We know China is guilty, so what should the West do now?

“The Chinese government wants me to say that for many centuries Tibet has been part of China. Even if I make that statement, many people would just laugh. And my statement will not change past history. History is history.” –The Dalai Lama

 
From the Dalai Lama to my grandmother

The Dalai Lama is right. At root, to paraphrase Aristotle, things are what they are. They cannot be wished away, excused away, or censored away. History is history.

Of course, that does not stop many people from trying to do so. For example, the often wrong Chris Patten has intoned that now is precisely the wrong time to take the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) to task for its criminally negligent behaviour over the spread of the coronavirus. Instead, he suggests, “In the midst of a fire, it makes no sense to point fingers at the principal arsonist”. Frankly, this defeatist nonsense makes no sense, either as a metaphor (I’d surely hope to promptly catch the person who burned my house down) or as a guide to international relations.

Instead, I suggest we follow the far sager advice of my grandmother that “we are going to have to walk and chew gum at the same time”. In this case, we must deal with the horrendous health and economic policy issues surrounding the coronavirus, all the while never forgetting that it is the CCP who, once it had struck them down, aided and abetted its global spread, in an effort to safeguard its global position. Both thoughts must animate us, and at the same time.

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Πηγή: capx.co