China's CCP warns Elon Musk against sharing Wuhan lab leak report

[snakestretcher]

It’s really interesting that even our own media is clinging to the more and more unlikely scenario that Covid-19 evolved in a natural setting instead of the more likely possibility that it, in fact, escaped from that lab in Wuhan. Like everything else, they’re all about “consensus”:

https://www.cnn.com/2023/02/27/politics/intel-community-covid-origins/index.html

Covid Lab Leak Theory: Some Government Agencies Believe It—Here’s Why Most Scientists Don’t

Almost seven million people have died from Covid since the pandemic began in 2020, and many people like former President Donald Trump have made the Chinese government the scapegoat.

www.forbes.com

MSN

www.msn.com

"Likely" still isn't evidence; it's conjecture. Got any real evidence, or is this one of those 'but everyone knows' scenarios?

 

[Ahlevah]

This is China saying "we can **** with money/stuff you have in our country if you don't stop this".

There is nothing in the constitution which protects against that.

Edit: 1st amendment only protects us from OUR government.

I studied constitutional law in college. My B.A. degree’s in government. I know what a constitutional right is, and I understand to whom it applies. But you’re missing my point.

A right is only worth your ability to exercise it. If Elon Musk or anyone living within the territorial borders of the United States is constrained in their ability to voice an opinion without incurring some sort of sanction by a foreign country or entity, that’s a state of affairs we shouldn’t tolerate without a response. More and more we’re seeing the Chinese government insert itself into the political discourse of this country, whether by intimidating or even kidnapping Chinese citizens who’ve been given refuge here or by setting up “police stations” within our borders, political lobbying, advertising, social media, or by threatening Americans who don’t toe their line with sanctions of some sort.

We need to understand that China under Chairman Xi has become increasingly totalitarian. It’s bad news, and we should move to decouple ourselves from it and stop accepting it like a “normal” country or hoping it will somehow change. It’s not, and it won’t. Time to wake up, people.

 

[PoS]

Projecting again, or are you incapable of finding something else to imagine about me?

There's no need to imagine, your love for Trump is as clear as day lol

 

[Kushinator]

I think I’m writing English:

It's a little more complicated than a few sentences in some rando article.

Outside of Shanghai is a special economic zone (Free Trade Zone) known as Lin-Gang. Since it's not technically in China, companies operating here will be subject to import duties into Chinese markets but have a reduced corporate tax rate (15%) and streamlined government services / airport access / port access. So while it might seem like a big deal for Musk fan-boys to regurgitate the line from Tesla's latest shareholder meeting, they are literally the only automotive manufacturer operating in Lin-Gang. A Finnish diesel manufacturer Wärtsilä Qiyao along with 36 other companies including Tesla also operate in the same 100% owned capacity.

 

[Kushinator]

There's no need to imagine, your love for Trump is as clear as day lol

And here you are trolling in another thread.

It's kinda pathetic... even for you.

 

[PoS]

And here you are trolling in another thread.

It's kinda pathetic... even for you.

Oh look, another Trump groupie comes out of the closet in defense of the orange man. Keep being you lol

 

[Kushinator]

Oh look, another Trump groupie comes out of the closet in defense of the orange man. Keep being you lol

I get that you are not capable of discussing the topic and actually contributing to the thread.

 

[PoS]

I get that you are not capable of discussing the topic and actually contributing to the thread.

LOL you are the ones who started the Trump bandwagon on this thread, so its safe to say that youre desperately trying to hide your fondness for him lol

 

[Kushinator]

LOL you are the ones who started the Trump bandwagon on this thread, so its safe to say that youre desperately trying to hide your fondness for him lol

I didn't mention Trump in my posts. But here you are in another thread trolling to his defense. It's weird... who would spend their time doing this?

 

[PoS]

I didn't mention Trump in my posts. But here you are in another thread trolling to his defense. It's weird... who would spend their time doing this?

You got upset about you being exposed of having loved Trump in the other thrtead, so now youre following me around. Your lies are exposed. Again.

 

[Superfly]

Hopefully, Mr. M. will tell Red China to go jump in the lake.

How pitiful that so many American businessmen and athletes kowtow to the Communists.

Hopefully, someone or some nation will make China stay in its lane.

How ironic! Maybe Asia now needs Japan has its protector.

Ooh! Now do Russia!

 

[Superfly]

I hope this is sarcasm, or should I remind you of all the wars the US has started, unprovoked, the bombing of innocent nations in pursuit of geo-political hegemony, the overthrow of legitimate democracies in pursuit of oil, the support, arming and financing of terrorists? Compared with the most belligerent and aggressive nation on the planet, the USA, China appears positively saint-like.

Oh do go on. Genocide, slavery, human rights violations, starving their people in the name of politics, freezing their people in the name of politics, attempting to force you to follow their religion, denying your right to be the sexual orientation you are born with …

Damn. We sound almost as bad as them.

 

[D_NATURED]

No Shit he is Texas. Hell even I get out of paying taxes in the US, Donald Trump, payed taxes in China. If you want to do business in a place like that you have to play by their rules. Is that so hard for you to understand? It has nothing to do with cultural relativism, it's just reality.

Yes, the reality is, if you're taking Chinese money you have to submit to their oppression and pretend there's nothing wrong with it. You know, like a whore.

 

[Davin]

You got upset about you being exposed of having loved Trump in the other thrtead, so now youre following me around. Your lies are exposed. Again.

^^^^ More lies and projection from a Trump lover. They are ashamed of their love for Trump so they project onto others

 

[Visbek]

I just saw another report on CNBC regarding a potential ban on TikTok as a national security risk gaining traction in congress. The report also mentioned that direct foreign investment in China is at an 18-year low, and gave several notable examples of companies like Apple picking up their marbles and finding another game.

China is simply an unreliable business and political partner and has become not just a rival but an actual national security threat under its totalitarian leader, Chairman Xi Jinping. We shouldn’t be doing $700+ billion in bilateral trade with a country like this. We don’t need China. Most of their technology they purchased, learned, or stole from Western nations and their corporate, government, and educational institutions, like the good folks at the NIH who funded corona virus-advancing research at the Wuhan lab. Chinese state-owned media mince no words criticizing the West, especially the U.S., with their harsh, stinging rhetoric. So why are we doing business with this totalitarian cultural wasteland, where free inquiry experiences a quick, summary execution unless it’s the state doing the talking? Chairman Xi would probably be happier if he married his fellow dictator pal, Putin.

So it took you just 11 posts to veer into xenophobia. Nice.

Back in the real world, yes, China's government is increasingly autocratic and has a bad record on human rights. But we should keep in mind that throughout its history, the US did many of the same things China does now. The US enslaved millions of humans, brutally discriminated against them for decades after slavery ended, and engaged in a genocidal campaign against indigenous peoples. In its early days, the US was the source of cheap labor and exported tons of goods to Europe, including "stealing" their tech. Much like how China has control of Tibet, the US has controlled other nations in the past (Hawaii, Philippines, Cuba, Panama) and present (Puerto Rico).

Meanwhile, the right wing and conservative elected officials in the US are increasingly attacking corporations, telling them what to do, controlling bank investments, disrupting business deals with foreign partners. DeSantis even took control of a special district in Florida in a blatant attempt to influence Disney's decisions. What's the difference between China pressuring Tesla, and Congress threatening to completely ban TikTok?

And of course, America's government doesn't "mince words" when criticizing other nations.

As to why the US should do business with China? For one thing, it's still an industrial and manufacturing powerhouse, and yes the US does need a lot of what they produce. In addition, trade is beneficial for all parties -- that's why we trade. It's pulled nearly 1 billion people in Asia out of abject poverty, and resulted in cheap high-quality goods that Americans keep on buying. Further, while I don't think we can say that "trade and capitalism encourage democracy," it seems pretty clear that external economic pressures don't encourage democracy either, and can be counter-productive.

Meanwhile, it sure looks like foreign investment in China is still on the rise. What's changed is that foreign investment as a percent of China's GDP has fallen steadily since 1993. That's not an indicator of capital flight from China.

China Foreign Direct Investment - February 2023 Data - 1997-2022 Historical

Foreign direct investment into China grew by 14.5 percent from a year earlier to CNY 127.69 billion in January 2023. In dollar terms, FDI increased 10 percent to USD 19.02 billion last month. Foreign Direct Investment in China averaged 494.29 USD HML from 1997 until 2023, reaching an all time...

tradingeconomics.com

Foreign direct investment, net inflows (% of GDP) - China | Data

Foreign direct investment, net inflows (% of GDP) - China from The World Bank: Data

data.worldbank.org

This is not to say that the two nations are morally equivalent, or that it's perfectly OK for China's government to bully foreign business. Rather, it's that before you blast out yet more tired anti-Asian sentiments, you should keep in mind that not everyone sees the US in the same charitable light as you.

 

[Ahlevah]

"Likely" still isn't evidence; it's conjecture. Got any real evidence, or is this one of those 'but everyone knows' scenarios?

Yes, it’s a theory, but one based on sound reasoning. This idea that a uniform spike protein not normally found in nature evolved from a coronavirus found in bats hundreds of miles away from the initial known point of origin, with no evidence of its RNA having infected anyone anywhere no earlier than September, 2019, just magically appearing in a city where there is a known laboratory using security protocols no more restrictive than a western dentist office that we know was genetically altering these viruses as a means of enhancing their infectious threat to humans, presumably to give us a leg-up on vaccine development, just defies logic.

The only people who know truth are the Chinese, and they’ve been anything but forthcoming. In fact, they’ve been downright belligerent, accusing anyone who questions their stonewalling as being anti-Chinese.

 

[Surrealistik]

So it took you just 11 posts to veer into xenophobia. Nice...

Gee, that sure is a lot of apologism for a disgusting autocratic regime that in addition to having historical sins that greatly outweigh the totality of America's under Mao alone, is engaged in multiple counts of ongoing genocide in the present day as it bullies its neighbors, supports fellow heinous autocracies like Putin's Russia, unapologetically and bluntly leverages its economic influence to silence valid critiques, consciously undermines democracies worldwide on an ongoing basis, foments corruption and Cold War era debt trap diplomacy, and forcibly, and illegally, tries to lay claim to the whole of the South China Sea.

Moreover, throwing out blatantly false and disingenuous equivalences like China routinely pressuring and intimidating foreign citizens and entities not to share unflattering facts and findings as being somehow comparable to a ban on TikTok that has been repeatedly found to be Chinese spyware and a glaring security risk the world over despite longstanding and good faith genuine efforts by the US to arrive at a compromise on the app (to the point where Biden in his eminent fairness repealed Trump's ban for want of further review and negotiations, and yet ultimately found it warranted a ban from govt devices at a minimum) is absurd.

So too is trying to ludicrously equivocate the regrettable but ultimately comparatively innocuous actions of America's right wing lunatic fringe to a literal oppressive autocracy that engages in egregious violations of fundamental human rights on a daily basis from wholesale political censorship and information control to organ harvesting, torture and enslavement of ethnic minorities and political dissidents, as is the dredging up of America's past sins without acknowledging the massacres and terrors of Mao that, as stated, handily dwarf all the absolute worst instances of American history combined.

It is not at all xenophobia to call out China for being the brutal and despicable autocracy it so clearly is, to point out sins such as massive IP theft it is clearly guilt of, the political risks that are blatant, and the likewise obvious threat it poses. Moreover it makes perfect sense to divest and economically censure the country (albeit by degrees to give us time to realign to friendlier partners) given that trade with the West is overwhelmingly what bankrolls, enables and consolidates the power and misdeeds of the CCP, and allows it to spread its malign influence throughout the world. Trade that greatly empowers our foes, which have made little mystery about their intent to displace American and more broadly Western hegemony with their own, and that present as perhaps the greatest ever threat to the free world, should obviously not be pursued; normalization of such with the CCP from Nixon to Clinton's ill-advised doubling down was a blatant mistake and counts as easily one of the US's greatest modern foreign policy blunders.

Frankly, your post was little more than a disgusting and inexcusable attempt to blunt and deflect rightful criticism of the CCP, and you should be ashamed. I expect better from you.

 

[snakestretcher]

Gee, that sure is a lot of apologism for a disgusting autocratic regime that in addition to having historical sins that greatly outweigh the totality of America's under Mao alone, is engaged in multiple counts of ongoing genocide in the present day as it bullies its neighbors, supports fellow heinous autocracies like Putin's Russia, unapologetically and bluntly leverages its economic influence to silence valid critiques, consciously undermines democracies worldwide on an ongoing basis, foments corruption and Cold War era debt trap diplomacy, and forcibly, and illegally, tries to lay claim to the whole of the South China Sea.

Moreover, throwing out blatantly false and disingenuous equivalences like China routinely pressuring and intimidating foreign citizens and entities not to share unflattering facts and findings as being somehow comparable to a ban on TikTok that has been repeatedly found to be Chinese spyware and a glaring security risk the world over despite longstanding and good faith genuine efforts by the US to arrive at a compromise on the app (to the point where Biden in his eminent fairness repealed Trump's ban for want of further review and negotiations, and yet ultimately found it warranted a ban from govt devices at a minimum) is absurd.

So too is trying to ludicrously equivocate the regrettable but ultimately comparatively innocuous actions of America's right wing lunatic fringe to a literal oppressive autocracy that engages in egregious violations of fundamental human rights on a daily basis from wholesale political censorship and information control to organ harvesting, torture and enslavement of ethnic minorities and political dissidents, as is the dredging up of America's past sins without acknowledging the massacres and terrors of Mao that, as stated, handily dwarf all the absolute worst instances of American history combined.

It is not at all xenophobia to call out China for being the brutal and despicable autocracy it so clearly is, to point out sins such as massive IP theft it is clearly guilt of, the political risks that are blatant, and the likewise obvious threat it poses. Moreover it makes perfect sense to divest and economically censure the country (albeit by degrees to give us time to realign to friendlier partners) given that trade with the West is overwhelmingly what bankrolls, enables and consolidates the power and misdeeds of the CCP, and allows it to spread its malign influence throughout the world. Trade that greatly empowers our foes, which have made little mystery about their intent to displace American and more broadly Western hegemony with their own, and that present as perhaps the greatest ever threat to the free world, should obviously not be pursued; normalization of such with the CCP from Nixon to Clinton's ill-advised doubling down was a blatant mistake and counts as easily one of the US's greatest modern foreign policy blunders.

Frankly, your post was little more than a disgusting and inexcusable attempt to blunt and deflect rightful criticism of the CCP, and you should be ashamed. I expect better from you.

The West does not deserve any less criticism than does China when it comes to human rights abuses, terrorism, genocide, torture, democratic government overthrow, indulging in belligerent wars of aggression-let's also not forget the cutely-named 'extraordinary rendition' and 'enhanced interrogation' employed by the US, along with the illegal detention of hundreds of innocent men in Guantanamo and Abu Ghraib. You tell me who has the right to claim moral superiority over the other. A little introspection always helps when levelling accusations at others.

 

[Deuce]

Oh do go on. Genocide, slavery, human rights violations, starving their people in the name of politics, freezing their people in the name of politics, attempting to force you to follow their religion, denying your right to be the sexual orientation you are born with …

Damn. We sound almost as bad as them.

Wait which country were we describing again

 

[Ahlevah]

Frankly, your post was little more than a disgusting and inexcusable attempt to blunt and deflect rightful criticism of the CCP, and you should be ashamed. I expect better from you.

This rampant “whataboutism” we see in these forums really isn’t any different than the deflections communist disinformation directorates used in campaigns against the U.S. and the West during the Cold War to draw attention away from their own behavior. They used it because it proved effective, as we see in Russia’s current campaign to reframe its invasion of Ukraine from the blatant aggression that it is to a natural response to NATO encroachment on its borders, presumably because it constitutes some sort of existential threat. And, at least among developing nations and former European colonies in Africa, Asia, and Latin America, the fact that they discount Russia’s behavior and Ukraine’s distress demonstrates that. But here in this forum I’m going to call their whataboutism spade a spade as the faulty logic that it is.

 

[SCrider]

Yes, the reality is, if you're taking Chinese money you have to submit to their oppression and pretend there's nothing wrong with it. You know, like a whore.

Well Elon should keep his whore mouth shut then.

 

[Ahlevah]

The West does not deserve any less criticism than does China when it comes to human rights abuses, terrorism, genocide, torture, democratic government overthrow, indulging in belligerent wars of aggression-let's also not forget the cutely-named 'extraordinary rendition' and 'enhanced interrogation' employed by the US, along with the illegal detention of hundreds of innocent men in Guantanamo and Abu Ghraib. You tell me who has the right to claim moral superiority over the other. A little introspection always helps when levelling accusations at others.

It does under certain circumstances: 1) when the criticism is used solely as a means to deflect and not address the actual argument; 2) when the alleged sins are not comparable.

The first is beyond dispute: your sole motivation is as a means to distract from or justify Chinese behavior. And your second is a layup or a gimme to refute. Let me explain.

Earlier, you tried to compare U.S. involvement in various wars in the decades since WWII to the Chinese communist extermination of tens of millions of its own citizens. The first example was the Korean War, in which you tried to lay the deaths of millions of Koreans at America’s doorstep. Let me point out a few facts.

When the communists invaded South Korea in June, 1950, the South faced an actual, imminent existential threat. The first order of business in that circumstance was not to lose, because it was literally a matter of their lives versus those of their enemy. When your enemy is sending hundreds of thousands of soldiers through its cities on a cramped peninsula even as it doesn’t distinguish between combatants and civilians but considers every comrade a soldier for the cause, you don’t have the time or pleasure to discriminate. A U.S. military doctrine that includes civilian populations as potential strategic targets, where justified, existed then and it exists today, as we see in the United States’ nuclear deterrent policy of Mutual Assured Destruction (M.A.D.). Sorry, but if it’s a case of us or them, then guess what? It’s them.

And what was the result of that war? It had its growing pains, but what ultimately emerged was a democratic, prosperous, and free South Korea. Meanwhile, how are things with China’s communist pal in the north, which not only enslaves its own populace but continues to be a regional and growing strategic threat to international stability and the rules-based international order?

Sorry, but no. Your tally of communist-inspired deaths is coming up millions of civilians short. The 3 or 4 million dead Koreans you want to ascribe to America really should be added to China’s 50 million starved and executed Chinese.

 

[Ahlevah]

So it took you just 11 posts to veer into xenophobia. Nice.

Besides whataboutism, a common tactic used by the Chinese communists is to accuse those who question their behavior as somehow anti-Chinese or xenophobic. But, in the name of fairness, I’ll give you a chance to respond. Can you give me a specific example of a xenophobic comment I made?

 

[CharloTexan]

MSN

www.msn.com

Up to this point, without China Tesla isn’t Tesla. Moral of the story: As we’ve seen with other businesses that operate in China, such as Disney and the NBA, be prepared to surrender your constitutional rights and accept the growing geopolitical risk of doing business there, or pay the consequences.

Typical Chinese cancel culture. When are they gonna woke up? /S

 

[Surrealistik]

The West does not deserve any less criticism than does China when it comes to human rights abuses, terrorism, genocide, torture, democratic government overthrow, indulging in belligerent wars of aggression-let's also not forget the cutely-named 'extraordinary rendition' and 'enhanced interrogation' employed by the US, along with the illegal detention of hundreds of innocent men in Guantanamo and Abu Ghraib. You tell me who has the right to claim moral superiority over the other. A little introspection always helps when levelling accusations at others.

Who was refraining from criticism of the West? Also, if we're talking about the cumulative sins of America versus China specifically as we were, yes, I would assert that America deserves less criticism and has moral superiority because China's sins under the CCP alone have been collectively far worse; again, the depravity of Mao's reign by itself outstrips all the worst parts of American history combined in terms of sheer horror, moral and ethical lapse, and present day China's offenses remain more egregious than those of than present day America.

Further, Visbek literally came out of nowhere with abrupt and baseless accusations of xenophobia, in addition to whataboutism and deflection featuring a bunch of ridiculous false equivalencies for reasons that mystify me. Obviously America has done terrible shit, but that doesn't make Ahlevah's assertions incorrect, nor does it merit going on such a ridiculous and bogus tangent of American policy missteps and apologism where China is going to come off looking far worse anyways if we conduct a point by point accounting and inventory of all the horrible things that it has done.

In short, try to actually address the actual point at hand rather than making this a tangential contest of whataboutism and moral superiority that China under the CCP is going to lose badly regardless.