First point is what you do all the time on here.....when you get it back you turn nasty.... Secondly.. .you could say the same about the US... which used its clout to divert orders bound for Europe. Maybe you need to ask yourself why so many businesses outsourced to China? Cheap labour.......In my lifetime I have seen the favoured country of import go through Hong Kong, Japan, Taiwan, China... and now Thailand Vietnam Cambodia... etc etc... It is more profitable which because of the economy we run has had have profit as the first port of call... Thanks to M Thatcher for getting the ball rolling on that one... whereas Germany chose a different route.....
The fact there is a clique on here with identical views means nothing except the forum is unbalanced.
and because there are a range of views you dont agree with clump them all together in a group and take post shots and abuse seeing who you can wind up and sneer at......that will do nothing to balance the forum... .and there are Tory voters and brexiteers on here who post on other threads ...who find the mix on this thread toxic...... I tihnk you will find if you stop posting for a while all nastiness stops... you provoke... but of course you know you do. Would you do this in a pub if you heard a table of folk with different views.... I think not.... you would.... go elsewhere........
You are wrong again, Germany manufactures many of it's products in China. The products that can be sensibly financially produced in the UK will be in future. Other products which require a large percentage of labour will still be made in Asia or India. My company used to be the largest supplier of single use surgical gowns in the UK, these cannot be made in the UK unless the NHS is to waste millions of pounds in extra costs. I expect companies will avoid China and use other countries with less government interference.
I'd forgotten about Denmark BB. Apparently Sweden was thinking of bringing it back, but Germany has not seriously thought of this. The argument for national service was always that it was better if the army was representative of the whole of society - and it is certainly the case that those countries with only professional armies can afford to have a much more aggressive foreign policy. From a military perspective national service was disfunctional - it diverted resources from the professional army in order to take care of people who didn't want to be there, and who would not have been much use in active service anyway. National service was finally ended here in 2011 but (prior to reunification) West Berlin had always been excempt from it and areas which had been in East Germany were also not covered between 1990 and 2011. There is a problem with people of Turkish family who were born in Germany but have never relinquished the Turkish citizenship - the absence of having to do service in Germany means that they are obliged to do it in Turkey, even though they have never lived there. I have had friends who went to visit family there on holiday, planning to stay for a month, but ended up being there for 2 years.
If the forum is toxic it is because of people like you who cannot bide views different from yours, it is a forum for Christsake.....
If this is a forum for opinion perhaps you could answer the question that cologne asked. " I will repeat my question - are the Chinese to blame for the fact that Britain has failed miserably in coping with this crisis compared to most EU countries ?"
The Chinese are to blame for the extent of the virus spreading to the west, can you remember them complaining about Western countries stopping flights from infected China?
You have my answer above. It is far too early to comment on the lessons to be learnt regarding cover-19, it is an ongoing saga.
The question was - is China responsible for differing death figures in European countries ? The problem is that it is an ongoing saga in the UK whereas some (not all) European countries have either the worst behind them or are well on the way to beating it. So at what stage will your ongoing saga be fully developed so that you can comment on it ?
SH, I have gathered together some of your comments in earlier posts on the other Corona thread, they read as follows: ''The death levels in Italy, Spain and France are most concerning. Those countries seem to be well ahead in the cycle'' ''Of course the situation is much more serious on the continent with 48 deaths in France, 54 in Spain and 827 in Italy. They should be closing more than the Italian borders'' - remembering that Britain still had flights coming into Heathrow without any checks until the death figure had reached 30,000 +. ''As you are resident in Euroland you should be more concerned about the total lack of effort from the EU leaders. There is an appalling number of deaths within your Schengen area without any leadership from the top'' ''The US has now recognised the severity of the pandemic in mainland Europe by banning all travel from that area. Less affected areas such as the UK and Ireland are unaffected by the ban''. It appears that you were quite prepared to make international comparisons at an earlier stage when death figures were higher in other countries yet now that Britain has become the basket case of Europe you choose to wilfully ignore such figures.
Yes, China must take responsibility for the multitude of deaths in Europe and elsewhere. They were irresponsible to hide the severity and the timing of the outbreak.
That is not the answer to the question - I said 'Was China responsible for vastly differing death figures between European countries' - stop side stepping.
The point is that you were quite ready to use international comparisons when it was advantageous for you to do so - but now claim that those differences have no real meaning when the tide has turned against you. The fact is that - with a few exceptions such as Turkey, Chile, Cuba and Uruguay the countries which have tackled this problem the most effectively have either been far eastern countries or member states of the EU.
