of course the irony is that it doesn't even matter. We already know China (1) tried to cover it up, screwing the rest of the world, and (2) has poor wet market sanitation practices that seem designed to cultivate these kinds of diseases. Those issues are already bad enough.
Honest question: Is that a fair/accurate generalization to make? If Hell's kitchen episodes and accounts from food industry workers are any indication, sanitation practices in food handling establishments elsewhere are not necessarily always stellar either. And surely China has some equivalent of WholeFoods?
One ought to be careful not to attribute a characteristic differently depending on whether they belong to the class of people in question[0]. If it turns out that reality is that some chinese establishments have poor sanitation practices just like some US establishments do, and it just so happens that they got unlucky (perhaps partially due to not-so-directly-related aspects like zoning law differences or propensity for higher bat populations due to local fauna/flora ecosystems), the us-vs-them blaming game doesn't necessarily have as strong legs to stand on.
The term itself is somewhat ambiguous [https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wet_market] in that it can cover both cases. However the style common in many places in China (and many other areas in east Asia) is one where there is no refrigeration or adequate sanitation. To avoid spoilage, animals are brought in live and slaughtered as needed to provide meat. It can be when a customer picks it, or when needed to stock a counter.
These styles of market are problematic disease wise because it brings many species of animals together in crowded and often unsanitary conditions, high stress, with humans in close contact with them, and lots of people and animals coming and going constantly.
If you’re looking for a way to encourage Zoonotic disease, it’s hard to do better.
Your link suggests that the primary factor of disease transmission in live animal markets is the exoticness of the slaughtered animals. It certainly makes sense to make a distinction based on that criteria, since, for example, I can find high traffic markets that sell live animals in North America as well, though typically they sell less exotic animals (most commonly, lobsters).
This distinction, I feel, is meaningful because of the implications: north american diet is relatively restricted in terms of meat variety (we do mostly beef, pork, chicken, maybe lamb and few other meats on fairly rare occasions - even chicken gizzard isn't commonly consumed, for example). I'm not familiar enough with China to say to what extent exotic meat consumption is cultural vs driven by necessity vs other factors.
However, I do still feel that it might be crass to say things like "well chinese people ought to stop eating weird shit and close those filthy markets", without understanding the circumstances that lead to the status quo, and consequently how they could be changed realistically. (To be clear, I'm not saying you specifically are making these types of comments, but it's not an unpopular sentiment)
The variety angle is because 1) the more factors you can roll the dice on at any given moment, the more likely you can come up ‘winning’ with a magically terrible combo through mutation. That ocelot flu mutate to something that could infect bats? Groovy. No bats though, so doesn’t go anywhere. If you have bats though.....
2) Many animal viruses can be low or no impact in a species, and some can infect others to different effects. This gives a given virus more chances to roll the dice and get the ‘magic’ combo without killing itself off by killing the host. The more other species it gets exposed to; the better.
3) some species have elements more common with humans than others. If a virus gets mostly infectious in one host, adapting in another environment can get it closer to dangerous to humans.
Also, if you live in an area without solid electricity or reliable refrigerated trucks - what else are you supposed to do? If you grew up in one of those areas, why bother with the more expensive option if you’re used to this (or poor and don’t have a choice).
A lot of our simplification in diet now is due to the ability to choose higher grade options coupled with strict government regulations on how food sold to the public can be sourced and the conditions it can be ‘made’ in. It used to be (several generations ago now), wild hunted deer, pidgeons, squirrel, a side of pork from your neighbor, etc. were common parts of daily food intake, and you HAD to cook your food or you wouldn’t go a week without something really nasty happening to you. There are many parts of the county that still do this, though usually more out of convenience than necessity.
Now you can pick from animals raised for purpose, with supply chains inspected and complying with a books worth of regulations. In many cases, you could go years without getting sick if you didn’t cook your food (don’t try this, it’s still a dumb idea).
It’s easy to point fingers, but if you haven’t seen it and lived in the environment, you can’t just change it without a lot of other things happening first or very nasty side effects (starvation, nutritional issues, etc).