(1) BSL-3 lab doing bat coronavirus research...
(2) on gain-of-function projects...
(3) one block away from the epicenter of a coronavirus pandemic with bat ties...
(4) that nobody's being allowed into...
(5) when they have a history of coronavirus lab escapes.
I'm not saying we know this is what happened. I'm saying it's not a far-fetched position and there's a lot of experts who agree. I hear there's even an MIT Technology Review write-up about it.
It's still 100% speculation. The question to ask is, would there be this level of suggestive speculation if it wasn't America's newest top rival?
On the other hand, what I've said is (a) I have nothing against "foreigners" (b) there's a ton of circumstantial evidence and (c) China has a long track record of silencing opposition and criticism to prevent derogatory information from getting out. That's not xenophobia.
It's like if you have someone who's robbed 6 convenience stores, and your reaction is "hey I'm not sure they're a good fit for the world of cashiering." Or better yet, a 7th convenience store is robbed adjacent to the first 6 in the same exact way, and your reaction is "someone should see what Steve was up to that night." That's not bias, that's a substantiated track record.
It's inductive reasoning.
It's utterly unreasonable to call anyone who holds China's track record against them xenophobic or biased lol. They've earned that track record. When they show a different attitude they'll get treated differently.
> Plenty of bad track records to go around.
That right there is quintessential whataboutism.
Their government has more support from their people than ours does -- ours is capped at 50% approval.
So go whole hog or go home. Hair-splitting is for cowards. Either include the people or, if you'd like, you can start wondering why they think that, maybe they have more context and things are more subtle. But you can't think one is black-and-white evil without including the other.
But evil is evil. And theres a really bad and consistent track record.
The Chinese government is not at war. They are vastly less at-war than the US is. They have no rally-around-the-flag effect and yet their people still like them better than we like our government.