Hey Pez are you calling my wife a liar? She spent more than 30 years listening to their bull shit. I think she knows more than you whether the CCP is trustworthy or not.
This is a government that would arrest people for posting pictures of Winnie the Pooh for Christ sake
Your wife collected the COVID data?
So you believe the CCP changed its ways and is now a beacon of honesty and benevolence after this virus?
OK then
I don't think anyone has to "change their ways". Are you saying other countries don't lie all the time? Do you think none of the stuff said about China are lies too? Do you think it is uncommon for governments to lie, and it is something exclusive to China? And yet you trust the numbers of other countries, but not China's, even though there are many other countries with numbers very similar to theirs. I am bringing up South Korea because they have better numbers than China (actually China's reported deaths compared to confirmed cases are slightly higher compared to the world average so far), and they had a very similar progression. Their active cases are going down too, just like in China, albeit with a small delay because the epidemic reached them later. Their mortality rates are significantly lower than China's. But no one acts like that is unrealistic. I don't believe any of these numbers are unrealistic. Countries in Asia had a better response than most western countries, might be because they have had many scares in the past.
It's not about who is or who isn't "benevolent". Is the west supposed to be more benevolent now? Germany is the richest country in the EU and they are known for producing lots of medical equipment. So, what did they (and France) do after COVID reached Europe? They banned their medical companies from making exports. We were supposed to be "friends" and all members of the EU and having solidarity etc etc. Again, they didn't just refuse to offer help, you can't even BUY from their companies now, they kept it all for themselves. All while Italy and Spain are suffering. Is this benevolence? Do you know who DID offer tons of help, both in equipment and in specialists? China. Was it benevolent when Trump tried to get German companies to only make a vaccine for the US?
This stuff doesn't look good for western countries, so it is in their interest to blame China for everything and anything. Not just for that, China is a big competitor at the world stage. So it's perfectly within their interests to have people frothing at the mouth about China for everything, just like China wants to put the blame on someone else (see the foreign affairs minister trying to pin it on the US). And they're not at all afraid to throw Asians under the bus in the process. I don't know if it's happening in Australia yet, maybe not because you haven't been hit as hard yet, but it's kind of dangerous to be Asian right now in many places. Like, lots of people are getting physically assaulted. It doesn't matter if you hate the CCP, it doesn't even matter if you aren't Chinese, as long as you look Asian you'll get shifty looks at best, assaulted at worse. It's common in Italy, I'm hearing it is becoming common in the US too, and it looks like some people are heading that way here too. Why? Because people are ready to lap up any and all propaganda against China without second consideration. And many people won't think "well, maybe the CCP is bad but that doesn't mean something about Chinese people". That's the intended effect too, can't have people being too sympathetic to The Enemy or its people. There is so much of it on DNS' favourite Reddit for example. People posted some pics of Italian healthcare workers' scarred faces after wearing masks for extremely long shifts and people were hailing them as heroes. When something similar happened with Chinese nurses, so many highly upvoted comments were like "fake", "CCP propaganda", "no way a mask can do that to your face", "mods remove this", etc. Another thread was made by an Asian American where other Asians posted about the abuse they have been getting lately. Thankfully most the comments there were not as creepy as that other thread, but even though the OP was very negative towards the CCP, there were still many people screaming "propaganda", "no chinese people are also at fault", "fake", etc.