Making China pay
EDITOR'S NOTE
Everywhere I look now, there's another death from Covid-19 (or complications). The playwright Terrence McNally. Staffers from NBC and CBS. The actor Mark Blum. Parents of people I follow on Twitter. The CFO of Jefferies.
It's tragic stuff. And once the grief and fear subside--and maybe even sooner--my guess is those emotions will turn to anger, and then blame. Who caused the death of my loved ones? People will ask. Who cost me my job, my business, my life savings? And the answer right now is: China.
I think that's partly why President Trump's approval ratings have risen as Covid has crippled America. The stock market's sunk 20-30%, the economy's at a standstill, and yet his reelection odds have brightened? Seems unlikely, but then again (a) national tragedies tend to improve the president's approval ratings, and (b), this tragedy seems to confirm the president's wariness of China.
So let's fast forward a couple of months, when the U.S. has paid out trillions in loans and grants to the American people and its businesses for relief. Our deficit could easily be running 15-20% the size of our GDP this year, far worse than we saw during the depths of the Great Recession. You don't think Trump will try to make China pay for at least some of that? Especially if the alternatives for closing the deficit are huge tax hikes or slashing government services, or getting hammered about it as a campaign issue?
It's no wonder the Chinese are trying so hard to deflect blame for Covid-19. There was a whole brouhaha the past couple weeks over an NPR story that quoted an Italian doctor as saying a "very strange pneumonia, very severe, particularly in old people" was seen in the country as early as November. The Chinese immediately seized on it as evidence that Covid-19 didn't come from them. Few others are convinced.
The Chinese have been trying to blame the U.S. military for the outbreak while refusing international authorities access to the area in Wuhan province where Covid-19 broke out. (Here's the WSJ story that traces "patient zero" to a seafood merchant there. Now China has banished all U.S. journalists working for the Journal, New York Times, and Washington Post.)
There is already concern, at least by the Chinese, that this fight over money and blame could quickly escalate. Communist party mouthpiece Hu Xijin, of the Global Times, last week tweeted: "Whoever stirs up conflict between China and the US will be condemned by history."
And this rage at China isn't just coming from America: "FURY AT CHINA'S LIES" was the headline of Britain's Sunday Mail, which said pressure is building on prime minister Boris Johnson--who himself has contracted Covid-19--to reverse his decision to let Huawei build large parts of Britain's new 5G network.
That may be the least of China's concerns in the coming months.
See you at 1 p.m...
Kelly
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