> But this is a completely bullshit argument.
Is it though? I think that it makes a lot of sense.
Is it though? I think that it makes a lot of sense.
You always need evidence, regardless of the nature of the accused person or entity. You could be accusing Stalin himself; you still need evidence
Either you didn't understood the point or you don't want to address it.
The point is that if China's regime tries to portray the fact that they operate a coronsvirus military research lab a few meters from the outbreak's alledged epicenter as nonsense while at the same time they try to pin the blame on the outbreak on military coronsvirus research work conducted by other nations.
I mean, if a work accident committed by China's military is ruled out as outlandish then why are they pushing conspiracy theories akin to area52 aliens as reasonable and plausible?
The lab escape theory is certainly completely plausible. But it becomes no more or less plausible just because there's "US military conspiracy" propaganda spread by the government.
They easily could've done that to counter all of the accusations hurled at them by US citizens that it's an intentional bioweapon, or due to Trump calling it "the Chinese virus" and constantly trying to associate it with them, or to pull attention away from themselves due to the outbreak starting there and just generally to reduce embarrassment and spread confusion that they hope will improve their reputation, or even specifically because of posts like yours.
If you assume for the sake of argument that the lab hypothetically isn't responsible, but lots of people think it is, this would be one way to provide such a distraction. It would as well if the lab were in fact responsible, but that definitely doesn't mean that's proof the lab is responsible. They have a ton of possible reasons for why they would want to spread this propaganda.
The hypothesis that "they're more likely to spread propaganda about the US military causing it if their lab caused it" carries a ton of implicit assumptions which may or may not be true. It's reasonable to speculate about and discuss, but it alone is evidence of nothing. If there were some leaked document saying something like "hey, since our lab fucked up let's distract people by accusing the US", then it'd be a different story.
Of course, China's government promoting and spreading absurd conspiracy theories needs to be condemned no matter what, but an analysis of the true root cause of the outbreak needs to be totally impartial and objective.
Because the incident isn't about deflection to US.
It was retaliating and warning US against pushing Wuhan conspiracy theory (Tom Cotton) and calling covid19 Wuhan virus (Pompeo) after WHO re-designation. Both these events proceeded the Chinese tweets.
Current US administration has consistently been the instigator of bellicose diplomacy. But people conveniently forget when it comes to China who has been remarkably patient compared to other countries, including US allies.
US is pushing crazy propaganda to deflect blame from their inadequate response. In return, China unleashed one of their mid tier diplomats to troll crazy US rhetoric coming from a Senator and Secretary of State to demonstrate that China is willing to escalate to dirty propaganda games. Hence why it had to be de-escalated by Chinese ambassador to US, a diplomat 2 levels higher than the original foreign ministry spokes person. It also plays well to Chinese domestic audience.
If China wanted to deflect blame, there would be much more plausible ways. The fact that China chose to confront US conspiracy with Chinese conspiracy should be interpreted as signalling to not go full retard. The message and messenger was calibrated for this affect. And what do you know the US backed off on this avenue of attack and has shifted to boosting Taiwan. Also concurrent to the conspiracy tit-for-tat was banning each others journalists. These events have to be evaluated in proper context and timelines.