More cracks in the great coronavirus wall of China are appearing. The Bild newspaper in Germany has tallied up German damages from the coronavirus in an article last Wednesday:
Bild calculated that this amounts to €1,784 (£1,550) per person if Germany’s GDP falls by 4.2 percent, under the title “What China owes us.”
China responded by claiming the invoice “stirs up xenophobia and nationalism”.
Bild created an English response to China’s criticism that details problems it sees with Xi Jinping:
1. You rule by surveillance. You wouldn’t be president without surveillance.
2. Surveillance is a denial of freedom. And a nation that is not free, is not creative.
3. You, your government and your scientists had to know long ago that Corona is highly infectious, but you left the world in the dark about it.
4. The “Washington Post” reports that your laboratories in Wuhan have been researching corona viruses in bats, but without maintaining the highest safety standards.
5. In your country, your people are whispering about you. Your power is crumbling.
Will Facebook and Twitter to ban the Bild article and posts that reference it?
Do you think China will admit any responsibility and pay anything for the epidemic?
Or is the German response just another example of nationalist xenophobia infecting Europe?
