorts of other pseudoscientific nonsense. You can’t just say “There is some uncertainty in climate models and also it snowed today so obviously global warming is a myth”. You also can’t casually dismisses the evidence presented that point to a zoonotic origin of the virus without good counter evidence.

The fact remains that most of the preeminent virologists in the world believe a zoonotic crossover event was the likely origin of Covid. The World Health Organization made a statement to that effect and they haven’t changed their position. Even Fauci recently testified in front of congress and said the same thing. The author of this article, Alina Chan, is not taken seriously in the field. She’s just some fucking post doc who wanted a book deal.

It just goes to show how much the liberal line of “Listen to the science” is such bullshit if all the opinions in the NYT are pseudo intellectual hacks that obediently regurgitate the US state department line.

It’s a timeless look

Well part of it is China was a severely underdeveloped country. They had to play catch up and so they traded access to their large labor market in exchange for technology transfers agreements.

That said, I think it would be incorrect to say their economy is currently based on copying. They publish more high impact research papers these days than any other country and are technological leaders particularly in green energy. This has been such a rapid change though that I think people’s perceptions of the Chinese economy lag the reality.

They have 3 members on NPC and one of the two cochair slots. That’s not a majority but if you count BnR and Marxist Unity Group there is a Marxist majority on the NPC.

Then I’m not sure you know much about the motivations of Xi, the CPC, or the US for that matter. Since the 80s both sides only real interest has been economic growth. The US was fine with Chinas growth for decades as long as they provide the US a source of cheap labor. However now, China’s economy is actually larger than the US’s in terms of purchase power parity. If left unchecked China would become the economic center of the world without firing a single shot.

The US is clearly worried about losing it’s economic dominance as the worlds only superpower. That’s why it’s made contingency plans for how to confront China militarily. If they tried to subdue China through an invasion it wouldn’t work. China is a nuclear power and that would spell the end of the world. What they could do instead is use islands off the coast of China to enforce a naval blockade of the mainland. From South Korea, to Japan including Okinawa, to the Philippines the US is stationing military assets all the way down the coast. Taiwan would serve as the linch pin to that plan.

Again I have to repeat the US is not the defender of liberal democracy that they claim to be. The people of Taiwan should be clear eyed about that.

Sure but the tensions between China and the US never went away. You may not have Chiang Kai Shek seeking US support in order to invade the mainland. That much is true. However, the US is still very much interested in keeping Taiwan within its sphere of influence as part of a militaristic strategy of containment aimed at China.

I don’t think the US state department cares much for the welfare of Taiwanese people in all of this. If you have any doubts about how the US operates all you have to do is look at its relationship with Israel today.

You’re not wrong. The CPC see Taiwanese independence as a threat because the US prevented them from taking it during the Chinese civil war. The US knows this and clearly intends to use Taiwan as a pressure point to gain diplomatic leverage against China. That makes it a high stakes game with the Taiwanese people caught in the middle and no resolution in sight.

Given that context, it’s not surprising most people in Taiwan want to maintain the status quo and prevent any escalation. However, as tensions rise between the US and China the political tensions in Taiwan rise with them.

They treat Taiwan that way because the Chinese civil war was never fully resolved. The US interfered to prevent the communists from taking Taiwan and ousting Chiang Kai-shek’s fascist KMT. As such, the CPC sees persistent US support for Taiwanese independence as an implicit threat against their sovereignty.

Don’t worry, Biden just imposed tariffs on Chinese EVs so they can rest easy now.

Early in the pandemic the rate of death was much higher than it is now. That’s because nobody had immunity and we didn’t know how to treat people with covid. Doctors treating the initial outbreak were also probably exposed to a large dose of virus all at once making their survival less likely.

Wow really? I couldn’t tell.