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> In Feb of 2020 the U.S. committee of foreign affairs was posting documents detailing some of the lies China has told[0], but we chose to trust their data in o
by aragonite 3y ago
> In Feb of 2020 the U.S. committee of foreign affairs was posting documents detailing some of the lies China has told[0], but we chose to trust their data in one of the biggest crisis of our lifetime?
Have you actually read the document you linked to?[1] Are you seriously arguing China is not to be trusted because it "lied to us" about "Xi Jinping being the President of China", about it "lifting its citizens out of poverty and improving their lives", about it "not being a threat to Americans’ way of life"?
Almost every single "lie" listed in there is an assessment, a normative statement/conclusion, something you may agree, disagree, criticize as irrational, reach the opposite assessment etc., but for which the concept of "lying" is simply inappropriate.
[1]
1. Lie: Xi Jinping is the President of China.
2. Lie: The CCP is lifting its citizens out of poverty and improving their lives.
3. Lie: China is a benign power, not interested in territorial expansion.
4. Lie: The CCP is not interested in spreading its digital authoritarian system to other countries.
5. Lie: The CCP is not a threat to Americans’ way of life, including our education system and personal freedoms.
6. Lie: China’s rise is inevitable
7. Lie: China is a champion of multilateralism and the “global south.”
8. Lie: China is a market economy
9. Lie: China remains an unmissable opportunity for businesses.
10.Lie: China is a leader in the response to climate change.
- toolz 3y agoDoes it matter if the document is incorrect? It's an official document from the committee of foreign affairs showing that the U.S. stance on China is that they lie about various things. I don't care how substantial those things are, I care that the official stance was one that China lies a lot and then we proceeded to mimic their covid response while we had other options from more reputable sources (i.e. Korea).
- aragonite 3y agoI fail to see any inconsistency between the two. One of the most often repeated cliches regarding China is "don't listen to what they say, watch what they do." Let's assume, hypothetically, that we genuinely (and not as a matter of political rhetoric) believe that everything China says is a lie. This skepticism towards their words simply doesn't logically extend to their actions — especially when those actions (i.e. how they responded to their own Covid situation) were in their own self-interest and could be independently verified. This is just a logical observation: Unless you believe that China intentionally responded to Covid in self-destructive ways in the hopes that US might copy their responses, there's simply no inconsistency between the "official stance" you linked to and what you referred to as the subsequent "mimicking".
- toolz 3y agoIt was in China's own self-interest to under-report their casualties to covid. They were forced to choose some form of action, but that does not mean their choice was the correct one. Also, there was little to no independent verification of their reported numbers. China doesn't just let foreign interests come into their country and investigate.