Thread by @benedictrogers

THREAD:

Most governments have made mistakes in handling #COVID19

A few - especially #Taiwan - have been exemplary. We should learn from them

But there's one which more than any other is responsible for unleashing this pandemic upon us all: the Chinese Communist Party regime

First, they tried to cover up the truth

They repressed the whistleblowers - the doctors and citizen journalists who were trying to alert the world

Then, they failed to inform the WHO & the world in a timely way

Then, they refused offers of help from the United States

Then, they insisted #Taiwan - which was one of first to warn of danger & has handled the pandemic in exemplary way - be excluded from the WHO for petty political reasons

And their man - @DrTedros - went along with it

We should have been learning from Taiwan, not excluding them

And as US National Security Adviser Robert O'Brien puts it in Bob Woodward's new book "Rage", the Chinese regime shut down Wuhan, stopped domestic flights, but never stopped international flights

"You couldn't go from Wuhan to Beijing, but you could go from Wuhan to London"

O'Brien is right when he says:

"They closed down travel all through China so that this disease couldn't get to Shanghai or Beijing ... But at the same time they're letting other folks travel from Wuhan to all over Europe .... [They] repurposed [#COVID19] into a bioweapon."

O'Brien is right to say that the Chinese Communist Party regime is "using" #COVID19 "to gain geopolitical advantage over the ...free world .... With what they call their wolf warrior diplomacy ... they're bullying countries"

O'Brien is right that the Chinese Communist Party regime "as an authoritarian government, with all their surveillance state & their concentration camps" is trying to persuade the world that their repressive model is "a better alternative for the world ... than liberal democracy"

"It was difficult to understand how China had aggressive travel restrictions within China, & yet did not move to any travel restrictions" for overseas travel, says O'Brien.

"If there could have been one major, global action that could've really saved hundreds of thousands of lives, it's if they had just shut down their out-of-China travel at the same time they shut down their intra-China travel," says O'Brien.

And on virus & genetic sequencing: "They covered it up. One lab published it, then it was immediately taken down and the lab was threatened," says O'Brien

He's right

One day the Chinese regime (NOT the people of China, but the cruel, mendacious regime) must be held accountable

Burma/Myanmar's courageous Cardinal Charles Bo, President of the Federation of Asian Bishops Conferences, was right when he wrote this in April

ucanews.com/news/the-chine…