>>14213130I like elements of this story. You could also add that the Chinese, being fine strategists, knew that the virus would result in western governments becoming more authoritarian, or rather, revealing their underlying authoritarian nature. In turn this makes it more difficult to the West to criticize China for its authoritarian polices without drawing comparison to their own. As we have seen this has worked to some extent.
When you think about it its a very cunning way to wage cold war. Most people think of biological warfare as wiping out entire portions of the population in an apocalyptic event, but this is far more subtle. I can think of several aspects of its success:
1) Achieved asymmetrical economic damage to the West, including the rise in inflation we are just beginning to see.
2) Achieved increased political polarization and instability in the West
3) Achieved deflection of criticism from China ( as suggested above )
4) Distracted global attention away from China's military threat to Taiwan and its genocide of the Uyghurs.
5) Distracted global attention away from environment concerns such as pollution of the oceans and climate change, facing mounting global pressure to address these concerns would impact China more greatly than it would the West.
It's very much a win-win situation for China in all considerations. If they could do it why wouldn't they?
But now lets consider some possible down sides.
Well, the fact that fingers are ( were ) being pointed at China is a rather minor consideration. Only Australia seemed to have the balls to do so and that all got quickly memory holed. Perhaps the biggest disadvantage is that Coid has now prepped the West to deal with any more outbreaks, or completely different new diseases, possibly shielding from to some extent against the release of an even more deadly pathogen. If so then Covid was a one shot gun. Why would you use such a weapon unless you were planning a bigger finishing blow?
