“The US has also launched biological warfare, cyber warfare and public opinion against China."
Amazing they are still pushing the "COVID-19 originated in a U.S. lab" propaganda. Do they think anyone on Earth outside of China finds this plausible or is it purely for domestic consumption?
The power of official lies comes not from the people who accept the lie wholeheartedly, but from the people who knowingly suppress their instincts and perception in service of public harmony. Here, it doesn't matter how preposterous the proposition is, so long as everyone knows the authorized explanation and the consequences for claiming anything else.
> Do they think anyone on Earth outside of China finds this plausible or is it purely for domestic consumption?
FWIW, I made an effort to get outside my bubble recently and talked to a right-leaning acquaintance, who as it turns out happened to be somewhat conspiracy-minded (which from what I gather isn't uncommon these days).
They were into this theory. So the answer to (the first part of your question) is, surprisingly, yes. This conspiracy theory apparently has some traction in (at least some subset) of the US, although probably not the subset that visits HN regularly.
For an explanation of why he believes this, he pointed me to a series of articles by a guy named Ron Unz. I won't link to his site here since it is a far-right site that contains a variety of objectionable (anti-Semitic etc) content, although at a glance mainly from other authors.
Skimming it, it was actually more highbrow than I was expecting, drawing on books on US bioweapons programs during the Korean War (real programs, at least according to Wikipedia), and how, at the time, such secret programs weren't reported by the media and how easily the public dismissed their existence as simply foreign propaganda.
Which is a fair enough point, I guess. I'm not saying I buy it (I'm doubtful I even have the motivation to go through a book-length series on the topic and do enough fact checking to measure how credible it is). But adding this historical context, it made people paranoid enough to consider such things seem a little less totally crazy than my initial impression of the matter before talking to them.
Very much the latter. Another comparable example is the accidental US bombing of the Chinese embassy in Belgrade[0] - almost no one in the US (or much of the rest of the world) even remembers this incident, but to this day China still treats it as an example of US imperialism/hostility.
I can believe the bombing of the Chinese embassy was intentional. The story I have read:
Approximately 1 month prior an F-117 stealth was shot down and the USAF did not attempt to further destroy the wreckage, considering that the technology would not be of any great advantage to Russia, However, when it became clear through intelligence, that sensitive bits of the wreckage had been sold to China, for whom it would be a great advantage there was a bit of flustered panic which resulted in the bombing of the Chinese embassy and the subsequent claim it was a mistake.
To be fair, if China spent several weeks bombing a country that the US did not want it to bomb and, as part of that bombing, China bombed the US embassy there and then said that it had been an accident, I think that this incident would be well remembered in the US 20 years later and many people in the US would doubt whether it had really been an accident.
My (young, bald, very white) professor in college was in China when that happened. He got a call while in his hotel room from a friend telling him to stay inside, so naturally he ran outside to see what was going on. As soon as he got out the door and found out from a very large crowd of very angry people, he said he threw his hands up in the air and yelled "I'm Canadian!" and promptly returned to his room as quickly as he could.
I always get a bit of a sad chuckle that we Americans tend to default to that whenever confronted abroad.
I had a similar experience in Salzburg in the first few days after the first Iraq War started.
Lots an anti-American banners, a few even hung on churches. Couldn't get a table at a restaurant anywhere, tipped off by my accent, I expect. Lots of ugly talk from the tour guide before he finally decided he didn't want to take money from Americans anymore and kicked me and my wife out of the tour group.
Took my wife and my money back to Vienna, flew out, and never went to Austria again.
Amazing they are still pushing the "COVID-19 originated in a U.S. lab" propaganda. Do they think anyone on Earth outside of China finds this plausible or is it purely for domestic consumption?