The most stunning tennis match ever

Rafael Nadal came back from down 0:2 to beat Daniil Medvedev 3:2 to win the Australian Open final on Jan 30-31, 2022, becoming the first man to win 21 Grand Slam singles’ titles.  This match must rate as the most stunning tennis match ever.

People have come back from 0:2 deficits in GS before, including in the finals.  Examples include Djokovic beating Tsitsipas at the 2021 French Open, Dominic Thiem defeated Alexander Zverev at the 2020 US Open, and Agassi over Andrei Medvedev at the 1999 French Open final.  But there are vast differences between this one and the other versions.  The first is obviously the great significance in history book, the 21 GS and all that.  Although 21 may not be the final count, and the Big 3, frankly, can’t be objectively separated in the GOAT discussion (9/12/21 blog).  The second is that in the other matches, all the eventual winners were the favorites entering the contests.  On the other hand, Nadal was decidedly the underdog.  Odd from the viewpoint of Nadal’s prestige, but true in every tennis fan’s mind, since Medvedev has been the best hard-court player or co-favorite with Djokovic since 2021. 

Nadal was injured and missing in action for most of 2021 and only started to play again a month ago.  His previous rounds in AO2022 showed a major lack of stamina from set 3 and beyond.  In his quarterfinal win over Shapovalov, he raced to a 2:0 lead, but visibly weakened in the 3^rd and 4^th sets, barely escaped in the 5^th when Shapovalov made a few easy mistakes in a service game.  The same thing happened in the semifinal vs Berrettini, only that Berrettini made his errors in the 4^th set.  Thus the common wisdom entering the final was that Nadal had to win the first two sets to even have a chance against Medvedev, who is 10 years younger with good serves, solid, balanced forehand and backhand and makes few mistakes.

So when Nadal was down 0:2, few would think Nadal could win, and most suspected a quick 0:3.  Then what happened?  How could Nadal do it?  How could Nadal muster his physical ability to match Medvedev’s for three more sets and win them all?  Most of it must have been the fighting spirit of Nadal.  This is why the match and outcome is the most stunning.  Because it was not that Medvedev didn’t fight hard : he surely did as hell.  But in sports there is always some luck involved.  Maybe Medvedev was a bit unlucky this time.

The tennis was of the highest quality befitting both players' caliber.  There were some ups and downs for both players over the 5 hours, but even when they were tired, they still managed to make fantastic shots.  Medvedev was the one running more and trying harder throughout.  In certain Medvedev’s service games, after Nadal getting a break, Nadal clearly was saving energy for his own service games.  This likely helped Nadal maintain his intensity until the end.  If there was a factor other than luck that doomed Medvedev, it was his service return from the backhand side, as he sent too many returns long.  A technique Medvedev needs to improve.   

Who would have thought Nadal winning his least favorite GS tournament (until 2022) after an injury and surgery and returning merely a month earlier, against a heavily favored opponent, and coming back from a huge deficit, and making history in the process?  

How the West makes Xinjiang propaganda

The moral war against China has been long ongoing, although now at a higher gear with COVID-19 and Xinjiang.  The neo-racism has reached such a fever that both the Left and Right in the US unite 100% in this effort, even when they are at each other’s throat on every other subject. 

Western propaganda employs two forces to paint the alternative facts in Xinjiang: witnesses and experts/MSM reports, while in fact all they need is a goal (war), evidence later (since no evidence, manufacturing evidence).  There are few witnesses to begin with, MSM can’t and won’t verify if they are what they say they are or if they saw what they say they saw, and there is no physical evidence to support their claims.  So the West depends largely on like-minded experts and MSM.  To show how they are all objective, professional, and so on, they often quote Chinese media reports and public or semi-public Chinese documents: see, even the Chinese materials reveal genocide, forced labor, etc!  Unwittingly, however, this process shows exactly how these people are sheer liars and race-cultural warriors instead of real experts or journalists. 

An undeniable, recurring offense is that those “experts”, BBC, CNN, NYT, WP, etc, have always twisted Chinese words and sentences in their English translation to make entirely neutral and even benevolent meanings sinister, for they are counting on their audience not knowing China and not understanding the Chinese language.  The Chinese government and media have refuted the nonsense, and many foreigners who do understand Chinese also denounce the Xinjiang propaganda, some making videos and documenting what they see with their own eyes in Xinjiang (Jan 5, 2022 blog).  Below are two more examples, by no means exhaustive, illustrating perfectly how the “experts” and MSM twisted Chinese words and media reports to portray a narrative in complete opposite of the true events in China.  This is important and also the most obvious, because, whatever witness claims, we can’t evaluate them (the Chinese denial doesn’t mean a thing, right?), but if you twist a word’s meaning and selectively quote documents or edit news reports, the whole world catches you red-handed: the actual smoking gun.

The first example deals with a months-old BBC report that maliciously edited a 2017 Chinese news piece in English (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xm5fNV0rSaI).  If one watches the Chinese news (with local people’s original sounds), any reasonable person will come away with the impression how the Chinese government and businesses are working together to help people in Xinjiang alleviate poverty while being considerate and accommodating.  FYI, this is a decade-long anti-poverty drive not specifically designed for Xinjiang, as it applies to other, poor regions in China as well.  China, in many areas, economic and social, still needs development, albeit not in the ways the West describes.  On the other hand, if you watches BBC, you will think evil forced labor in Chinese’s own words!  How did BBC accomplish that?  Well, by selectively editing and stripping the proper context of the Chinese news report, blatantly clear if anyone watches the original Chinese version and compares.  Since both the Chinese report and BBC report are available (and youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xm5fNV0rSaI), people can see and decide for themselves who is hijacking the audience, or whether what BBC did here was even journalism or moral.  Chinese media have also amply exposed the practice of BBC in this particular reporting and others.

It is further funny that whenever MSM such as BBC report on China, they knee-jerkingly include a picture of “police”, whereas in many if not most cases what MSM show are actually security guards, unarmed and otherwise not unlike those at malls and clubs in the US.  In China most security guards are employed by private entities and posted at living quarters and large business buildings.  Their main job is checking visitors’ ID and keeping unwanted people out instead of preventing people inside from leaving.  This is a well-known truism in China, but for the West it becomes a sign of something nefarious or a concentration camp.  It is laughable per Chinese security guards’ job description if this is how a concentration or labor camp works.   

The BBC report is by no means an exception but an embodiment of MSM’s SOP.  1) They use meaningless images (e.g., security guards) to convey a hidden message. 2) They might cite two “witnesses” in China without the proper context or even twisting their words.  100x more Chinese will give a different opinion but never receive a fair airing.  3) They will twist and edit public Chinese materials to support their claims, even though the actual language contradicts MSM’s stories.  MSM can get away with this for a long time because the Western audience, the elite and public, are clueless, and fake news that confirms a preexisting misconception is easier and safer than real news that overturns political (in)correctness. Why do they do that?  A major reason is that many MSM reporters in China have a poor grasp of China and the language, but a much bigger contributor to their malpractice is that pandering to the China-bashing political system is self-preservation and good for career advancement in the West.  Fortunately, social media have given voices alternative to MSM, but only if you know where to look and what to believe, such as meeting real people with actual sounds on actual grounds.    

The second example is a detailed analysis, including legal opinions, of the ASPI report on forced labor by Jaq James (https://johnmenadue.com/an-obliteration-of-aspis-uyghurs-for-sale-report-take-two/).  ASPI is an anti-China think tank supported by the Australian and US governments and militaries, so it is hard for any unbiased reader to understand why ASPI should be considered objective in any way and why its report taken as authoritative by anybody.  Still, Jaq James demonstrates the ASPI report is a giant fraud. 

Jaq James composes a detailed pdf file replete with endless examples of ASPI misconducts.  It has everything the first example shows and more.  For example, how ASPI applied the same old trick as MSM, scary buzzwords such as police, watchtower, fences, etc, to manipulate readers.  How ASPI used satellite images to identify concentration or whatever camps, hoping nobody would bother to check.  But when people did check, nothing of sort existed.  How ASPI stirred up a situation of damned if Chinese do, damned if Chinese don’t.  And how ASPI and WP colluded and pumped out irrelevant and misleading information about restaurants and job ads and questionable “witnesses” that shed little if any light on the so-called forced labor.  It is astounding that none of ASPI’s claims is even remotely valid, and the most apparent, objective, unfalsifiable, and very abundant evidence of ASPI’s fraud is how it twisted Chinese language in Chinese documents and news reports with mood-turning, fear-inducing, evil-sounding English words and sentences.  This last part is the most revealing of the mindsets of the ASPI authors and MSM in general.  It would have been hilarious if the consequence is not so dire. American officials never miss a beat to proclaim a "rule"-based international order, but how about a truth-based order first?

We can rate offenses and crimes from 1-10, with 1 as the least serious, such as pickpocketing and shoplifting, and 10 the most serious, such as wars, instigating wars, genocide, etc.  Inventing a false pretense like Iraqis WMD for war is the same as firing the shots for war, also a 10, because no war without a pretense.  Akin to the mastermind of a murder being punished like the one who pulls the trigger.  Similarly, and according to The 11th Commandment (Feb 7, 2021 blog), ASPI, BBC, and MSM who knowingly and deliberately poison the water for a future war are criminals rated 10.  It is these people who are committing grave human rights violation in Xinjiang.  Free speech is no cover for crimes by those who know better.

Lack of evidence for the COVID-19 lab origin theory inadvertently revealed by Alina Chan, and the likely origin of COVID-19

Alina Chan is doing the media rounds for her upcoming, much-hyped book on COVID-19 lab origin.  For political reasons this kind attracts the most MSM attention, and Chan claims her book explains the subject to nonscientists, but in the scientific circle the book is met with indifference if not ridicule. 

An interview (https://www.currentaffairs.org/2022/01/how-did-the-covid-19-pandemic-start) reveals exemplarily how empty her evidence and arguments are, not surprising since they always are, whether made by Chan and anybody else.  This is all they have, i.e., nothing.  During the interview with Nathan Robinson, Chan made arguments and assertions over and over, without providing any solid evidence to back them up.  Robinson has no biology background to evaluate or challenge her; despite reading other essays and wanting to be critical, Robinson didn’t bring up any counterpoints until near the end of the interview, before letting her off the hook easily. 

It is a long interview, but Chan offered little dry stuff, which can be summed up in three interrelated arguments.  Everything else is either nonsensical or not worth responding because of the lack of substances.

The first Chan argued is that there is an overlap between natural origin and lab origin such that “lab-based” includes a WIV worker being infected by a natural virus, either during field collection, or from growing the virus in the lab.  This reflects precisely the lab origin crowd trying to save their behinds by muddling the water and moving the goal post when all their other/previous arguments have fallen apart, and 1) it can’t be allowed to stand, and 2) it still doesn’t pass muster. 

People who are not simplistic and misled, paraphrasing from the interview, will surely remember that these same individuals, including Chan, have been yelling bioweapons, GOF, smoking guns, etc, since 2020.  None of that has panned out.  They last resort, therefore, is expanding their reach farther and farther so that it might hook on the natural origin train.  This is a blatant attempt at cheating, pretending to be serious and pretending to be right without ever being so.   

Then, even that novel and innovative definition has zero evidence for and plenty against.  SARS-CoV-2 or close relatives never came up in scientific records prior to 2020.  WIV studied only SARS related CoVs prior to 2020, according to publications, suggesting that whatever other CoVs WIV had, WIV merely collected and at most sequenced them, but never grew and amplified them.  WIV has always maintained that no one at WIV was infected, and nobody working at WIV, Chinese or otherwise, either inside China or outside right now, has revealed anything unusual at WIV.  All is in the public record, hence a blanket no-no.  The CoV collection database at WIV shielded from the outside since late 2019?  You bet that someone overseas has a backup record of it, and if anything juicy is there the whole world would have known long ago.  Furthermore, whatever CoVs WIV has, nature has many orders of multitude more, and no matter how much field work WIV does, it is utterly neglectible compared to regular human interactions with the environments.  WIV won’t go to virgin places, for they survey only where the locals have told them there are bats.  Just from pure math it is like Chan shouting at a pool of water while ignoring an ocean.

Chan cited WIV growing SARS-like CoVs at BSL-2 facilities, but for what?  We shouldn’t study CoVs?  She talked incoherently about that.  The need for lab safety?  Who would disagree with that, but what does it have to do with COVID-19?  Chan may scare laypeople, but not real scientists, because most CoVs including SARS-like CoVs don’t infect humans, and BSL-2 is perfectly fine and used for this line of work universally.  Besides, and again, there is no evidence any CoV infection at WIV, and no evidence WIV had COVID-19 samples until late Dec 2019.  Chan et al.’s strategy is to churn out irrelevant information to mislead people, and when the previous assertions failed, without exception, to move onto a new one, which will suffer the same fate undoubtedly.  But as long as there is a market, she will have an audience: who needs science when your entire thesis is based on faith?       

The second is best told in Chan’s own words: “I’d say that comparing the categories of evidence between natural and lab-based origins, they’re pretty even. But it’s true that the proximity factor favors the lab leak hypothesis. So if you look at historical evidence, precedents of natural viruses versus those that have escaped from labs, there’s pretty strong cases for both natural and lab”.

This is sheer ignorance and lunacy, her audacity to quote “historical”.  Throughout history, did any nascent pandemic originated from a lab?  Hell never!  THIS is historical evidence: natural 100, lab 0.  If a lab studies a known disease, and it sickens a lab worker, that at most counts as an escape, not a new disease, since the disease is already known.  And such instances are rare, always easy to trace, and have never caused much harm to the public.  THAT is also historical evidence.  Her argument makes sense only if WIV had the virus prior to the outbreak, but as described above, she has exactly zero evidence. 

Hence Chan’s case is even weaker than a sand castle.  1) History shows natural 100, lab 0, far from “even”.  2) Historically, the emergence of infectious diseases, what and where, features a great deal of randomness and unpredictability.  COVID-19 being first reported in Wuhan may well be due to chance, further having nothing to do with WIV.  3) It is a scientific truism that Wuhan first reporting COVID-19 doesn’t mean SARS-CoV-2 originated there.  LA reported the first AIDS cases, but LA is no origin.  The talk of “proximity” has little meaning.  4) Regarding “proximity factor”, if WIV is a proximity factor, there are many more: Wuhan has over 10 million people, more people, more markets, more shops, more proximity to infections.  Wuhan is a major transportation hub, so trains, buses, and airplanes are all proximity factors!

The third argument by Chan is that Peter Daszak and the WHO work in China can’t be trusted.  But even if they can’t be trusted, have any studies thus far revealed lab origin?  Can we trust anything Chan and crowd have produced instead?  The answers to both questions are decidedly NOs.  No matter what the MSM and political circles say, it remains a consensus among biologists that COVID-19 is of natural origin ever since Feb 2020. 

Moreover, why can’t Peter Daszak and the WHO work in China be trusted?  Has any evidence up to 2022 overturned their major conclusions in 2020 and 2021?  Again an emphatic NO.  Much has been cried about the WHO work in China was no investigation, but what kind of investigation you want or think was feasible, and any precedents for that kind of investigation you like?  The official designation appropriately called it a joint study.  The outside team will always depend on data provided by the Chinese, and the goal was to find possible answers and suggest subsequent work.  It is still scientist to scientist, based on scientific data, judgments, and arguments.  Even with differences in data interpretation you have to trust each other, otherwise there is no basis for anything. 

All data support WHO team’s conclusion, but not Chan’s belief, which is why she tries to discredit it.  But since she has no evidence herself, she is left to question the “investigation” and Peter Daszak’s COI.  But Peter Daszak was only one among many in the WHO team.  Is he really that powerful, or all the other scientists have no independent minds of their own?   Then still, has the WHO conclusion or Peter Daszak’s argument for natural origin undermined by any new findings by 2022?  Of course not.  Sowing doubt without providing anything substantial but blaming Chinese coverup is so easy under the current political climate, but the natural origin theory has only strengthened since early 2020. 

A related, recent development is that E-mails were leaked showing Fauci and Collins advising against lab-made talks, even when some scientists had the suspicion in early 2020, which ostensibly proved that Fauci and Collins were hiding sth.  But these E-mails and MSM reports failed to update how those scientists feel in Jan 2022.  It is likely that most if not all no longer support lab origin, because there is now simply no evidence for but much against it.  This means how much Fauci, Collins, and Daszak were correct all along.

To summarize everything concrete:

1. WIV didn’t know about or have the virus prior to COVID-19.   

2. The few CoVs that WIV worked on prior to 2020 were not SARS-CoV-2 or precursors.  GOF of those CoVs won’t produce SARS-CoV-2.

3. The CoVs WIV have collected and the act of sample collection itself are nothing compared to nature.

No evidence contradicts, while all the evidence, records, and math, support natural origin.  Chan et al. have produced no evidence or valid reasoning against, despite spending the last two years searching for, inventing, and twisting facts and arguments, all of which have invariably failed.  Attacking Fauci/Collins/Daszak won’t reverse fortune, only making them look farsighted.   

But how about even Fauci admitted we need to consider all possibilities?  It is actually scientist talk, as scientists are a cautious bunch and never say never (an oxymoron), which differs fundamentally from what Chan means.  Nobody says you can’t test lab origin, or anti-evolution, for that matter.  But the same scientific rigor must apply, which Chan et al have failed repeatedly and completely.  Only in theory, there is a remote possibility that a WIV worker got infected in the wild but recovered without leaving a trace, but then nobody can prove it, whereas the math number game dictates that possibility is miniscule compared to those of “natural” occurrences. What the lab conspiracy theorists do is like saying since we don’t know origin of the universe, we should consider God creation 50% possible.  There is a famous historical book on that, many people in the world believe in it, and miracles accepted without scientific explanations.  It has evidence stronger than the lab origin theory!   

Last though, what is the origin of COVID-19?  First we have to define “origin”.  Because strictly speaking, pandemic origin is like absolute 0 temperature: you might get close to it but never achieve it.  The Delta and Omicron variants, for example, can be traced back to the SARS-CoV-2 reported in Jan 2020, but what about the precursor of SARS-CoV-2, without which COVID-19 wouldn’t have had happened?  Biology means that there must be a precursor virus, then a precursor to the precursor, and so on.  The search can be infinite; if he “blames” one virus, she can always go back in time to “blame” its precursor.  Consequently, the origin question is never tidy or sexy, better left for professionals to debate. 

But how about limting it to finding the patient 0?  Bat 0?  The time and place the virus was first transmitted from an animal to a person?  These may be what movies depict, but scientists still realize that is mission impossible.  No first-time infectious diseases have got that kind of resolution.  So scientists have to settle on a looser, nuanced criterion, a range, or a scenario that is probable yet by no means definitive, ready to change when new evidence emerges.  Unfortunately, the public and even many scientists are frequently confused by this operational origin definition.  For one, they think the origin question has been completely settled.  For two, they try to jam lesson from one disease into another.

A common refrain is that since origin of SARS was solved quickly, there must be sth fishy when we don’t know the origin of COVID-19 two years later.  Well, SARS origin was not solved quickly, and even now it is only a theory, a good one, but still a story or probable scenario nonetheless, never 100% fixed (more later).  And there are many other pandemics we know far less about their origins, with COVID-19 being no exception.  However, even if we don’t know everything, we have known enough about human history, records, and virus analyses to conclude that it is natural like every other pandemic. 

The study of SARS origin is often invoked to guide that of COVID-19, but the narrative commonly described in MSM is unsatisfactory if not downright problematic.  The SARS origin issue is often reported as “solved”, while in fact the prevailing answer must instead be treated as a working hypothesis or probability.  Maybe it gives a hint, but other scenarios are possible as well.  Lab origin excluded of course. 

The conventional wisdom is that SARS originated from a wet market in Guangdong where SARS-CoV jumped from a civet or another animal/mammal to a human.  Following this roadmap, many scientists in the COVID-19 natural origin camp conjecture that an unknown mammal transmitted SARS-CoV-2 to humans in a market in Wuhan.  There are many holes in the evidence and thinking, leaving aside the question of whether Wuhan is truly the Ground 0 (BTW, markets are not unique in China; they are all over the globe).

Right now out of the 80K animal related samples tested in China, including from markets in Wuhan and their suppliers, no SARS-CoV-2 was found.  Since no sampling is exhaustive, it is entirely possible that they missed the positive.  It is also possible that animal 0 died without a record.  But a more vexing question should be: how did the animal get the virus?  Both SARS-CoV and SARS-CoV-2 came from bats.  Guangdong didn’t find the SARS-CoV bat, and Wuhan markets had no bats, so another animal must carry the virus.  If the general suspicion is correct, then 1) an animal carried SARS-CoV-2 and infected people at the market, or 2) several animals at the market had compatible CoVs, which recombined to produce SARS-CoV-2.

Consider 1) first.  Note that markets are only where the animals are sold, and people have to grow them in a farm at the countryside or catch them in the wild, away from big cities such as Wuhan.  Then farmers/hunters/merchants/drivers have to transport them to the city markets.  In other words, animals spend much more time and contact more people away from the markets than in the markets.  If an animal had SARS-CoV-2 already, why didn’t it infect the farmer, hunter or anybody else before it arrived at the market, as the farmer, hunter, family, or fellow villagers would have had plenty of time, days or months, in close contact with the SARS-CoV-2 animal?  Even suppose infection occurred at a Wuhan market, how can one be certain that it was due to the animal, not someone transporting the animal to the market who was infected earlier and then infected others at the market?  Or the farmer/hunter/close contacts were infected in the countryside, came to Wuhan without the animal, and infected people?  In short, a simple analysis of time and math finds 1) hard to defend.

A simple analysis of biology and math reveals 2) to be even less plausible.  Granted, its aggregate possibility is not 0, no lab origin, but giving it 5% is likely still overgenerous.  At the minimum you had two animals (this number gives it the best chance), each with a suitable CoV, placed close together inside a market, and there must be enough time for one CoV to infect the other animal, enough time to recombine a new SARS-CoV-2 inside the animals, and then enough time to infect a human.  A lot of unknowns here: what were the animals that together produced SAR-CoV-2?  The same or different species?  How could two “random” CoVs meet and recombine to form SARS-CoV-2?  As wildlife animal trade is technically illegal (depending to the definition of “wildlife”), there weren’t probably many such animals in any market, which were often hidden and separated.  So, what were the odds of all these low possibility events happening at the same time without disruption, e.g., an animal being killed before SARS-CoV-2 emerged?

Many epidemiologists think what is believed happening in Guangdong and SARS happened again in Wuhan and SARS-CoV-2, but the case with SARS is never shut, so its lesson for COVID-19 is not automatic, due to the simple reasons outlined for 1) and 2).  Even in lab research when virus recombination can be sped up, no new CoVs have been reported that way.  To overcome the low possibility in 2), one can argue these markets are like incubators for viruses: it is true a single event like 2) is extremely rare, but if you have enough animals in enough markets for enough time, one of  those days things will happen, and this time a Wuhan market was just unlucky.  This is a valid point and why the aggregate possibility is not pegged at 0. 

But following the same logic, why only markets in big cities?  Look at the more “natural” settings, people living in the countryside and mountains, wildlife are much more numerous and diverse, more bats definitely.  People and animals have a far longer time mingling, and there are local markets at well.  So we have both natural and commercial “markets” in rural areas all around the world.  Human population wise there may be parity between the cities and countryside, but in terms of animals and time spent around with animals, cities are no match.  If markets at big cities are virus incubators, areas outside are incubators many times bigger.  Therefore, if 1) or 2) happened at a Wuhan market, huge chances SARS-CoV-2 had already infected people earlier, outside the market.  If one argues that it was infection at the market that led to COVID-19 pandemic, everything else being irrelevant, then how do you know for sure that it was not someone getting infected away and then infecting others at the market?  Or there wasn’t a low grade transmission elsewhere before a superspreading event at the market? A beautiful theory slain by ugly probabilities.  

Thus, focusing on markets in Wuhan is akin to looking at a tree but missing the forest, not necessarily wrong but likely misleading.  The same rings true for SARS.  Shi Zhengli of WIV, the scientist most maligned by the lab theorists, found SARS-like CoVs in bats in Yunnan, China, geologically and ecologically connected to SE Asia but a distance away from Guangdong, 10 years after SARS, thereby demonstrating that SARS originated in bats, and serological studies identified local villagers in Yunnan with antibodies against SARS, suggesting infections apart from the SARS outbreak in 2002-2003.  What is missing then is how to get to Guangdong, but the first zoonotic jump likely occurred well before Guangdong. 

Therefore, the most probable scenario in COVID-19, based on biology, ecology, history, and math, is as follows.  The first human transmission from an animal occurred in a rural area.  The virus spread in the countryside undetected for various reasons.  Initially cases were low, transmission sporadic and trajectory erratic, but spreading got wider over time due to human movement and traffic.  Eventually it arrived at a city or cities.  Markets, stores, etc, provided an opportunity for a superspreading event.  Pandemic ensued.  If the time between the first zoonotic jump and pandemic was long enough, the virus might even evolve in a human host to become more transmissible or pathogenic.  When we look for clues about the origin, of course we have a better chance of identifying the later events in cities, but due to the passage of time and loss of records, whatever happened earlier and elsewhere was more likely gone.  We just have to accept that nature operates without human noticing and without a paper trail.  This chain of events, while speculative for COVID-19, hold true for known diseases in history. 

 

Foreign YouTuber/influencers in China vs the MSM in the West

The long-term trend in globalization means that people regularly cross international borders and often work and live in their non-native countries for years.  The more recent social media explosion shatters the monopoly of the establishments including the Western MSM even further.  The new media has its own problems, with mis- and dis-information traveling much faster than before; however, it is hard to conclude that they are guiltier than MSM, which have been doing it for a much longer time, and the MSM and governments have also had their own hands muddled in the new media water. 

In 2021 MSM such as BBC and NYT reported on foreigners living in China making youtube videos, which is a new phenomenon proliferating like fire partly due to the global events since 2020, although the undercurrent has existed for far longer.  Their videos are very easy to find, so no links/names are given here, neither are the MSM reports.  These foreigners became the MSM subjects only because their videos seriously contest the narratives promoted by the MSM.  And the MSM reports stunk of smears and hypocrisy.     

Background first.  There are millions of foreigners living in China.  Most people have at least an account in myriad social media platforms, but only a small minority make videos, which is true everywhere.  Because to make videos you need to have a particular urge and interest (the vast majority can’t live on it), time (a 10 hour adventure might give 15 min usable video), and skills for shooting and editing.  You must also have a good voice, be articulate and minimally photogenic.  So these foreigners in question pass the criteria.  They are studying, working, having business, retiring, or simply taking care of their families in China.  Some form families with Chinese, some partner with other foreigners, some singles.  All, including various people featured in the videos, have lived in China for years, some less than 10, some over 10, and a few decades.  They speak Chinese usually quite well, most read, and a few even write sufficiently.  Their language proficiency is actually much better than that of many if not most MSM reporters in China.   The motivation of most for video making is to connect with their family and friends, the original purpose in social media, and some further wanting to broadcast the real China to the world.  Few if any will ever make much money from Chinese social media since the payout per view is lower than youtube.   

Predictably more Chinese make videos with similar contents or viewpoints, but they don’t count or matter according to MSM.  To those profiled as foreign YouTuber/influencers by MSM, the designation is odd.  About “YouTubers”, these people have other platforms that publish their videos, whose views might surpass those in youtube.  Because of this feature, they prefer the name of “content creators”.  For “influencers”, exactly what and whom they are influencing, or who is and who isn’t an influencer?  Their audience is whoever watches their channels, which, just like any other cases, includes family, friends, and anybody else interested.  Is an NYT reporter an influencer?   If you publish something but are not a reporter, you are an influencer; if I am a reporter and may reach and influence more people, I am still not an influencer?   Do only social media count, or does it go without saying that a reporter means a “higher” influencer?   

Then, what videos do these foreign “YouTuber/influencers” with their foreign associates in China produce?  All document their lives in China, again befitting the contents of social media.  Either because of their work or personal interest, some focus on food, some on traveling and sightseeing, some merely daily routines.  Some also wade into the political and MSM domains, which is why this whole group of people are implicitly or explicitly maligned by the MSM.  For their videos reveal a very genuine, normal life experience in China over the years.  Even if not all directly challenge the lies about the pandemic and Xinjiang, just the calm, everyday life in China greatly undermines MSM’s narratives of a gloomy Chinese society: Chinese must be sad and fighting with their governments all the time, minorities can’t speak their languages and worship in Xinjiang and Tibet, if not worse, etc.  So BBC/NYT label them “pro-China” or sponsored by the Chinese government.  If telling the truth is “pro-China”, then truth has a China bias.

Whether sponsored by the government or not is irrelevant (but more on that later), since the key question is whether their videos are real or not, reflect their own experience or not.  This is of the utmost importance, as fake news, mis- and dis-information travels fast.   But people can judge with their own eyes and ears, and compare them to MSM and anti-China YouTubers. 

The biggest smear against these foreigners in China is: Of course their videos have to be pro-China, otherwise they will be kicked out of China.  This attack hinges on the belief that a) these foreigners don’t believe or misrepresent in their videos; and b) once out of China they will “tell the truth”, i.e., becoming anti-China. 

But the best thing about videos is that you can watch them as the ultimate evidence and decide for yourself whether they are fake, whether the makers see and interact with the real Chinese and society, and whether the makers truly believe in what they see, hear, or feel.   

These foreigners’ videos actually as a whole give a very comprehensive picture of China that the MSM have never matched even 1% of it in their widest dream.  They document lives in both big cities such as Beijing and Shanghai as well as in remote countryside and poor areas in China.  They show, talk to, and interview Chinese from all walks of life.  They reveal the lives and struggles of Chinese citizens, relatable to everybody else on Earth.  Some tour various cities in Xinjiang and Tibet, observe for days, and talk to people on the streets for hours.  The videos are made by people coming from various continents and countries, Asia, Europe, Africa, the US, UK, Canada, Japan, India, Australia, Israel, you name it.  These people have had vastly different backgrounds and lives, most are young, some more senior, diverse professions, and diverse interests.  In sum, their videos represent the furthest improbable from fake news, much better than the garden variety social media, FB posts or tweets the MSM so dearly cherish.  Ordinary Chinese will have no quarrel with those videos. 

Now compare THAT level of evidence to those in MSM reporting and anti-China youtubers.  MSM rarely has any videos, merely words from the reporters, throwing in a few “experts” and “witnesses”, and you are supposed to believe their words/stories on NYT instead of your own eyes.  In rare cases when BBC or CNN has a video, it is still 90% a reporter talking in front of something that he says something is happening inside but the remaining 10% showing no actual evidence anything is happening there.  For example, you can shoot a video outside WIV suggesting they made COVID-19 there, as if that adds any legitimacy to your thesis, which will never count as evidence WIV did it.  And BBC would tell you the blurred building behind me is a concentration camp, but a casual, drive-by inspection of the architecture and its markings by amateurs later revealed it is a common office building.  Evident-wise oversea anti-China youtubers are just as pitiful if not more.  It is mostly a video of someone speaking in front of a camera at home, expressing his opinions.  Occasionally he will refer to and twist a recent news report, nothing but a FB or twitter post needing more bandwidth to download.  What/who you trust more, mere words from the MSM and anti-China youtubers, or the “pro-China” youtubers that show you his/her actual, daily experience with videos in China?

NYT reporters protested, according to social media-revealed interactions with the video makers: OK, your videos show you walk around Xinjiang and Tibet for days, talk to people, and find nothing but peaceful life, but it is still personal experience, not the whole picture.  That is true for all social media, but then on what ground will MSM claim they and only they give the whole picture?  Further consider this: It is not one foreigner, it is many foreigners, independently visiting overlapping and diverse cities, different streets, different places, different people, in different times.  They show you the exact views around them, what the locals do, and the actual words from the locals.  Lest we forget videos made by more Chinese telling the same picture.  What more credible do you need?

On the other hand, what have the MSM shown you, e.g., about Xinjiang?  Words, words, words, throwing in a handful of videos that mean nothing or get debunked faster than you can see it.  Like the satellite images supposedly showing concentration camps, or the building/concentration/forced labor camp behind a BBC reporter?  Or youtube videos showing concentration camps far away without any evidence they are truly concentration camps?  We are supposed to believe MSM words/stories or meaningless videos without hesitation yet question the heck of real-life videos?  Why are the mere words from a few recycled people, often conflicting with verifiable facts and their othern interviews, and without any physical evidence, the whole picture?   

Remember Vietnam, or Iraqis WMD?  Back then there were so many more “experts’, so many more “witnesses”, and so much more “intelligence”, right?  Wasn’t it a slam-dunk?  In 2002, even most anti-war folks thought Iraq had WMD, because the US produced so much evidence, thus if only 1% was true, Iraq must still have it, right?  The US can't be 100% wrong, right?  Now replace Iraq with Xinjiang.  And the same public is still fooled.

The funny thing is that, for as long as they have tried, MSM have produced exactly ZERO visual evidence of any concentration camp or forced cotton picking in Xinjiang (and ZERO any evidence that WIV made COVID-19), while China has actually showed, and foreigners have visited, vocational training schools (aka MSM concentration camps), and plenty of videos, including those by the foreign YouTuber/influencers, of ordinary cotton farms in Xinjiang.  MSM don’t like what they show, so evidence they are not.  But when MSM give you their evidence, either blank or of even lower quality, you are supposed to swallow it unconditionally?  This is MSM hypocrisy at the highest order.  Worse?  This is just the beginning.

How about the assertions (or wishes?) that foreign YouTuber/influencers will turn anti-China once outside China?  Well, if these videos reflect their true experiences and feelings, why would they?  Indeed, a few have left China, and some may not return for the foreseeable future and probably don’t have any further obligatory connection, family or business, to China.  Yet they don’t drop their positions like flies.  BBC/NYT all think these people are in only for the Chinese money, but how about the elephant in the room: in the Western social media like youtube, anti-China is overwhelmingly dominant and much more profitable.  There are a handful foreigners who left China a few years back before all these happenings and are now limited to spewing anti-China nonsense in their houses (again no names), and their youtube views and subscriptions are easily 10 times higher than the best “pro-China” youtubers.  This writing may be viewed once in 2 months, while those videos twice per second.  Anti-China is a much better business, and a stronger case that they are in for the US money.        

Unable to prevail on the merits of the contents and views of the “pro-China” foreigners, BBC/NYT then attacked from a different angle: they are supported by the Chinese government or media!  Evidence?  Well, for one, you have to be pro-China to earn Chinese social media money.  Much has been rebutted above.  Also foreigners readily lose their eyes, ears, and brains once in China just for the puny, no living wage according to the US standard?    

For two, the Chinese government and state-owned media sponsored some of the foreigners' trips in China.  This is a red herring talked up to prove the moral superiority of MSM but instead reveals their utter ignorance and hypocrisy: COI happens for pro-China, but not anti-China, the much bigger business?  Firstly, governments around the world promote businesses and tourism and sponsor trips all the time, the US included.  Secondly, according to the back-and-forth with NYT, in the few sponsored trips, the Chinese government and media provided logistics supports such as transportation, logging, and meals, while the foreigners could do and say whatever they like during the trips and after.  Thirdly, many more take non-sponsored trips, visit various places by themselves, and report the exact same things in Xinjiang and Tibet!   

The last salvo from MSM is that the Chinese state-owned media use some of the foreigners’ materials and interview some of them.  But what is wrong here, and why is this a problem?  According to the foreigners, the Chinese media contacted them and behaved professionally, just like any other news organization would do, included the American ones.  Is there any evidence that the Chinese had a hand in making the videos in the first place?  MSM want to insinuate, but they can't say it because there is simply no evidence.  MSM then hint that these foreigners make the videos to curry favor with the Chinese government/media so that they can get more publicity later to enhance their future earnings in the Chinese social media?  Ample trashing of this question above, but why don’t the MSM apply the same criteria to all the anti-China “witnesses”, “experts” and youtubers?  They surely have the ears of MSM and earn much more money: won’t they tell you what you want to hear so that you will ask him back again and again and he gains more and more exposure?  In fact, isn’t this also what the MSM do all the time: NYT publishes a story about a country the US doesn’t like, and the US officials use the story to push for sanctions/wars against the country?  MSM are so ignorant of even their own hypocrisy. 

The MSM would like you to believe that they are completely independent of the governments, hence, they are the arbiter of truth.  In reality, Western think tanks/academics, the media, the governments, and NGOs e.g. “human rights” groups are well-known to form a closed, symbiosis and positive feedback loop.  The standard, recurring process goes like this: The US government sponsors a lot of think tanks and “experts”, some associated with NGOs, which produce a report the government secretly wants but is first reported by the MSM (nowadays also the main stream social media, MSSM), the US government then uses the MSM reports as independent evidence to prop up public opinions for future actions, with the help of NGOs.  To better explain why they do what they do, throw in a strong dose of arrogance and neo-racism by the elites in this closed loop: people different from us are incapable or unworthy of understanding, producing, or enjoying the same life as we (https://www.yahoo.com/news/racist-penn-law-prof-makes-220129764.html).  Neo-racism because many Blacks, Browns, and Asians harbor the same view as well, although plenty in the West are also opposed to it.  Glenn Greenwald is 100% correct in dissing the MSM, although he is far from the first one to do so and has a ridiculously narrow category of MSM.

In this new era MSM and governments have already actively engaged in social media and are in the process of corrupting it, so there is a real danger that very soon GOOG, FB, youtube, and twitter (MSSM) will morph into the new MSM.  But for now the social media still allow regular people’s voices, which has burst the bubble and control of MSM.  Pre-social media, few “pro-China” (those foreigners are not even really pro-China, only recording what they see in China) stories could ever be published.  If someone talked about China on the MSM in the 1990s, he was 95% likely in the US and anti-China or Chinese government, as if no Chinese in the US, and in the eyes of Westerners no Chinese in China for that matter, would have a different view.  In reality he might represent at most 5% of the Chinese in the US, yet the rest 95% had no voice since the MSM wouldn’t report it, after dismissing them as brainwashed or unworthy.  But these people can now tell their own stories regardless of NYT/CNN/BBC in 2020, 2021, and 2022.  What is more, even foreigners in China are doing and showing the same things as those “brainwashed” Chinese.  That, is what the MSM can’t absolutely warp their mind around and why they are trying their best to discredit.           

 PS: According to official statistics, there are > 700K foreigners living in China (mainland), not including short-term tourists.  But since there are essentially no foreign tourists due to COVID-19. that number is likely the final number in mainland China.  If we include foreigners in HK and Macau, who often shuttle between the mainland and SARs, there are likely over 1 million foreigners, but not millions.