Oh look, the Chinese lied about the Wuhan Virus

By
Martyn Bradbury
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48
2482

The same NZ scientists who were telling us last week that there is nothing to fear are suddenly fearful – this isn’t an identity politics issue, it’s a public health issue…

Coronavirus: Auckland Lantern Festival in doubt, decision this week

Organisers of the Auckland Lantern Festival will decide this week – possibly as early as today – whether to go ahead with New Zealand’s largest cultural festival after coronavirus fears have forced the cancellation of several Lunar New Year events.

The Whau Chinese New Year Festival and the Northcote Chinese and Korean New Year events were called off last weekend as the rapid spread of the virus from China has cast fears across communities here.

Steve Armitage, Auckland Tourism, Events and Economic Development (Ateed) general manager destination, said a decision has yet to be made about whether the lantern festival would go ahead.

…we should be aggressive in our denouncement of people attacking Asian NZers in a racist manner over this virus, but equally we should be heavily critical of the Chinese regime for lying and continuing to be deceitful over the true death rate and infection rate…

Chinese doctor reprimanded by authorities over text message warning of coronavirus

A doctor who issued a text warning about the outbreak of the coronavirus was arrested and reprimanded by Chinese authorities for raising the alarm.

TDB Recommends NewzEngine.com

When the illness struck seven patients at a hospital in late December, Dr Li Wenliang sent a text in a group chat that said: “Quarantined in the emergency department.”

One recipient responded: “So frightening. Is SARS coming again?”

In the middle of the night, officials from Wuhan, the epicentre of the deadly coronavirus outbreak, arrested the doctor and demanded to know why he shared the message, according to The New York Times.

…the totalitarian communist regime is unforgiving towards anything that loses it face and the system is compromised into one of collusion, deception and corruption, so when the virus erupted, no one wanted to tell the Party.

We still don’t know how many people have actually died.

We still don’t know how many people have actually been infected.

Compounding this deception is China’s history of extreme human rights abuses, their internment camps for Muslims, their mass surveillance state and their body organ harvesting from political dissidents.

The woke cry out on social media that any reaction to this virus that isn’t positive is somehow racist.

I was awake before the woke.

We have much to fear from the Chinese Government’s falsehoods but we must have compassion for the individuals impacted who are equally victims of China’s obtuseness in all of this.

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48 COMMENTS

  1. Oh yes the wokeys,… those that cannot discern between race issues and political ones. Those who would seek their own agenda and not those of our national sovereignty.

    When people talk against China all they can hear is anti Chinese sentiment. It is not that at all. It is anti the practices of the Chinese Communist Party , – the CCP.

    And that is a political party , – NOT A RACE !!!!

    Lets make this perfectly clear to those who want to bash New Zealanders for even daring to raise their opinions for fear of being bashed as a RACIST .

    Amnesty International is in agreement with Martyn when he says :

    ———————————————

    … ” Compounding this deception is China’s history of extreme human rights abuses, their internment camps for Muslims, their mass surveillance state and their body organ harvesting from political dissidents ” …

    ———————————————

  2. Oh look, NZs lie (just a bit) about almost everything. We are not 100% Pure remember so need to press for factual information in a timely fashion – from everyone. Good news about the plane going, the procedures established effectively we hope. And what about the poor little people who are near Wuhan but outside the official boundary of that city. Have they got any pathway to follow, some timeline and guidance to grasp onto. It could it seems take a day to get to the airport and plane there, even after getting acceptance as they have to pass numerous checks on the way, and presumably wait in line. Compassion and firm controls are needed in equal measure it seems so as to contain this RNA virus, which may be a regular feature in our brave new world where technology is going to save us?

  3. As the coronavirus originated in China and continues to spread and infect, while the Chinese authorities remain evasive relating to the true impact of the virus, it’s imperative NZ holds China at bay.

    • A more sensible comment would be: “That is what you get from societies that have always had a tradition of rigid, dictatorial style of government.” (Same applies to USSR, Albania, etc etc.)
      Try to see a little further than your anti-Left bigotry, Andrew.

    • And yet the National Party loves the Chinese Communist Party and often places its interests over New Zealand’s interests (as opposed to Labour and NZ First who seem to view the CCP as a necessary evil).

      National have a CCP spy in their caucus and their leader was most gracious in praising the Party and its communist system last time he was in China. Just saying…

      • If that MP really is a spy, Labour and nz first etc are F least as culpable for doing absolutely nothing about ig

        In fact Winston has on more than one occasion come out in effusive praise of the Chinese government

        • Wait, WHAT?

          It’s Labour and Greens fault that there is a Chinese spy inside the National Party?

          Look, Mr Zhang, you’ve got to work out your spin lines better than this.

          • They become culpable if they as the govt know full well he is a spy and don’t use their authority to do anything about it. Or then, perhaps he is not a spy

            • Internal National Party matters race or the concern of government ministers especially not the Foreign Minister. If any weird stuff happens it’s going to be up to the Leader-of-The-National-Party to decide whether all those donations a particular parliamentary member of the national party is worth all the trouble and bad publicity.

            • Yes,… let the inquiry’s begin,…

              Even so,… not a good look from someone who admitted teaching English at a military/govt establishment specifically designed for students to understand intercepted messages from the west,… and that even Australia rejected him as a liability when the same presented his CV to teach at a large university there…

              And at the very least recently facilitating the meeting with a chief of security in his country of origin to a large political NZ party and its leader, – National , who as we know, have many of their core leadership with vested interests in large mainland Chinese business circles… and who , as direct benefactors ,..are prepared to accept ‘donations’ in return for positions in that same party so it seems …

              In more blunt and honest country’s they would call that CORRUPTION.

              Something very… Un- New Zealand about all this… a picture paints a thousand words, and if this picture was the original Mona Liza only an art critic with considerable experience could spot the fraud. And once pointed out, the rest of us could also soon spot the fraud. That picture has been painted and the fraudulent pretender has been spotted.

              Even a panel of 12 year old’s once educated on the most basic of facts would soon dispense with the niceties and call it for what it is : a fraud.

              And so it is.

              Remember it is election year and no amount of claiming it is anti Chinese or that other over used word ‘ racism’ is going to cut it.

              The guy is a liability and that will always hang over his head by his own submissions on who he really is.

              Spy’s are for James Bond movies and fantastical novels ,… not the political party’s of our delicate democracy to indulge in.

              • Again, the very obvious question is why are nationals opponents not making political hay out of this? Are all parties irredeemable corrupt? Indeed one can imagine national of course not willing to admit they stuffed up, but what have labour, nz first and greens got to lose? Or have they also been bought off by the Chinese?

                • Labour has its own remote controlled imports.
                  The greens won’t dirty their woke purity by decrying a different nationality.
                  NZ first are lying hypocrites owned by big business it turns out so they won’t do anything to spook the Chinese.
                  So here we are.

                • To be honest?… I think they are leaving this guy out to dry. Given time,… and more media exposure such as is happening right here,… they know that public opinion will turn against National in yet another case of dodgy, seamy skulduggery.

                  It doesn’t need any melodrama or costly court proceedings, just the intelligent application of evidence by the voting public.

                  But knock yourself out,… if you want to go into bat for a guy with such a record and that even the Aussies rejected and then parade him around as the paragon of repentant ec CCP military spy trainer turned National party MP, – be my guest.

                  Then there is also the JLR tapes about Bridges reckoning ”one Chinese is worth two Indians” …

                  Doesn’t look good from either a racism perspective or a ‘cash for positions’ perspective…in a ‘democratic’ society…

                  Does it.

                  But go on ,… support him. Change his CV if you can to make it more publicly acceptable. Perhaps reinvent him into a pre school child expert. The cats out of the bag now and I think you will be having a hard time of it.

                  The more publicity the better.

                  Its always good to have a purge of spy’s and traitors every now and then. Its just we here in NZ have a habit of being rather genteel in our dealings with these things, – unlike the CCP who run ‘vocational training centers’ complete with bars and barbed wire for ethnic minority’s and kill and harvest organs from political dissidents…

  5. No one is ever going to know how many have been infected. That’s a given no matter how honest they would have been.
    That said, causing panic by suddenly putting 11 million in quarantine probably has caused many more infections.
    Gotta love the Chinese communist party.

    Oh well, I was supposed to fly to Thailand in two days and get married but, I have the flu. Not sure if I should be thankful or not.

  7. Under such a situation, governments, local or central have to make a decision based on risk that the threat is real vs. the disruption that sounding a false alarm could cause. I can’t see any ‘democratic’ govt doing better than the ‘authoritarian’ Chinese govt. Look at the British govts handling of Mad Cow disease for one- –it was totally inept and corrupt.

    One thing for sure, if the quarantines had not been put into place, the international infection numbers would have skyrocketed by now. As it is the number of cases outside of China are relatively stable. Its the very authoritarian nature of the Chinese govt, for all its faults, that is keeping the world relatively safe….for the time being.

    Hopefully the Chinese govt will crack down on the wildlife trade with a hammer fist in the coming months, and even shoot some of the selfish motherfuckers who are putting the lives of so many people at risk. They certainly would have the support of the majority of the population ( https://bit.ly/36PXNh2 )

    Only a strong centralized secular atheistic govt with immense power is suitable for people who have just come out of the middle ages.

  8. The Herald- dreadful little rag that it is – quoting sources in the UK news media? Right…. So: scorn the western msm as propaganda peddlers when it suits, but uncritically accept what such outlets claim when it suits.

    I’m puzzled that you’d take at face value anything at all out of the UK media. Or of the US, come to that. I’ve long since learned not to do that.

    I see your link and raise you this:

    http://thesaker.is/chinas-virus-response-has-been-breathtaking/

  10. “but equally we should be heavily critical of the Chinese regime for lying and continuing to be deceitful over the true death rate and infection rate…”

    At least concerning the death rate (and that still requires time to be fully known) they are unlikely to be lying. The death rate outside of China is 1% ( so far), whereas the Chinese are reporting a death rate of 2% inside China. So I don’t think they are lying – when the death rates that they are reporting are twice as high as the death rates in other countries or jurisdictions, which are presumably more reliable (to your mind anyway).

    “…but we must have compassion for the individuals impacted who are equally victims of China’s obtuseness in all of this.”
    Perhaps have compassion for the sensible people in China who suffer because of the feudal backwardness of 20 to 30% of the population (who eat that stuff and believe in its supposed benefits). And perhaps realise that if China had a ‘democracy’ like say that of India’s, the rest of the world would likely be looking at more than just a couple of hundred reported cases by now.
    ‘Democracy’ may work well for North Western Europeans who have enjoyed centuries of the age of reason and the scientific revolution. It is a disaster for people who only yesterday, and many still now, were existing in the middle ages – at least in terms of their mind-sets.

    • Mark, You make some valid points. Eg, The value of a strong centralised govt with great power, in China’s present situation.

      If you want readers to think about what you’re saying, it would be helpful if you did not dismiss what others are saying, without first reading through their references. You yourself have cited Weibo as a reference. Yet when a Weibo post was the basis of a BBC article, you did not bother reading it before you trashed it. How is that helpful to discussion? (Hint: It is not.)

      Open discussion between people of varying points of view can be invaluable. Ultimately, it’s a way for thought and human consciousness to evolve, I believe. It can certainly lead to change and improvement. But for that to happen, people need to be genuinely thinking about whatever it is that is being discussed. (And that includes considering other points of view.)

    • Well Mike,… you and I both know that if they are a neo liberal govt of course they lie. It is their second nature to do so. As guaranteed as needing to take a much needed dump after a coffee when you first wake up as of a morning.

      The neo liberal will deal equally well with either the Communist or Fascist totalitarians,… they have no values, ethics or morals. If a few million more die because of any deals struck,… what concern is that to them? They were probably just poor people anyway. Don’t need them. Just consumer eaters whose numbers needed to be culled back in future to make living space.

      Look at National. A prime example. Consorting with the Fascist’s in the Philippines while doing business with the Communists in China. Not a problem. Then making a song and dance about a memorial service that the current govt didn’t attend, – never mind it was the far right who murdered six million men women and children and defenseless elderly. We do notice they didn’t bother to send a representative from their own number to attend…

      But again.

      Not a problem.

      Just a bunch of nameless ‘worthless’ Jewish people who were murdered around 77 years ago.

      That’s just how they roll. A little bit of slurring the memory of those nameless, faceless murdered people for political points scoring is all par for the course and grist for the mill. Not a problem.

      No problem at all to them.

  12. Talking to family in China it sounds like the govt are doing their best but its a big issue. I would not be surprised by a cover up but do you think it would really be any different here? I doubt it. Panic in a large population is a dangerous thing too, how is that to be managed?Tell them people are dropping like flies? Can you imagine the outcome of that?

    As to human rights abuses and governments being dishonest we don’t exactly have a sterling track record there either so again not sure why this is relevant? Just look at the TPPA if you need a recent example. One of many I might add….

    • Sean: “…..do you think it would really be any different here? I doubt it. Panic in a large population is a dangerous thing too, how is that to be managed?Tell them people are dropping like flies? Can you imagine the outcome of that?

      Agreed, Sean. I don’t doubt that Beijing is only too well aware of the risks of panic in a population of that size. They have a number of issues to juggle; thus far, they seem to be doing a pretty good job of it.

      In terms of age, I’ve been round the clock a time or two; I feel as if I’ve seen it all before. I’d add that in this household, we cannot see what all the fuss is about: in virtue of what is it worse than our regular outbreaks of seasonal influenza? For a good blast of common sense for all readers, see this:

      https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/119283666/coronavirus-is-a-global-misinfodemic

  13. Money more important than safety in Neoliberal Managerial Intellectual Yet Idiot, NZ!

    “Entering New Zealand from the country at the centre of a global virus outbreak, an Air China passenger says no one aboard his flight was screened.
    The passenger, who did not want to be named, told the New Zealand Herald he arrived in Auckland from Beijing on Monday evening.

    “There was no one checking passengers’ temperatures at Customs, through immigration, anywhere,” he said.

    “I just walked out.”

    Even though he and other passengers mentioned they had recently travelled to Wuhan, they left Auckland Airport only clutching a health pamphlet, he said.

    It was poles apart from the health screening he had seen in China, where travellers’ temperatures were taken at multiple points at Hong Kong airport.

    Despite feeling fine and seeing no one on his flight seeming to be ill, he said the lack of screening made him nervous.”

    https://www.odt.co.nz/news/national/no-one-checking-concerns-over-border-screening

  14. “A doctor who issued a text warning about the outbreak of the coronavirus was arrested and reprimanded by Chinese authorities for raising the alarm.

    When the illness struck seven patients at a hospital in late December, Dr Li Wenliang sent a text in a group chat that said: “Quarantined in the emergency department.”

    One recipient responded: “So frightening. Is SARS coming again?”

    In the middle of the night, officials from Wuhan, the epicentre of the deadly coronavirus outbreak, arrested the doctor and demanded to know why he shared the message, according to The New York Times.”

    https://www.nzherald.co.nz/world/news/article.cfm?c_id=2&objectid=12305714

      • So we attest that you are firmly in the CCP’S fold.

        What do you get out of holding the torch high for them?

        A sense of moral self righteousness ?

        Or something more tangible such as added bonuses and a bankroll?

        You know in western culture 2000 years ago we had Judas’s thirty pieces of silver , – is the modern day equivalent the numbers of organ extracts you can justify by every political dissident murdered for livers and kidneys in the Brutopia you call mainland China under the Chinese Communist party?

        If so , you can truly say you have earned your pennies.

        • Wild Katipo: “So we attest that you are firmly in the CCP’S fold.”

          I’m not sure how you get from Mark’s scepticism about the veracity of what’s reported by the NYT, to an assertion of this sort.

          It reminds me of those commenters here who leap to the “racism” or “Islamophobic” epithets whenever they’re confronted by scepticism or a view which dissents from orthodox opinion.

          Mark is correct: treat with scepticism anything at all out of the US and UK media outlets. Including the NYT. They have printed propaganda at best, outright lies at worst, about international affairs, for most of my longish life. It wasn’t until the rise of the internet that I found out the extent of their mendacity, the extent to which we’d been misled. Noam Chomsky’s writing has helped as well. I read him at uni, but that was in philosophy (theory of mind, I think) and linguistics. His stuff on US foreign policy was an eye-opener.

          Anent China, the msm is fond of telling us that it’s a closed society, no freedoms, blah, blah, blah. But in the next breath, it’ll assert that it has all this information about what’s secretly happening there. Well, you know, the msm can’t have it both ways. And if it’s a closed society, we cannot know for sure what’s happening.

          However. As I recall, the allegations about organ harvesting came from the Falun Gong. I’ve seen no credible evidence in support of this claim; I’ve certainly seen pieces from the likes of Forbes and the Guardian, but I don’t take them seriously. But on the other hand, there are credible reports of organ harvesting in Kosovo, by the KLA. See this:

          https://www.globalresearch.ca/washington-s-appalling-kosovo-policy-in-support-of-a-mafia-state/22580

          I’d add that the western msm did a real snow job on the rest of us over what happened there and in the former Yugoslavia.

          As to the Uighurs, again: don’t take what you read in the msm at face value. See this:

          https://www.globalresearch.ca/chinas-uyghur-problem-the-recruitment-of-uyghur-muslims-to-join-al-qaeda/5656293

          And this:

          https://www.globalresearch.ca/idlib-based-uighur-terrorists-threatened-russian-forces-syria/5677976

          I’m an old lefty. I’m astonished that other commenters here – who I assume to be also left-wing – would just accept uncritically the complete bollocks that the msm dishes up. I’d expected you all to be as sceptical as I and other lefties are.

          The internet is full of rubbish, to be sure, and discernment is required; but it also offers us treasures of analysis and reporting that nobody will find in the msm. The above links are examples.

      • Must be true then, eh?

        BBC The Doctor Who Tried to Warn Others

        In early January, authorities in the Chinese city of Wuhan were trying to keep news of a new coronavirus under wraps. When one doctor tried to warn fellow medics about the outbreak, police paid him a visit and told him to stop. A month later he has been hailed as a hero, after he posted his story from a hospital bed.

        “Hello everyone, this is Li Wenliang, an ophthalmologist at Wuhan Central Hospital,” the post begins. (my emph) Full story at the link.

          • Oh….the BBC

            You’re sprung, Mark. I don’t know why you post here but it is not for honest discussion and certainly not to learn anything, as you have not even bothered to open the linked page. If you had, you’d have learned what Dr Li is saying. You’re wasting people’s time.

        • Kheala: “BBC The Doctor Who Tried to Warn Others”

          The BBC isn’t a commenter of record; possibly hasn’t been since its inception. It’s a mouthpiece of the British government. It has “form” for broadcasting propaganda.

          I also saw that story; like Mark, I didn’t believe it. I recommend that you take it with a great big handful of salt.

          I posted this above, but a repeat won’t hurt. It’s a good, solid dose of common sense from Helen Petousis-Harris:

          https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/119283666/coronavirus-is-a-global-misinfodemic

          In the view of members of this household – who’ve seen it all before, more than once – the coronavirus business is a hilarious song and dance about not very much. It doesn’t sound any worse than the seasonal flu. Now if it were polio…..

          • The BBC isn’t a commenter of record

            You seem to be unable to discuss the present topic honestly. You dismiss or discount multiple references, including those which are well regarded by many, all around the world. By doing so you create an appearance of discussing the topic, while actually avoiding doing so. That is disingenuous and a waste of other people’s time.

            • Kheala: “You dismiss or discount multiple references, including those which are well regarded by many, all around the world.”

              Were they well-regarded worldwide, it would not be the case that I and others, here and in many countries, question the veracity of what they report.

              Forty-plus years ago, I’d have been horrified at the suggestion that a British (British!) outlet such as the BBC could be mendacious and also broadcast propaganda.

              Unfortunately, I now know otherwise. The Beeb lied like a flatfish about multiple international events over my lifetime. Where do I start? Christ…..pretty much everything, sadly. It’ll be a cold day in hell before I forgive it for comprehensively lying to and propagandising my generation, before we had the internet to call it out.

              Read my comment to WK above, and the links I included there.

              “…you create an appearance of discussing the topic, while actually avoiding doing so.”

              As somebody in this household observed, uncritical acceptance and discussion of British government propaganda is not discussion of the issue. If you want to discuss the coronavirus issue, I’d suggest that Helen Petousis-Harris has far greater credibility than does the BBC.

              I reiterate: we in this household are old enough to have seen panics of this sort before. More than once…. In our view, this is a song and dance over a virus that appears to be not much worse than the seasonal flu. Again: if it were polio, I’d be seriously worried, especially given the number of loonies in NZ who haven’t vaccinated their children.

              • My concern is not with the poor old corona virus.

                My concern is for clear, honest and open discussion of whichever topic, here on TDB.

                By putting up a reference link, the invitation is there for critical discussion. So your suggestion that it is asking for “uncritical acceptance and discussion” is again, a bit disingenuous.

                Dismissing the reference source without addressing the content, particularly when done repeatedly, is a way of avoiding critical discussion rather than one of contributing to that discussion.

  15. Kheala: “Dismissing the reference source without addressing the content…”

    A careful read of my comment above will show that I did in fact see and read the BBC article. That’s what I said. I also said that I don’t believe it. And that’s because of its provenance.

    This is the BBC: nowadays, I do not trust anything at all that it broadcasts, unless there’s corroborating evidence from a source that isn’t the msm.

    Believe what you like. And I fully intend to do the same.

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