"I think a lot of people have egg on their face. This was an idea that was first put forward by Mike Pompeo… Donald Trump. And look, some things may be true even if Donald Trump said them. Because Trump was saying so much else, it was just out of control. And because he was — you know — making a frankly racist appeal, talking about ‘Kung Flu’ and the China virus, he put forward this notion… and it was widely dismissed."
I have a question. If it turns out the virus was indeed created in the lab and escaped, and the Chinese have been suppressing the news ever since, is it still racist to call it the China Virus?
What it is is stupid. The people of China, and even some in the Chinese diaspora, will defensively band together, which is exactly what the CCP wants. It would have been both smarter and more accurate to call it the CCP Virus. Initial anger against the CCP by the people of China could have been sustained and strengthened by doing so, weakening the CCP in the process.
The other thing I’d like to say is, whatever the origin of the virus, there’s a good case to be made that Xi Jinping deliberately sickened the world. From what I remember, international travel to and from Wuhan was allowed to go on for a week or two after domestic travel to and from the city was halted due to the lockdown.
EDIT: Just to be clear, I don’t mean Xi woke up one morning and decided to unleash a plague upon the world. No, I mean once he realized what was happening in Wuhan he decided that China alone wasn’t going to suffer from it.