The Left have become China's useful covidiots

It’s fair to say that a reckoning is overdue for the Chinese Government. Serious questions remain over whether the Chinese Communist Party’s cover ups and lies are ultimately responsible for a local virus outbreak in Wuhan spiralling into a pandemic that will kill hundreds of thousands and bring the world economy to its knees.

To add insult to injury the Chinese Government is now trying to salvage its reputation by once again seemingly lying through its teeth about its number of fatalities and using a public relations campaign that involves sending aid and testing kits to countries that need them - despite the fact that, according to some authorities in recipient nations, many are below standard or defective. 

One wonders why they even bother spending money on PR when the Labour Party’s far Left gladly go out of their way to defend the regime for free anyway.

These useful idiots have been around for years - a particularly memorable example being when Dianne Abbott defended Mao by saying on balance “he did more good than harm” even though he killed up to 46 million people. 

Now a new generation of Labour supporters have decided to bat for the Chinese Government. Take Richard Burgon, who called critical British media coverage “a Trump style attempt to divert blame” before lauding the Chinese Government’s efforts, citing the WHO’s praises for China's “ambitious agile and aggressive containment”.

Quite something considering China convinced the WHO in January that there was no evidence of human-to-human transmission only a month after its laboratories were, according to Chinese media, ordered to destroy samples of a highly infectious new mystery virus.

Before the pandemic, the Left was mostly silent over China’s horrific human rights record - including the internment of its Uighur population. Now its culture of secrecy and lies seems to have resulted in a global catastrophe. And robust questioning of Beijing’s conduct is routinely rejected by Left-wing commentators like Owen Jones, who has flippantly dismissed it as “jumping up and down about China”. 

We must continue to bring the Chinese Government to account after this crisis. Any attempt by the Left to excuse a regime that lies to the world and its people deserves our disdain. China will seek to establish its reputation as a global leader after this crisis built on a foundation of  misinformation and cheerleaded by the morally weak and the gullible.

In the end we owe it to the whistle-blowers and the victims of the Chinese state to make sure their officials’ transgressions are countered effectively on the global stage.