[Stu from NYC]

Originally Posted by jmaccallum

In the science world, we all know it came from the Wuhan lab and that it was gain of function. Too much overzealousness in research. Happens a lot. It’s kept murky at best because of the many hands involved including those from the US. We pulled out under Obama, but many including China didn’t know if we were stopping or just taking it to our own backyard for further progress.

After Nixon, we made a bet on China. Share technology, improve their social economic status and they’d all want blue jeans and cell phones. Why not, it worked with Japan after WWII. Seemed like a a win-win. We get cheap labor and they eventually get the best of Western lifestyle.

Didn’t work out so good. As usual, our great thinkers didn’t consider all the parameters. The biggest being governing 1.4 billion people who were going to have freedom? We have a hard time doing it with only 300 billion - less than 25% of the Chinese population. Canada has problems doing it with 36 billion - just over 1/10 of us. Not to say it can’t be done, but it’s easier not to. So comes Xi.

If you think people from New York are different from people in North Carolina, and they are, that’s only a drop in the bucket compared to the vast differences of culture and dialect in China. In China, many people from one region can’t even talk to people from another region, unless both speak Mandarin.

So anyway, our partnership with China was like two friends who both got caught with their hands in the cookie jar. Neither wants to tell the truth, and at some point one pointed at the other. And then the other pointed back. Both feel slighted, so they’re not friends anymore. So let’s take our chips and go home.

Problem is, two kids on the block, both with big weapons. Let’s just hope it doesn’t turn into a mass shooting.

Very interesting analysis, you might well be right