There are always two (or more) sides to any historical event. Frankly, unless you are on the “inside,” we rarely get to know and understand the often-complex circumstances that drive decision-makers to justify their behavior and conduct. Take what is going on between the U.S. and China as it relates to what we are all living through currently: the cursed COVID-19 pandemic.
It is easy, and many would argue that it’s justified, to criticize China for its slow response and warning to the world. By the time leaders in China acknowledged that the COVID-19 was indeed turning into a pandemic because they had failed to contain the spread within its border. But it did not help when some western conspiracy advocates started accusing China of “leaking” the virus from its chemical laboratories in WuHan, then prompting China to respond (to save FACE) by accusing the U.S. of bringing the virus into China, to begin with.
These unnecessary and unproductive accusations do little to solve the immediate problem of saving lives; but to me, the Chinese response to this critical “world” problem is an illustration of how leaders in China have, throughout its long history, distrusted the West and perhaps even a little afraid of provoking a conflict with the West unnecessarily.
Many of the West’s problems today in understanding China is expecting a nation that has almost 4,000 years of history to adapt to the standards of relatively new nations, like European and other Western nations. Especially when they have been burned in the past.
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