Passengers wear protective face masks as they arrive from Shenzhen to Hong Kong at Lo Wu MTR station, hours before the closing of the Lo Wu border crossing in Hong Kong, on February 3, 2020, amid an outbreak of a deadly SARS-like virus which began in the Chinese city of Wuhan. / AFP / Anthony WALLACE
I’m not a moody person but I have stumbled from the wrong side of the bed.
The vertigo caused by concussion after a nasty fall adds to the misanthropy – another alien disfiguring my otherwise loving nature.
It’s the nightmare from which I’ve just awakened. Bats. Not in my belfry, although my Heidi has her own uncharitable theory.
No, these mammals are hanging upside down in a butcher shop in Wuhan City, China. A customer enters, selecting two of the biggest.
I trace him to his home where he beheads the bat, chops the rest into slithers and places them into a pot of boiling water.
The blood floating to the top is scooped up and sampled to check for taste. The last I remember is the man comes out in a sweat, collapsing next to the stove. Dead.
Other than its grotesqueness, it’s the rude reminder of the news (fake, some still believe) that it’s the ingestion of bat soup in a Chinese home leaving the world with a virus still killing millions and in its wake, crippling economies.
It could very well be called the “New Normal World War” – one without the need for military intervention. Only an airborne bug spewing poison required.
Given Chinese President Xi’s clear intention of unseating western powers for the number one spot, it’s conceivable that bringing the world to its knees would go a long way in realising his dream.
The Chinese manufacturing capability alone poses an ever-present threat, its tentacles already ensnaring vulnerable, unsuspecting or naive developing countries. Or those with junk status. Oops!
Let’s not forget it was China that kept the first corona case a secret for enough time for the virus to effortlessly takeoff and do the dirty.
And it was China that was quick to manufacture personal protective equipment (PPE), flooding world markets.
How convenient. How subtle. In fact, a touch of genius.
In one stroke it has not only unleashed an invisible killer, but has the world on its knees begging for its PPE.
An august body called the Centre for Economics and Business Research predicts China will overtake the world’s biggest economy in 2028.
Is my nightmare a portent of what’s in store? Or an octogenarian bat stuck in my vertiginous belfry?
Cliff Buchler.
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