What to Do About China?

This article first appeared in New English Review.



At this writing, we don't know how long this Corona virus is going to be with us and when we can get back to normal life. One thing is certain. This can and most likely will happen again, and world leaders need to have a plan in place to deal with the next virus especially if, as some suspect, it is
man made. Not only can we not accept situations like the deaths occurring in countries like Italy, we cannot go into lock down mode and shut down our economy every time this happens.

Since most all fingers point to China for this outbreak, the US-and the world- must reconsider its relationship with China. Whether this was a result of eating strange animals, like bats, an accidental escape of a virus from a Chinese lab, or a deliberate act by Chinese intelligence services, China must be held to account and must realize that future outbreaks from their country are unacceptable.

Incidentally, there is an interesting (albeit) unverified story coming out of Italy based a 2015 Italian news program that reported that Chinese chemists had conducted an experiment in connection with the Sars virus. Supposedly, they extracted a protein from bats which they grafted onto the Sars virus and concluded that the virus could be transmitted directly from bats to humans without passing through mice as an intermediary. The report continues that the virus may have escaped from the lab and might be connected to today's Corona virus. It should be noted that many scientists are disputing this story as to any connection with the Corona virus. Just this past week I translated a news article and video on this story from Il Giornale, which can be viewed here.

At any rate, this entire Corona story illustrates the need-the urgent need- to stop doing business as usual with China, a country either unable or unwilling to act in the world's interests and safety. It is all too clear that we and other first world countries have enabled China to grow in power economically, militarily, and politically. They are an expansionist country, and their chief weapon is their economic power. Their greatest resource is their people, an unusually talented people I might add. And there are a lot of them. That said, we should not direct our ire at the Chinese people themselves. They are innocent and should be not be targeted in the West. It is their government we need to punish. And it is not racist to call this what it is-a Chinese virus.

I am no economic expert, but any fool can recognize that China wields too much power economically. It is absurd that so many of the products we use and wear everyday are made in China using cheap labor toiling in near slave-like conditions. It is unconscionable that at the very time we we are dealing with their pandemic, we depend on China for most of our pharmaceuticals. It is to President Trump's credit that he has started to reverse the unfair trade advantage we have with China. More needs to be done, however.

In my humble opinion, China needs to be isolated. How gradually the corrective measures need to be done, I will leave to the experts (yes, the same experts who have gotten us into this mess over the last several decades). If we deem it unwise and reckless to bring China down to its knees, it should at least be brought back down to earth. They cannot be allowed to dominate the world-just as Islam cannot be allowed to dominate the world. Just as with Islam, if we have the will, we can and will prevail. If we don't have the will, all is lost. I am certainly not advocating war with China. It is to  everyone's advantage that we live in peace and harmony with them. But not on their terms.