RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://www.city-journal.org/covid-19-european-union

Covid-19 may tear apart the European Union. The new crisis arrives after years of populist pressure on the EU from around Europe, with many asking whether the idea of a union was wrong from the start. The virus will ratchet up the tension.

Europeans fought one another for centuries, with increasing cruelty, until 1945. At the end of the Second World War, most of Europe had been destroyed by aerial bombings, and populations had experienced suffering unimaginable to most people today. The project of a European Union was born of the motto: “No more wars among us.”

But there is a big leap from “peace” to a United States of Europe, which would require significant conditions, including minimum agreement about major social issues and a willingness to share resources. Europeans from the EU’s founding countries already share attitudes and moral preferences on topics of fundamental importance for communal living—freedom of thought and of religion; economic freedom; the role of the state vs. the role of the market; gender equality, gay rights, divorce and abortion rights; and attitudes about child-rearing.

But the second condition for a workable union is that its citizens agree to redistribute income across borders, and that, when one country is hit by a shock, the other countries share part of the risk and part of the pain. Moreover, when some common shock arises, the members of the union should agree to take coordinated action and to redistribute the costs. So far, these elements have been lacking, or have been imperfectly handled.

On one side, self-declared virtuous northern European countries refuse to use their savings to help their supposedly lazy southern European counterparts, in a continental version of the fable of the ant and the grasshopper. It’s unfair to withhold aid from “grasshopper” countries now suffering from a pandemic that has nothing to do with their historically irresponsible fiscal behavior. Northern European countries tend to think that the “unethical” behavior of the South—accruing debt, tolerating corruption—is to blame for any problem. Symmetrically, southern European countries tend to downplay their own responsibilities and imperfections, while blaming northern Europeans for their self-centeredness and greed.

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/15804/china-duplicity

In an article in Xinhua, one of the Chinese Communist Party’s mouthpieces, Beijing threatened to halt pharmaceutical exports, after which America would be “plunged into the mighty sea of coronavirus… — Yanzhong Huang, senior fellow for global health, Council on Foreign Relations, Twitter, March 4, 2020.

China’s leaders are probably hoping that you cannot challenge a powerhouse that is selling you most of your vital medications.

“Hidden behind declarations of solidarity, China plans to buy out our troubled companies and infrastructure” — Bild, March 19, 2020.

Italy, a country hit hard by China’s coronavirus pandemic, is now at the center of a strategic Chinese propaganda campaign. Beijing has sent doctors and supplies to Italy and is doing the same all over Europe. In Italy you can see posters saying, “Go, China!” China is trying to buy our silence and complicity. Sadly, that is already taking place.

China is not helping at this point out of “solidarity”. The Chinese regime is now seeking to portray itself as the world’s savior. Beijing, at the beginning of the pandemic, did not care about the lives of even its own people: it was busy censoring the news.

“The West is so tolerant, passive, accommodating and naive towards Beijing. Westerners… are seduced like an old man in front of a young girl…. Europe shows all its weakness. It does not realize that the Chinese offensive threatens its freedom and values”. — Liao Yiwu, Chinese writer exiled in Berlin, Le Point International, April 6, 2019.

The Chinese Communist Party is the “central threat of our times”, US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo astutely said in January. Back then, coronavirus was already spreading throughout China and over the world; the Communist Party’s attempt to hide the epidemic proved that Pompeo was more than right. “My concern is that this cover-up, this disinformation that the Chinese Communist Party is engaged in, is still denying the world the information it needs so that we can prevent further cases or something like this from recurring again”, Pompeo added this week.

https://quadrant.org.au/opinion/opinion-post/logic-the-first-casualty/

It is a fundamental principle of risk management that the benefits of any decision should be weighed against the costs. What is less often appreciated is that risk is an interactive phenomenon. Perceptions of risk often lead to people adjusting their behaviour in ways that reduce (or increase) the chances of a hazard occurring. Risk does not equal a hazard plus some fixed probability of it occurring.

University College London Professor Emeritus John Adams captured this with his idea of a ‘risk thermostat’, whereby we balance our propensity to take risks, risk perceptions and costs and benefits. Aaron Wildavsky perhaps captured this most parsimoniously in his aphorism that ‘the secret of safety lies in danger.’

But overestimating risk can lead to costly responses. In one famous example the 1976 Swine Flu epidemic in the US resulted in the rushed development of a vaccine that was far worse than the disease, causing many cases of Gullain-Barré Syndrome, a rather nasty immune system disorder. This was described in detail by Robert Formaini in his excellent book The Myth of Scientific Public Policy. Unfortunately, all too often, governments do not understand that public policy cannot be decided solely by scientific experts, because human conduct frequently undermines the intentions of policy-makers by exhibiting behaviour scientists did not anticipate.

The appropriate medical field for responding to pandemics is epidemiology, not immunology. As Nobel Prize winning immunologist Peter Doherty put it in an interview on Sky News on March 26, he’s a ‘lab guy’, not an epidemiologist. Good epidemiology should, of course, include a good measure of social science to cover this eventuality, but I once attended a conference on climate change where a prominent epidemiologist disavowed any knowledge of human behaviour, stating ‘I am not a social scientist.’ He went on to argue that the health of future Aboriginal Australians would be seriously harmed by climate change — ignoring the rather obvious point that the impacts of future climates projected by models rested on emissions scenarios that assumed massive increases in wealth; apparently none of this would find its way to Aboriginal communities, which would continue to wallow in squalor.

Which brings us to the current pandemic with the novel coronavirus, or COVID-19. The government policy response has seen some sensible measures adopted, especially in shutting down borders and requiring a degree of ‘social distancing’ in an effort to flatten the curve of infections sufficiently to allow the health system to cope. But has the National Cabinet gone too far?

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/15803/coronavirus-european-union-unravels

Faced with an existential threat, EU member states, far from joining together to confront the pandemic as a unified bloc, instinctively are returning to pursuing the national interest. After years of criticizing U.S. President Donald J. Trump for pushing an “America First” policy, European leaders are reverting to the very nationalism they have publicly claimed to despise.

Ever since the threat posed by coronavirus came into focus, Europeans have displayed precious little of the high-minded multilateral solidarity that for decades has been sold to the rest of the world as a bedrock of European unity. The EU’s unique brand of soft power, said to be a model for a post-national world order, has been shown to be an empty fiction.

In recent weeks, EU member states have closed their borders, banned exports of critical supplies and withheld humanitarian aid. The European Central Bank, the guarantor of the European single currency, has treated with unparalleled disdain the eurozone’s third-largest economy, Italy, in its singular hour of need. The member states worst affected by the pandemic — Italy and Spain — have been left by the other member states to fend for themselves.

The European Union, seven decades in the making, is now unravelling in real time — in weeks.

As the coronavirus pandemic rages through Europe — where more than 250,000 people have now been diagnosed with Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) and 15,000 have died — the foundational pillars of the European Union are crumbling one by one.

Faced with an existential threat, EU member states, far from joining together to confront the pandemic as a unified bloc, instinctively are returning to pursuing the national interest. After years of criticizing U.S. President Donald J. Trump for pushing an “America First” policy, European leaders are reverting to the very nationalism they have publicly claimed to despise.

Ever since the threat posed by coronavirus came into focus, Europeans have displayed precious little of the high-minded multilateral solidarity that for decades has been sold to the rest of the world as a bedrock of European unity. The EU’s unique brand of soft power, said to be a model for a post-national world order, has been shown to be an empty fiction.

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2020/03/coronavirus-craziness-turkey-hugh-fitzgerald/

Many examples of conspiracy theories, inshallah-fatalism, and sheer craziness have been on display in the Muslim Middle East, as it tries to make sense of the coronavirus. A recent roundup of voices from Turkey at Memri.org offers views often contradicting one another.

Here is Memri’s summary of what the Turkish press and public have been saying:

Members of the Turkish press and public have reacted to the global spread of COVID-19, colloquially known as the Coronavirus, blaming it on Jews and other unspecified political actors and saying that the virus cannot be transmitted in mosques. On March 13, Turkish medical doctor Dr. Yavuz Dizdar claimed that 60% of the population of Turkey was already infected with the virus and that the Ministry of Health, in order to hide this fact, was not providing test kits.

If the Ministry of Health is not providing test kits, on what basis does Dr. Dizdar insist that 60% of the Turkish population is already infected? Is his dim view of the Ministry of Health warranted? Could it be that the Ministry does not have enough test kits due to the sudden explosion of the coronavirus, as has happened in many countries, and is merely incompetent, not malevolent, in failing to have enough of them? What Dr. Dizdar’s claim does show is a deep suspicion of the authorities, the belief that they would not hesitate to hide facts about spread of the virus if they felt it in their own interest to do so, by appearing to be more competent than in fact they have been.

“This Virus Serves Zionism’s Goals Of Decreasing The Number Of People”; “Anyway The Jews Are A Cursed Race”

https://www.theepochtimes.com/g-7-countries-agree-to-push-back-against-beijings-pandemic-disinformation-campaign-pompeo_3287077.html

The Group of Seven (G-7) economies have agreed to push back against Beijing’s sprawling propaganda campaign designed to deflect blame for causing the global pandemic, U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said on March 26.

G-7 countries discussed the Chinese regime’s “intentional disinformation campaign” during a virtual meeting held on March 25, according to Pompeo.

“The G-7 countries yesterday were unanimous in saying we understand that this is a risk, that this is a problem … to the EU and to the United States and the world,” Pompeo told The Hugh Hewitt radio show on March 26, in reference to the discussions. “They agreed to jointly work alongside us to push back against this disinformation campaign.”

He said Japan and the EU countries in G-7 (France, Germany, and Italy) understood that the Chinese regime was reshaping its narrative about the outbreak—disinformation that “the Chinese are actively engaged in, even as we speak.”

The regime has been “trying to defer blame, trying to claim that they are the solution to this, and … [that] they weren’t the nation that, at the very beginning of this, [was the] one country that had the opportunity and the data set that could have put this virus in a much better place than we are today and failed to do so,” Pompeo said.

https://www.jns.org/opinion/coronavirus-and-the-threat-to-democracy/

 Weighing the threat to life posed by the ongoing coronavirus pandemic against the extraordinary dangers it poses to the edifice, erected over centuries, that we call democracy is a difficult task. The COVID-19 virus appears poised to drive democracy to its knees; the only country in which the outbreak is subsiding at present is China, a ruthless dictatorship.

Many have expressed admiration and even awe regarding China’s ability to combat the outbreak, and indeed it would be useless to deny that the country’s strict quarantine measures—many of which violated its citizens’ human rights, and especially their right to privacy—contributed to its (partial) recovery.

Among the world’s democratic countries, so far only Israel and South Korea have enacted similarly draconian measures to combat the outbreak. Other Western countries, including Italy, Germany, France and Belgium are quickly moving to follow suit, but not without encountering resistance.

In Italy, for instance, Antonello Soro, the official in charge of the Italian Data Protection Authority, recently declared in an interview with the Huffington Post that containment measures must be “compatible with democratic principles” and said that “rights may be subject to limitations,” even incisive ones, “provided, of course” that they are “proportional.”

https://www.wsj.com/articles/coronavirus-is-advancing-on-poor-nations-and-the-prognosis-is-troubling-11585149183

The new coronavirus is now taking off in the world’s poorest countries, which join the battle with even fewer weapons than developed nations, some of which have fumbled the pandemic’s early stages.

From Venezuela to Pakistan to the Democratic Republic of Congo—and nearly every developing country between—confirmed cases have started to spike in recent days, a sign the contagion is advancing exponentially, disease-control experts say.

“Extraordinary action is required if we are to prevent a human catastrophe of enormous proportions in our country,” said President Cyril Ramaphosa of South Africa, among the nations hardest hit by the 1980s AIDS epidemic. Addressing the country Monday night, he announced a 21-day nationwide lockdown to be enforced by the military.

South Africa on Wednesday declared 709 confirmed cases of coronavirus, a number the government said has risen sixfold in a week and could rise to hundreds of thousands without decisive action.

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, ordering a nationwide shutdown, said Tuesday in a televised address: “I appeal with folded hands, don’t come out of your homes.

China, where the outbreak began, had its powerful government to throw at the coronavirus, which across the globe as of Wednesday had infected more than 450,000 and left more than 20,000 dead with Covid-19, the disease the virus causes, according to data from Johns Hopkins University. South Korea could react quickly thanks in part a technologically sophisticated economy. And the West despite its struggles, has robust health-care systems, wealth and deep-rooted institutions to battle the contagion’s spread.

The world’s poorest areas—Africa, parts of Latin America, and Southeast and South Asia—start with few of those advantages. Their health-care systems and social mechanisms to fight the virus often aren’t just at risk of being overwhelmed, many join the epidemic already overwhelmed.

Number of confirmed cases around the world

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/15292/germany-hate-postings-day

The Federal Police asked the German public to become informants and notify them about online hate speech….

In view of what Germany faces on the terrorism front, it seems an odd priority for the Federal Police to be hunting down online thought crimes in two nationwide “Action Days against Hate Postings” in one year alone….

In between online thought crimes and terrorists, the German police would seem to have their work cut out.

In Germany, police recently completed their fifth nationwide “Action Day against Hate Postings”.

German authorities initiated the action day more than three years ago; since then, it has been held once a year. According to the Federal Police, the number of recorded cases of hate crime linked to the internet has actually fallen — from 2,458 cases in 2017 to 1,962 in 2018.

Despite the decrease in cases, German authorities nevertheless decided to have not just one, but two action days this year. The first took place on June 6, when German authorities launched coordinated police raids in 13 federal states against suspects who had allegedly posted hate speech online. In a total of 38 cases, homes were searched and suspects interrogated, the Federal Criminal Police Office reported.

The second action day in 2019 took place on November 6, when the Federal Criminal Police Office in Wiesbaden, which coordinated the action, launched police operations in nine federal states — Hesse, Bavaria, Baden-Württemberg, Berlin, Brandenburg, Bremen, North Rhine-Westphalia, Saarland and Saxony — against suspects believed to have posted hate speech online. In 21 cases, there were apartment searches or interrogations.

The decrease in online hate speech, however, is no cause for celebration, according to the Federal Police:

“Many criminally relevant posts are not displayed or are not made known to the security authorities as they are expressed in closed forums and discussion groups.”

Instead, the Federal Police asked the German public to become informants and notify them about online hate speech:

“Support us and contribute to the fight against hate crime: … Anyone who encounters hate postings on the net or becomes a victim should report this to the police. Some federal states have internet portals available for this purpose, through which anyone can also report such crimes anonymously. An overview of these online stations can be found at: www.bka.de/DE/KontaktAufnehmen/Strafanzeigen/strafanzeigen_node.html or on the Internet portal of the German police: www.polizei.de”.

Regarding hate postings, according to Federal Police, 80% of online hate crimes are “incitement to hate”, as well as “insult, coercion and threats”.

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/15802/britain-huawei-china

“China is trying to turn its health crisis into a geopolitical opportunity. It is launching a soft power campaign aimed at filling the vacuum left by the United States.” — Yu Jie, a senior research fellow at London’s Chatham House

China’s cynical attempts to use the coronavirus pandemic to its own advantage are not just deeply unethical: they should be taken as a warning that Beijing is not to be trusted, a lesson the West should take on board as it contemplates its future relationship with the Chinese, on trade and other issues such a 5G.

In Britain, for example, Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s decision earlier this year to allow Huawei access to the country’s new 5G network was taken despite the fact that the country’s security services have long-regarded Huawei as a “high-risk vendor”.

Mr Johnson’s decision in favour of Huawei continuing its involvement in constructing the 5G network is said to have been influenced by threats from Beijing that Britain’s vital trading relationship with China would be adversely affected if Huawei was excluded.

China’s shameful attempt to exploit the coronavirus pandemic to further its own global ambitions should be seen as yet further evidence of the mounting threat Beijing poses to the West.

The blatant hypocrisy of China’s attempts to use the pandemic for its own ends should persuade countries such as Britain to undertake a fundamental reappraisal of their relationship with Beijing, especially when it comes to sensitive technological issues, such as allowing the Chinese telecoms giant Huawei access to the 5G network.

Far from being embarrassed that the rank incompetence of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) in dealing with the initial outbreak has resulted in the world suffering its worst public health crisis in a century, Beijing has instead embarked on a charm offensive aimed at providing support for affected countries.