This Sunday is the statutory deadline set by Congress for the U.S. government to declassify and publish what information it has on the origin of the pandemic as it relates to the Wuhan Institute of Virology. In the past week, in the run-up to this expected disclosure, we’ve seen two explosive articles on the subject, one from the Times of London and the other on Substack by
I hope that this possible "outsourcing" to China of the development of a potentially extremely lethal bioweapon is effectively investigated and that heads roll (metaphorically speaking, as I am against the death penalty) as a result.
However, and this is a big "however", the USA needs China and the world needs the USA and China to be positively engaged in what has to become as soon as possible an effective international effort to stop both making climate change worse as well as the extermination of increasingly more and more of the living species of plants, animals and fungi that make life in this planet sustainable, including the endurance of our own species.
This is the most important issue confronting humanity today, it is already happening and even if we stopped doing right now the things that make this steadily building-up catastrophe possible, what is already happening may stay at the present level and even get worse for centuries to come, unless there is some way to reduce the CO2 in the atmosphere, besides stopping our contributions to its continuous buildup.
So confronting China in what it is necessary while trying to achieve the degree cooperation that is required for universal survival is a difficult circle to square. But that is what statesmanship is for, assuming both sides have at least the minimum necessary of this resource available, which I think right now is the quintillion-dollar question here.
Today's in the Washington Post there is an article that I think is worth having a look at:
Opinion Biden wants a ‘thaw’ with China. What would that take?
By Bates Gill, Nikki Haley, Zongyuan Zoe Liu, Michael Mazza, Andrew Browne, Christopher Wood and Emily de La Bruyère
June 16, 2023 at 4:11 p.m. EDT
Most of the comments are cautiously in favor of a thaw and make some suggestions to this end that might be worth considering.
But the following think that Biden's idea of a rapprochement is a very bad one for the reasons they give, as it is to be expected of them:
Nikki Haley (aspiring to be the Republican presidential candidate next year and the Ex-US Ambassador to the UN, appointed by Trump. (A list of all the evil things China is up to against the USA.)
Michael Mazza is a nonresident fellow at the American Enterprise Institute and a senior nonresident fellow at the Global Taiwan Institute. (Things will never change, so the USA must face up to China for ever.)
Emily de La Bruyère is co-founder of Horizon Advisory and senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies with a focus on China policy. (Biden's "thaw" = "appeasement.")
I hope that this possible "outsourcing" to China of the development of a potentially extremely lethal bioweapon is effectively investigated and that heads roll (metaphorically speaking, as I am against the death penalty) as a result.
However, and this is a big "however", the USA needs China and the world needs the USA and China to be positively engaged in what has to become as soon as possible an effective international effort to stop both making climate change worse as well as the extermination of increasingly more and more of the living species of plants, animals and fungi that make life in this planet sustainable, including the endurance of our own species.
This is the most important issue confronting humanity today, it is already happening and even if we stopped doing right now the things that make this steadily building-up catastrophe possible, what is already happening may stay at the present level and even get worse for centuries to come, unless there is some way to reduce the CO2 in the atmosphere, besides stopping our contributions to its continuous buildup.
So confronting China in what it is necessary while trying to achieve the degree cooperation that is required for universal survival is a difficult circle to square. But that is what statesmanship is for, assuming both sides have at least the minimum necessary of this resource available, which I think right now is the quintillion-dollar question here.
Today's in the Washington Post there is an article that I think is worth having a look at:
Opinion Biden wants a ‘thaw’ with China. What would that take?
By Bates Gill, Nikki Haley, Zongyuan Zoe Liu, Michael Mazza, Andrew Browne, Christopher Wood and Emily de La Bruyère
June 16, 2023 at 4:11 p.m. EDT
Most of the comments are cautiously in favor of a thaw and make some suggestions to this end that might be worth considering.
But the following think that Biden's idea of a rapprochement is a very bad one for the reasons they give, as it is to be expected of them:
Nikki Haley (aspiring to be the Republican presidential candidate next year and the Ex-US Ambassador to the UN, appointed by Trump. (A list of all the evil things China is up to against the USA.)
Michael Mazza is a nonresident fellow at the American Enterprise Institute and a senior nonresident fellow at the Global Taiwan Institute. (Things will never change, so the USA must face up to China for ever.)
Emily de La Bruyère is co-founder of Horizon Advisory and senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies with a focus on China policy. (Biden's "thaw" = "appeasement.")