The Coronavirus Is China's Gift to the World: It Will Never Be the Same Again
Introduction
China was riding high. It has overtaken the established economies of Japan, Germany, and England and become the second-largest economy in the world after the United States. It's per capita income was low, yet China began to exert a disproportionate influence in the world. The European democracies unable to match the cutthroat competition from China outsourced most of their production activities to China.
The biggest culprit was Italy. It not only had a direct flight to Wuhan but a lot of its manufacturing activities were around the same place.No wonder it leads in the count of deaths, much ahead of China due to the effect of this virus.
The virus originated from China and initially, the Chinese did not take it seriously and the virus spread. Thousands were infected and hundreds began to die. That was the time the Chinese government woke up to the danger of this virus. The world was slow to react initially and business with China continued as usual with businessmen, business leaders, and tourists continuing a too and fro traffic from China.
During this incubation period, the virus spread globally and it is then the world woke up to the danger of this virus which had originated from China. Donald Trump has referred to this virus is the "China virus".He is not a man to hold his punches and I will have to agree that he is correct.
China and the Virus
How did the virus start from China. There is no unanimity on this but generally, people agree on two possible reasons. Firstly there is a chance that in a laboratory in Wuhan where a virus was being isolated, it escaped. We do not know what happened but there is a possibility that inadvertently the viruses left the laboratory. Even then it could have been controlled but there is a second reason also and that is the food habits of the Chinese.
The Chinese are prone to eat exotic foods which are normally not consumed in other parts of the world. They have been eating scorpions, snakes. bats and God knows so many other types of insects and animals. These weird eating habits have had an effect in reinforcing the spread of the virus.
Recently I saw a video on YouTube put up by the famous Pakistani cricket player Shoaib Akhtar. Shoaib in his inimitable style brings out the fact that he could not understand when good meat like goats and chickens is available, why the hell the Chinese go and eat weird foods. He also mentioned that they were eating dogs and cats but I'm not sure about it.
The escape of the virus from the laboratory coupled with the eating habits of the Chinese allowed the virus to spread in China. Since the world had outsourced most of its business and manufacturing activities to China, the number of visitors to China had increased phenomenally. China was supposed to be the country with the magic talisman that would save the economies of western Europe and even Africa and Asia. People forgot that China is a totalitarian state and a naked dictatorship which does not allow any dissent. The Chinese government herded forced labor into manufacturing activities with the result that the GDP increased but the lot of the common man remained the same.
Looking for easy profits the West was blinded to all this and big corporations began to outsource their activities to China. The bubble was bound to burst because of Chinese activities. I wonder what sort of virus the Chinese were testing. Now I am told that the laboratory is closed but the damage has been done.
Countries that had a close association with China like Italy have suffered badly and I think there are more deaths in Italy than in China. As on date, no vaccine is available and I have my doubts that an effective vaccine will be available immediately. The USA is not in a happy position either with over 100 deaths already.
Ahead?
The genie has come out of the bottle and I don't think it's going to go back easily. It will remain and the blame for this lies with all the people who trusted China implicitly. At least the world has now realized that it has come to grips with a virus that could destroy their entire lifestyle. One hopes that the world realizes the perfidy of the Chinese government in spreading this virus. The world also must accept that China is not a nation that one can put all its eggs into.
Maybe a vaccine will be found but then where is the guarantee that another form of a more resistant virus does not emerge? I don't think China will be able to reclaim its leadership. it's about time the world united and quarantined China. Maybe if this is done for two or three years, there is a chance that something could come out of it . At the moment we can just cross our fingers and pray.
