In the era that ended with the coronavirus pandemic, Russia was in its own way a unique country, constantly demanding billions in reparations, compensation, and public remorse by returning territories and sprinkling ashes on its head, analyst Ivan Danailov wrote.
One can easily recall the calls and even the demands to pay and repent for the Second World War, for the German victims of the Red Army, for the “division of Poland”, for the “Holodomor”, for the Crimea, for the “Boeing”, for the Kuril Islands. islands, for the “use of chemical weapons on British territory” (ie the Skripal case), for the Yukos case, for global warming (due to Russian oil and gas), for Nord Stream, for Donbass, and for interference in elections and referendums held in the United States, Great Britain, Montenegro, Madagascar, etc.
The coronavirus changed the situation, but not completely for the better. It’s just that the club of countries from which the advanced Western world (and its satellites) are demanding trillions of dollars in compensation and reparations has suddenly expanded – and now Russia is in it along with China, which is already demanding trillions of dollars in economic damages. and the human lives taken by the coronavirus, which Donald Trump specifically and consistently calls “Chinese.”
The essence of the accusations comes down to the following (pseudo) reasoning, which can be schematically formulated as follows:
“If China had told the West in time that a new terrible virus had been discovered, then the countries of the civilized West would have been prepared and there would have been no epidemic. And China has hidden everything, censored doctors who wanted to reveal the truth, and in general it must now be held accountable for all the economic damage and lives lost to Western citizens who died as a result of Beijing’s actions. “
The request is obviously absurd, but one must be very naive (and poorly aware of the specifics of the thinking of our Western partners) to think that this absurdity (not to mention image considerations) will stop attempts to force China to pay. and to repent.
One of the leading British newspapers, the Daily Mail, outlined the goals and methods of fighting for Chinese money in its Sunday edition: “China owes us 351 billion pounds (433 billion dollars).
Britain must prosecute Beijing through international courts to obtain compensation for the coronavirus, serious researchers say.
Fifteen influential members of the Conservative Party are calling for a “review” of Britain’s relations with China. Since the outbreak, the world’s leading economies have suffered 3.2 trillion pounds ($ 3.95 trillion). Research shows that this could have been avoided if China had been more honest. “
The authoritative study cited by the Daily Mail is an “investigation” into the Henry Jackson Society’s think tank blaming the Chinese government for the epidemic.
Bloomberg’s draft published a detailed study of the legal prospects of lawsuits against Beijing in international courts by a practicing lawyer specializing in such cases, who dryly stated that the process had already begun in the most literal sense:
“In the United States alone, two group complaints have been filed against China for suppressing information about the virus at an early stage and receiving billions of dollars in compensation for the damage caused by the coronavirus outbreak. “
If this continues, then such lawsuits will be filed not only in US but also in various European and international courts.
Given how the current US presidential administration treats China and the “Chinese threat”, it can be assumed that such actions will receive maximum political support, especially since attributing one’s own mistakes to the actions of an external enemy is a well-known political tactic, which the Americans (and not only they) successfully use in relation to Russia (and not only it).
By the way, the Russian experience shows that the obvious legal nullity of accusations of this kind will in no way affect the judicial prospects of such claims (we have already gone through this several times), not to mention that the British government can successfully use its secret weapon against Beijing.
This weapon is a militant “high-like” (very likely), the same magic wording that frees our London geopolitical opponents from the need to provide any credible evidence of Russian guilt in the crimes Moscow is accused of.
There is no need to entertain illusions: for China, the West has already found (or will soon find) both its “Chinese Browder” and “Chinese Khodorkovsky” and even real victims of the epidemic, as well as Chinese doctors from Wuhan who have suffered from the mistakes of Chinese regional officials. And they will be cynically “posthumously” used to shake off trillions of living dollars from living Chinese.
However, the chances of actually getting these trillions from Beijing are slim. But this is not about that, but to save ordinary people in the European Union or the United States from the dissatisfaction that the epidemic in the Western world has reached catastrophic proportions with catastrophic economic consequences.
Despite all the efforts of the media, it is unlikely that ordinary Europeans and Americans will be convinced that the cause of all the problems is the alleged Chinese secrecy.
However, for several weeks, these same ordinary people have been watching in Western media reports what measures the Chinese government is taking to combat the epidemic, including blocked housing complexes, drone food supplies, mass tests, shutdowns and even erased roads between regions guarded by the police. All this was presented as proof of the “authoritarianism” and irrationality of the Beijing authorities.
But now, pointing to the same reports, we can ask the plaintiffs what other visual and shocking actions (not statements, but actions) had to be taken to make Boris Johnson and Donald Trump believe that the case was serious. Even as a PR campaign, all lawsuits against China will be a rather futile endeavor, but as a reason for imposing anti-Chinese economic sanctions, they are perfect.
In fact, it all probably started in the name of these sanctions.
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