‘What consequences should China face?’

I’d kind of given up on watching the Democratic debates, in large part because they are so badly staged in general. But there was one question which I felt it would be wrong to ignore. Dana Bash’s question to Bernie Sanders during the CNN presidential debate – ‘What consequences should China face for its role in this global crisis?’ – was smarmy, and it played into the unfortunate tendency of American China-watchers to find something to blame about the Chinese government and the Chinese people, whom they’re fairly bad at distinguishing from each other. As it stands, though, the good senator from Vermont struck something of the right tone in his answer:

I don’t think this is the time for reparations. Now is the time to be working with China. They are learning a lot about this crisis. And in fact, we have got to work with them, we have got to work with the World Health Organization, we have got to work with Italy, we've got to work with countries around the world. If there was ever a moment when the entire world is in this together, got to support each other, this is that moment. Every country on Earth is going to be affected. Every country on earth has got to work together.

Senator Sanders is right. The Chinese government has been learning a lot throughout the crisis, and a lot of that learning was trial-and-error. There is no valid reason to believe the Chinese government knew what to expect, and their reaction to the warnings of Dr Li in Wuhan was understandable even if, in hindsight, it was incorrect. In the United States, it is difficult to get ordinary Americans, or even the government, to take the warnings of doctors and the CDC seriously. Add to this, that our government has had a lot more advance warning and infinitely more knowledge than the Chinese government initially had, to prepare for the inevitable transmission of COVID-19 cases to American soil. Those who live in glass houses oughtn’t throw stones.

Such a question as Bash’s bosses chose to have her ask Sanders amounts to irresponsible and frivolous red-baiting. Ms Bash wanted to pin Sanders as a China sympathiser, probably based on his previous answers to China-related questions. And she wanted to do so in much the same way as the New York Times wanted to pin Sanders as a Soviet sympathiser for hosting a perfectly normal (and indeed encouraged!) sister city exchange between Yaroslavl and Burlington back in the 1980s. The question is not serious, and yet the fact that both liberal and conservative media outlets took it seriously is its own problem. The Blob still wants us to believe that its moral legitimacy is unquestionable, and that it is competent not only to pass judgement on how other countries conduct their internal affairs, but also to decide upon and enforce ‘consequences’ on them.

But, as an exercise, let’s take the question seriously. What consequences should China face? Let’s start with the doctors and paramedics in Wuhan. The consequences they deserve are medals and parades in their honour. They are heroes, full stop. What consequences should the government face? That’s a very different question. The Chinese government did make some mistakes – again, with the benefit of hindsight, these are easier to see – in their initial response. But on the face of it, they ought to be lauded by the international community for an admittedly heavy-handed response that kept people alive and bought the rest of the world two months to prepare for the coming epidemic. And what consequences should the Chinese people face?

Even to pose this last question is to expose the narcissism and inhumanity of the thinking of the foreign policy establishment here. They do not even care to distinguish, when they speak of a country, between the people and the government. How else can we explain the persistence of sanctions – particularly those against Iran and Venezuela – as they are dealing with a pandemic that has killed almost a thousand of the people of Iran, not merely the government? How else can we explain the eagerness with which the foreign policy establishment wants to punish China – and Iran, and Venezuela – while we still haven’t allocated sufficient money and energy to caring for our own people? We can no longer pretend that the public health problems of one country will stay within that country. And so the real question becomes: what consequences must our government face for their sheer inability to change course when confronted with a pandemic?