Taipei Times – EDITORIAL: PRC winning few minds, fewer hearts
At the end of World War II, Germany was obliged to pay reparations to Allied nations to compensate for the economic and human tragedy inflicted by the Nazi party’s fateful decision to wage war, first in Europe, and then throughout the globe.
The COVID-19 pandemic is causing global economic carnage which many economists believe will be on a scale similar to a world war. As such, there are growing calls for China to pay reparations to affected nations.
The calls stem from the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) covering up the virus for a period of at least six weeks, and — crucially — co-opted the services of the WHO to deny the existence of human-to-human transmission, robbing nations of vital time to prepare their defenses against the virus.
There is also growing evidence that during the six-week information blackout, the CCP used Chinese companies to systematically buy up global stocks of personal protective equipment, leaving many countries with critical shortages when the virus hit.
To make matters worse, China is now either flogging personal protective equipment to nations affected by the virus, or donating it as a cynical diplomatic ploy.