David Craig, on March 16th, 2020(Monday/Tuesday blog)
Last Thursday, I wrote a blog about how corrupt, lying, disease-ridden China is our enemy. In the blog I gave two examples of how the corrupt, lying, disease-ridden Chinese could blackmail the West and bring our economies crashing down. The two examples were China’s control of most of the planet’s rare-earth metals and the fact that most of the antibiotics used in the West now come from China. But there are hundreds of other examples I could have given.
Well, I have to apologise. I thought I was writing about a possible future scenario. In fact, Chinese blackmail has already begun.
The Chinese blackmail
An article in China’s state-run Xinhua news service last week threatened to impose restrictions on medical exports so the United States will be “plunged into the mighty sea of coronavirus.”
The Xinhua piece, published on March 4 and entitled “Be Bold: The World Owes China a Thank You,” was largely composed of standard Chinese Communist Party propaganda about how the world stands in awe of China’s amazing response to the coronavirus outbreak.
The Xinhua article made a point of noting that China has leverage over the U.S. and Europe because it can restrict the supply of medicines that were unwisely outsourced to China in the heyday of globalism.
The Chinese paper explicitly threatened to do so if Americans and Europeans continue criticizing its response to the coronavirus or act too slowly to lift travel bans and other restrictions the Chinese government dislikes, but then cushioned the threat in the Communist Party’s usual creepy way by insisting China is filled with so much “love” for the world that it would never harm the people of other countries, or even “insult” them the way China has been “insulted” during the coronavirus epidemic:
A Chinese blackmailer?
Naturally, the article neglected to mention how the virus ran wild in the first place because of Chinese censorship, corruption, bureaucratic incompetence and cover-ups.
Will the West fight back?
Two prominent US politicians – Marco Rubio and Newt Gingrich – wrote an article highlighting America’s and the West’s vulnerability to Chinese blackmail:
For years, China has enticed American multinational corporations with access to its markets in exchange for off-shoring and sharing intellectual property. Americans watched as Beijing captured critical portions of global supply chains, including in pharmaceutical drugs and medical equipment. Today, up to 80 percent of the active pharmaceutical ingredients in American drugs are sourced abroad.
Now, in the face of a pandemic, the absence of domestic capacity in critical medical sectors has critically endangered both the U.S. public health system and our economy. The inability to quickly increase the production of key supplies, such as surgical masks, medical gowns, respirators and pharmaceutical drugs limits our ability to mitigate the worst effects of the disease in this emerging crisis and in any future pandemic.
It is unacceptable that China holds this much leverage over America’s public health and economy, both essential components of our national security. For this reason, we propose that the U.S. take action to expand our production capacity while global supply chains are in flux and the global economy teeters on the edge of recession.
Maybe, when this made in corrupt, dirty, disease-ridden China disaster is over, Western governments and companies will realise that they are powerless in the face of Chinese blackmail and start on-shoring production of vital supplies so the dirty, corrupt, lying, disease-ridden Chinese can never blackmail us again?
Maybe Chinese blackmail will blow up in their fat yellow faces?
Category: 
Look at the other side of this. How did we become so dependent on China? Because our businesses saw an opportunity to import cheap goods and make more profit. We liked the cheaper goods and did not care about the people who lost their jobs here, or the appalling working conditions in China. Our socialists unions would not modernise industry, car manufacturing being a good example; then they demanded higher wages in the coal and steel industries making them uncompetitive. Meanwhile education has been dumbing down and their special subject is supporting Greta Thunberg. The entire country and especially the media, politicians and academics believe in an entirely fake human caused climate crisis. There is now panic over the Coronavirus being generated every day by the media. They are also using it for political purposes along with politicians themselves of all parties. It is obvious that the economy is more important than people in this case because we need a future when it is over, but the politicians cannot say that. They should do their job, give us the facts and let us decide what is the appropriate action. They are destroying our future faster than the climate crisis nonsense is able to do. It is just what the socialists want – chaos and unrest so that they can offer the final solution – a one party socialist state. China is waiting to help, but we will be their surfs this time round.
What is unforgivable is the level of outsourcing that has occurred with little thought given to strategic considerations.Protection of the state is the first responsibility of government and over the past 40 plus years they have been spectacularly negligent if not treasonous.A sloppy,thoughtless attitude to intellectual property has illustrated the crass naivety of our elected representatives or their preference for financial gain to responsible government.Perhaps,and it is only perhaps,this vital emergency will alarm sufficient people,in and out of government,the dangers and disadvantages of globalisation.If we faced a serious military challenge we would be helpless and in this world you must always assume that this is possible and plan accordingly.Our so called elites have sold the people of this country down the river.We stand naked and unprepared for even the most basic of challenges.So much for your superior so called education and sophistication you have not even the basic common sense and integrity to organise a p u in a brewery.I for one will never forgive the politicians of all parties that have taken this once great country which was largely responsible for the civilised world,with its engineering and scientific inventiveness to the embarrassing mess we now witness.I have faith in the common people of this country,but I feel that it will take a violent revolution to change anything and I fear that the population has been emasculated by the bread and circuses of the post war years.
I don’t believe all the blame can be put on our government as Hardcastle suggests. Our car industry vanished because of poor designs, poor quality and high prices. The blame for this is with the managers and the unions. I’ve never had any interest in cars but I remember how impressed people were with Japanese cars. But it is the owners who ultimately made the choice not to buy British. This is what freedom gives us and surely we don’t want a government that restrict what we can buy. However, it seems to me that the Italians, French and Germans have been more supportive of their own car brands.
Surely, rather than material goods, our food supply is more important, and we have not been self sufficient in food for many years. If the British do not want to work in farming this is the price we pay. The alternative is to have a state that allocates our jobs.
The government cannot make entrepreneurs. Look how many have failed. We had Sinclair, Acorn and Amstrad computers but now we have nothing because they fell behind. If we made them we would not be able to sell them, and if we were forced to use them the country would fall behind. The same applied to our nuclear industry. We had two designs of nuclear reactor that nobody wanted and they cost taxpayers a fortune to develop. Our aviation and railways have gone the same way.
The British are living on past glories and we are a failing country living on debt and relying on immigrants to do work we think is beneath us. We vote for politicians who match our ambitions and talent. We have to live with the consequences.