Boris Johnson's government is reportedly furious with China

Is Boris OK?

LOL UK is doomed anyway with these morons as elites.

Maybe this was a blessing in disguise so that UK can and should terminate their contract with China. And maybe all the Europeans abandon letting Huwei manage their 5G network. It gives China too much power and ability to spy.

He is no better than China

I hope that the entire world punishes China for this fucking pandemic.

Punish them SEVERELY.

Make them a fucking international pariah.

We definitely need to stop buying and manufacturing in China. The problem is China makes most of our medicines.

R5 China is far too financially power for everyone to tell it to fuck off. This little debacle will be quickly forgotten in the rush to get back to business as usual.

The Chinese have ruined so many lives because of this fucking pandemic.

It was all so unnecessary.

Oooh, I bet China's scared. Not. (I'm British)

In other stories of impotent rage, Donald Trump is now going to call Covid-19 The Oriental Chinese virus. That'll show 'em!

Too late, R10.

Most people are already calling it that.

What's remarkable is China is now trying to blame foreigners for the virus, by making out it had it under control domestically, and then visitors are responsible for most new cases, and so stoking xenophobia.

And of course this is on top of the conspiracy theory efforts to suggests the US military released the virus in China, etc.

In it’s quest for unmitigated global power, China has two things going for it—the Western press which defends and apologizes for China’s many misdeeds, and Big Business, which cares only about maximizing profit to benefit shareholders.

Well guess what? This virus will be the game changer that will reset how Western countries think about, manage, and execute the logistics of their most critical supplies and technologies. Countries will be much more careful about who they trust.

China has destroyed its credibility and trustworthiness with its irresponsible actions. No amount of liberal media apologists and SJW temper tantrums over calling a virus which actually originated in China, “Chinese” will change that.

Any European country that refuses to reassess Huawei’s role within their 5G networks (read, completely eliminate this China Trojan horse) truly deserve all the loss of intellectual property and economic consequences coming to them.

Democracies who value all of their freedoms, support human rights, and renounce mass detention of ethnic minorities, wide spread state-sponsored hacking, barbaric organ harvesting, and the slaughtering and eating wild animals should all stand together in solidarity to confront and shun China completely. Cut them out of the Western economies completely.

Stupid Boris needs to terminate that contract with China NOW.

[quote]Democracies who value all of their freedoms, support human rights, and renounce mass detention of ethnic minorities,

If "Democracies" did business based on that, there would be very few countries to do business with. Democracies, especially the UK, happily turn a blind eye to despots with appalling human rights records, e.g., Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Qatar, UAE, Iran, Iraq, in the interest of investment and profit.

R17, Huwei would be China's way of dominating the world through 5G. They could also install their spyware with it. Never buy a Huwei phone because of that.

Here's an article regarding Huwei and spyware

And I hope they stop with the TikTok crap too.

China's youth is becoming very difficult to handle.

@davidhogg111 Tik Tok is a national security threat that should only only be used to call out the Chinese government (who controls it) for their atrocities and human rights abuses.

Seriously y'all memes and jokes are fun but downloading the spyware of an authoritarian regime is not.

Getting back to the subject, Boris is just borrowing from Trump’s playbook to mask his own failure to protect his people. China is China. That didn’t change with the virus.

[quote] Too late, [R10].

[quote] Most people are already calling it that.

Most people? Sure, Jan.

Most intelligent adults are calling it Coronavirus. Fumbling politicians looking to stoke xenophobia to cover for their incompetence are calling it other things to avoid being blamed for prioritizing corporate profits over public health.

Huawei has been pushing and bribing countries to use its software that uses AI to diagnose covid that has poor sensitivity and specificity, and the software is asking for rights to hijack the the pacs system for data mining. These people are shameless.

Huwei sells its products to whoever buys them. You don't like Huwei policy, don't buy their products. You worried about spying, government tracking your location, don't buy a smartphone and/or stay offline.

[quote]Most intelligent adults are calling it Coronavirus.

Wuflu. 5 letters. Saves tonnes of wear/tear on fingers.

Trump will use this as his re-election strategy. Blame China and Obama for his failure to protect us. Deplorable catnip.

[bold]Naming the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) and the virus that causes it[/bold]

[quote]Official names have been announced for the virus responsible for COVID-19 (previously known as “2019 novel coronavirus”) and the disease it causes. The official names are

[bold]Disease[/bold]

coronavirus disease

(COVID-19)

[bold]Virus[/bold]

severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2

(SARS-CoV-2)

Shut up, op. I am thinking you are just a racist.

[quote]Disease: coronavirus disease (COVID-19) ; Virus: severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2)

"In American English and Brazilian Portguese, however, these will be known as 'Dirty Chink Flu' and 'Slanty-eyed Oriental Batshit Virus'." Other nations may translate differently.

Ooooh I’m sure China must be shitting its pants with all these threats coming from a medium power like the U.K. Of course this would have carried much more weight if within the overall EU framework. But there you go, Brexit and all. Rule Britannia! And frankly this is also laughable coming from the idiotic Tories whose handling of the crisis has been almost as abysmal as Trump’s. I’m sure this will be back to BAU when this is all over. China is now too powerful to be ignored and sidelined, let alone “punished” by anyone, even not the US.

CANCEL CHINA

Well R32 the UK was better disposed to China over Huawei and was one of the few western friends they had, so Britain backing away isn't insignificant. Anyway, it's symptomatic of how countries generally will probably react now and work to reduce their reliance on China, just like Europe reacted to Putin's crude attempt to weaponize Russian gas and oil.

I never thought I'd use this worn-out phrase, but for once it seems apt: stop trying to make "WuFlu" happen. It's not gonna happen.

And for the poster who mentioned the lack of criticism of China in Western media: there are a LOT of Western media, and there are certainly individual correspondents, reporters, and bloggers (some of whom also write for major publications) who are very well informed and have been very upfront about the numerous failings of the Chinese Communist Party amid this pandemic. You just have to do a little searching around--they're not hard to find. I read the blog of a long-time (20+ years) correspondent in China called Jan van der Putten, whose posts are sometimes so provocative that I'd be inclined to worry about his safety.

Also, Google "China" and "human rights violations" and see what Western media are reporting--they're certainly not holding back.

When you are a totalitarian dictatorship, you don't have to give a flying fuck about Western media criticism, especially when you are a leading financial and technological powerhouse.

Yet Western journalists are routinely deported from China and/or denied visas.

[quote]Wen, a former journalist at The Sydney Morning Herald, is one of three Beijing-based reporters for The Wall Street Journal told this week they would be deported due to an opinion piece with which even the Chinese foreign ministry concedes they were not in any way involved. The three journalists — Wen, Josh Chin and Chao Deng — were given five days’ notice to pack up their lives in China.

British journalist Peter Humphrey, back in 2015:

Propaganda is flourishing amid the COVID-19 pandemic:

Boris is a fucking idiot for leaving it to the last minute to do anything to tackle the coronavirus as well as for many other reasons.

Having said that, there is too much dodgy stuff going on with China right now and I'm glad that the EU and now the UK are aware of China's propaganda effort and not letting them get away with it. For Boris to apparently be saying such things he must have been made aware of some real shit going on in China. Hopefully he will use this as an excuse to end any Huawei involvement in the UK's 5G network and not consider China to build the new HS2 railway network - there were even preliminary talks between the UK and China for this.

Unfortunately for us Brits, our country is now too weak and on its own to do anything about China thanks to Brexit, another Boris brainchild.

Last week Elon Musk managed to buy 1255 Philips, Medtronic and ResMed ventilators - i.e. EU and US manufacturers - from China, who, he was told, had an oversupply. There's also evidence that China was stockpiling medical equipment from all over the world in January and the first part of February before other countries realised that they were at risk too - so much so that they now apparently have an oversupply of western ventilators.

A Chinese company also sold faulty kits to Spain, the Czech Republic, Malaysia and other countries. I'm sceptical about anything coming out of China right now.

There is no point being angry at the Chinese people, but their government? Yep. There needs to be a huge reckoning once this is over. They fucked up, majorly, and the entire world is paying the price.

By the way, this fury isn't coming from Boris himself but others in the government/Tory party who aren't comfortable with his China bumlicking. They're mostly Brexiters so have a somewhat deluded idea of how much the UK can do anything about China but at least their delusions of imperial grandeur allow them to question what China's up to.

I'm not letting China off so easily if only because I can see the economic reason why they did what they did to cover it up just like most countries around the world have been slow to act. Aside from South Korea, Singapore & Tiawan (and even they are far from perfect) most countries have handled this BADLY. And that is the UK too.

The real villain who needs to be held accountable is the WHO and its leader Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus - cunt of the year award too whilst we are at it.

There is a petition on change.org to have him removed. They require 1,000,000 signatures and the signups are sure mounting up.

Chink flu

Nuke the fuckers.

Bunch of fuckin commies. The Chinese Governmnet needs to be sent to the world court for trial once this is done. I don't blame them for this happening, but I do blame them if they lied about the numbers which is becoming more and more obvious. The Chinese never help other countries out, now they are? They've got guilt written all over them

About 10 years ago, In a forum about the world's 21st century challenges, they were talking about how China was going to be the main superpower and one of the panelists, a Chinese scientist, bluntly said that China wasn't going to take over the world, it was going to destroy it.

How right he was.

[quote]China wasn't going to take over the world, it was going to destroy it.

R47 China will be duking it out with the Muslims for that distinction.

[quote] China is now too powerful to be ignored and sidelined, let alone “punished” by anyone, even not the US.

HA!

Everyone I talk to is sick of China.

Countries all over the world blame them for this pandemic. Italy, in particular.

I wouldn't be surprised at all, if Italy bans Chinese people from ever entering their country again.

For good reason.

Boris Johnson and his government can fuck all the way off. The UK's current situation is completely their own fault.

yes, FUCK CHINA!!!!!!!!!

R49, half of the Italian government is falling over itself to praise China and say how wonderful it is.

[quote] half of the Italian government is falling over itself to praise China and say how wonderful it is

Sure, Jan.

Whats the point whingeing about China when all the big corporations take their manufacturing there and we are all happy to buy what they produce ? We’re as mindlessly culpable as the our governments. I’m writing this on an iPad.

Me herd that newcler bombs kills Chink Flu fast. Praise the Lord.

R17 don’t forget Russia!

Americans need people to blame other than themselves. Hopefully, this virus will get rid of most of the racists.

The Trump administration knew about the virus months in advance, and did nothing about this. I blame the Chinese government and the Trump administration, along with Congress members who also knew and said nothing to the public to warn us.

All of these people are incompetent.

I said exactly that on another thread r14, only to have someone say “business only cares about profit and China’s not going anywhere”. Apparently nobody quite seems to understand behavioral economics and the way millennials think. They would rather spend money on avocado toast than cheap designer goods. People already boycott Walmart and Amazon if they can afford it. More and more people understand that cheap Chinese chemical laden garbage is polluting every square inch of the world. Yes other third world countries will benefit but China, as a superpower is over because of this.

And why anyone uses Tiktok or allow Huawei to build the 5g network seems suicidal to me.

If the CCP had acted just 3 weeks earlier instead of hiding the fire under the blanket we wouldn't be living through the opening act of a zombie move. So it's Chinese flu - a richly deserved name. If I was running America I'd dereglate manufacturing and declare amnesty for illegal immigrants so they could work for bottom dollar. Anything to wean ourselves off China.

R53, you mean to say you've never heard of 5 Star and Luigi di Maio, the Italian Minister for Foreign Affairs? He LOVES China.

China, Italy, and Coronavirus: Geopolitics and Propaganda In Italy, China is no longer thought of as the origin of COVID-19, but as a friend in a time of dire need.

By Theresa Fallon March 20, 2020 China, Italy, and Coronavirus: Geopolitics and Propaganda Medics and paramedics from China salute as the board a Red Cross vehicle upon arrival at the Malpensa airport of Milan, March 18, 2020.

Credit: AP Photo/Antonio Calanni Italy has been an alluring geopolitical prize throughout the ages because of its strategic location in the middle of the Mediterranean, its wealth, and the useful skills of its people. Now it’s the turn of today’s rising power, China, to seek to extend its influence there.

Last year, Italy signed a Memorandum of Understanding with China on participation in China’s Belt and Road Initiative. Italy was the first and so far the only G-7 country to do so. Laboring under many years of economic stagnation, Italy hoped to bring about a much-needed stimulus to growth thanks to business with China. The move was sneered at by Italy’s Western allies and was also contentious domestically, with one part of the government coalition of the time (Matteo Salvini’s right-wing Lega) opposing it. At the end of the day, however signing the MoU did not bring Italy more contracts from China compared to other countries that had not done so — for instance, France.

Fast-forward to March 2020. Italy is in the grip of the coronavirus crisis. As of March 20, the disease has killed more than 3,400 Italians – more than the death toll registered in China, where the pandemic began in late 2019. At the beginning of March, Italy asked for help from its European Union partners though the EU Civil Protection Mechanism. No EU member state responded. In addition, France and Germany imposed a ban on the export of face masks. Many Italians feel deceived and humiliated by their European partners.

Beijing, however, responded bilaterally and promptly airlifted 30 tons of medical supplies to Rome. Italy’s Foreign Minister Luigi Di Maio posted a video of the arrival of the supply-laden aircraft on his Facebook page. It was an information and public diplomacy triumph for China — when Italy needed help, Europe dithered while the PRC was portrayed as Italy’s savior. Germany subsequently pledged to provide face masks to Italy, but it was too late. The simple narrative in social media had already been shaped: the European Union deserted Italy and China saved the day. Di Maio took credit for China’s help, which he linked to his China policy and to his phone call with China’s Foreign Minister Wang Yi on March 10, two days before the delivery of supplies from China.

In reality the supplies had been sent by agreement between the Chinese and the Italian Red Cross. As is customary between branches of the Red Cross in different countries, the Chinese Red Cross reciprocated for the help received from the Italian Red Cross only one month earlier, when Italy sent 18 tons of supplies to Wuhan. The call between Di Maio and Wang Yi concerned not the Red Cross donation, but the purchase by Italy of a large quantity of much-needed ventilators (artificial respiratory devices) for intensive care units. Several European countries were competing with each other to receive this equipment first, and Di Maio pleaded with Wang Yi to put Italy at the top of the list. The ventilators have not yet been delivered to date.

The Chinese propaganda machine was quick to seize the opportunity and posted videos of grateful Italians praising China for its generosity. One video even showed Italians singing China’s national anthem from their balconies (it was, however, a fake). These videos have Chinese subtitles and were probably made with a Chinese audience in mind. It has been reported that the inhabitants of Wuhan refused to express their gratitude to China’s leader Xi Jinping for handling the crisis successfully; now at least the authorities could show that they had worked well abroad and that foreigners were grateful.

In addition to the first shipment of medical supplies, which landed in Rome on March 12, China also sent a second shipment to Milan on March 18. This was sent by Chinese provinces including Zhejiang, which has a large immigrant community in Italy. Other donations by Chinese companies went to Italian regions and towns that host their Italian counterparts.

One of the companies in question is ZTE, which donated 2,000 face masks to the city of L’Aquila in central Italy, where ZTE runs a joint 5G innovation and technology center with the local university. In addition, Huawei offered to set up a cloud computing network to connect Italian hospitals among themselves and with hospitals in Wuhan — which raises serious issues for the control of critical infrastructure and data protection.

Thanks to this outreach, China in Italy is no longer associated with the origin of the pandemic or blamed because of its poor regulation of wet markets and suppression of information that could have helped eradicate the disease at an earlier stage. Chinese online propaganda has worked tirelessly to dissociate the novel coronavirus from Wuhan, where it first emerged, and from China, and in Italy that effort has largely succeeded. China in Italy is now seen as a country that provided concrete help when needed, while other, geographically closer partners behaved selfishly, despite the rhetoric of European solidarity, and did not provide any help.

In a recent telephone call with Italy’s Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte, China’s Xi Jinping seized the moment and proposed launching a new “Health Silk Road,” to go together with the existing Belt and Road Initiative. Under this initiative, China would use the lessons learned in its successful fight against the virus and share them with its partners around the world. Since the pandemic is likely to last several more months worldwide and since a similar pandemic may happen again, many countries would be interested.

The perception among many in Italy is that China succeeded in conquering the virus in a short time thanks to the rigorous and decisive measures it adopted. Italy is compared unfavorably to China in this respect. Implicitly, China’s governance is admired as a more effective system that helps save lives and reduce economic loss in case of an emergency.

China has plans for Italy: it is interested in Italy’s ports and infrastructure in connection with the Belt and Road Initiative; in its quality food, design, and tourism potential; in its high-technology hubs like L’Aquila; and in the development of 5G in the country. It is also a good place to chip away at Western unity and U.S. influence. The help provided amid the coronavirus pandemic should help strengthen Sino-Italian relations and pave the ground for an appropriate celebration of 50 years of diplomatic relations in November.

Theresa Fallon is the founder and director of the Centre for Russia Europe Asia Studies (CREAS) in Brussels and a nonresident senior fellow of the Chicago Council on Global Affairs. In 2015-2016 she was a member of the Senior Advisors Group to the NATO Supreme Allied Commander in Europe (SACEUR). Her current research is on EU-Asia relations and great power competition.

As Josep Borrell, the EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs, said the other day:

There is a global battle of narratives going on in which timing is a crucial factor. In January, the dominant framing was of this being a local crisis in Hubei province, aggravated by the cover up of crucial information by Chinese party officials. Europe was sending a lot of medical equipment to help Chinese authorities that were overwhelmed at the time. Since then, China has brought down local new infections to single figures – and it is now sending equipment and doctors to Europe, as others do as well. China is aggressively pushing the message that, unlike the US, it is a responsible and reliable partner. In the battle of narratives, we have also seen attempts to discredit the EU as such and some instances where Europeans have been stigmatised as if all were carriers of the virus.

The point for Europe is this: we can be sure that perceptions will change again as the outbreak and our response to it evolves. But we must be aware there is a geo-political component including a struggle for influence through spinning and the ‘politics of generosity’. Armed with facts, we need to defend Europe against its detractors.

DL is rejecting certain links, even in the body of a post, so if you want to read more about Borrell's comments, the title of his article is "EU HRVP Josep Borrell: The Coronavirus pandemic and the new world it is creating"

DL used to have Ivy League educated posters quoting Eric Hobsbawn (more fitting philosopher given the China situation). Now it has a bunch of imbecile wishful thinkers.

Like breaking capitalist agreements is just cancelling what was written in a piece of paper. You're either naive or downright stupid. Capitalism has outsourced everything to China. It took 50 years to consolidate this and will take another 50 to break it out, except natural resources are gone in 15.

Good luck with that. That's what you get for being a cheapskate.

That's sad and gross to read, R62.

Anyone with half a brain will be furious at the fucking CCP-led Chinese Government.

China is claiming that the US military started coronavirus during military world games in Wuhan last year.

The only people who are bigger liars than Donald DUMP?

THE CHINESE GOVERNMENT.

Italians LOATHE the Chinese and nowhere has this been more evident than in the Lombardy region were for years there has been tension between the local Italians and the massive influx of Chinese immigrants who work in sweat shops on garments that are "Made in Italy".

This "Italy loves China" bullshit is just The Chinses propaganda machine working overtime.

R70, I said half the Italian government (and their foolish voters) not "Italians". Did you know that Italy is the only country in the G7 or only serious country in Europe to be interested in China's Belt and Road Initiative.

Boris is a moron who didn't even bother to save his own people and now wants to blame China? When the virus outbreak hit Italy did any western countries try to help Italy contain it? That would have saved their own asses since they all got it from Italy. It is ironic that Italy ended up having to ask China for help.

[QUOTE]Did you know that Italy is the only country in the G7 or only serious country in Europe to be interested in China's Belt and Road Initiative

That wouldn't have anything to do with Italian politicians legendary proclivity for accepting bribery, would it?

Someone on this thread seems awfully invested in defending china.

I wonder how much they're getting paid to spread the chinese propaganda?

Probably not in this case r73, but it would have a lot to do with a leftist tendency among a large section of the Italian population to whom it's easy to present the west as bad combined with an attempt to have another friend to show the EU that they don't need them in order to use as leverage to get stuff fro the EU (precisely because they do need them).

What's really going on in China.

Coronavirus: police, public clash as border reopens between Hubei and Jiangxi provinces

After weeks of living under lockdown, people in most parts of Hubei were told this week they could finally leave, but authorities in neighbouring regions remain cautious

Dispute on bridge between Huangmei and Jiujiang that saw police vans overturned, apparently started because of confusion over jurisdictions

R72 is talking out of its ass. A big show of one Chinese propaganda delivery to Italy is not "helping Italy". Europe is itself under huge pressure from the coronavirus, it's not as though there are thousands of spare ventilators stockpiled in warehouses in Germany that could quickly be sent to Italy.

The joint EU procurements process should help against all these cases of flawed test kits and shit masks that individual EU countries are buying from dodgy Chinese companies.

R32 China is basically asking the Western world to slam it's doors on them. They are an. economic power, their military is laughably incompetent. They are proving themselves not just an unreliable partner, but a dangerous one.

Some money grubbing shit no doubt r74. China has fucked itself with the whole globe and it won’t have repercussions for decades?

Give me a goddamn break.

I'm R65, I'm not defending China, but reality. Greed of capitalist pigs threw everything to the Chinese. They knew how that government was, they weren't duped, but greed was more important to them.

If anything, it's everyone's fault they outsourced everything to that place for cheap labor. Now you pay the price. It's not rocket science, Hobsbawm died warning the world about that.

Can't wait until china implodes, from being ostracized by the world community.

Fuck them!

R39 That is a great article.

I wish this was more widely known and spoken openly about. We are like lambs to the slaughter. The international orgs to protect have failed to do so because of this corruption. The world is stopped because of it! I just cannot. The needless suffering.

[quote]Boris is a moron who didn't even bother to save his own people and now wants to blame China?

His interest in it increased exponentially once he caught it

Why was the post asking about China's accountablity greyed out? It was a perfectly legitimate question.

posts get greyed out when enough users F&F

i don’t think one needs to be a contributor to F&F though that would definitely prevent bots.

Y'all think Boris has a big dick?

Funny how R17 left out Israel because he'll justify not allowing a Palestinian to even take a shit without Israeli allowing them and not merely a blind eye, but a blank paycheck from America and a violation of our constitution on their behalf. Include them with that shitlist, hypocrite.

[quote] Why was the post asking about China's accountablity greyed out? It was a perfectly legitimate question.

Because China, its supporters, and its propaganda machine don't like to hear the truth.

They'll do anything to stop people from telling the truth about them.

[quote]Why was the post asking about China's accountablity greyed out?

Also, try changing "Flames & Freaks" settings to "Asbestos Eyeballs" if it isn't already, R84..

R89 Oh wow, things that normally are struck out aren't when you dial to the right?

R3 Here in Norway we did it last year. Huawei was set to develop our 5G. Thankfully the Norwegian people protested so the government changed their tune and gave Telenor the contract instead.

Nothing will come of this sadly, not saying I want idiots to go to war with china, china is cheap as fuck so america will never sideline china itbwould rather sacrifice half of the population in us than to lose china as an ally, unfortunate for us. But FUCK CHINA.

Hubei province now reporting its own outbreak

Boris and friends are scapegoating, lying motherfuckers. Feel free to read up on testing, PPE for medical people, etc., in England.

This is what that shitbag johnson is worrying about? Deal with it later. On a good day. the NHS is understaffed, has low supplies and is underfunded. Now there's a pandemic. That is going to make the regular NHS situation 100 times worse

I love these moron politicians and regular people that say, "we'll just stop having China make everything". So do it. But all the machinery and a great deal of the supplies/raw material needed for manufacturing is from China. If I were Chinese and I owned a company that made some type of machines that manufacture cell phones and found out that America was going to stop having cell phones manufactured in China, I'd jack up the price to the machinery by 1,000%. And even more with the raw materials

The 1% sold out America over 30 years ago. Their wealth grew astronomically. The U.S government allowed it and didn't even profit off of it. And was actually harmed. We lost 70% of our middle class manufacturing jobs. And all to help the 1%. Just for national security we shouldn't have everything manufactured somewhere else

R94 I'll believe anything people say about the Chinese government after the recent publications proving their propaganda campaign, attempting to disinform during a crisis. I despise Boris otherwise, but I don't doubt him on this. Your absurd, animosity-ridden resins inky furthers my belief in the insecurity-based propaganda of the CCP.