An utterly naive article. Retaliation is completely the wrong word. Nor is it a question of us cooperating with China. We wanted to, but it chose to withhold crucial data about the virus and to obfuscate the truth, aided and abetted by the WHO. https://twitter.com/warontherocks/status/1249646079202779136

As far as China is concerned, we’re not in this together. The priority for the regime is to ensure that the Chinese economy comes out of this stronger than Western economies. They want us to be wholly dependent on them for as many goods and services as possible.

This crisis has revealed our total lack of preparedness for a pandemic and the stupidity of outsourcing almost everything to an unreliable partner, someone who it now appears cannot be trusted, and who wants total economic supremacy at almost any cost.

It will be an inevitable outcome of the outbreak that we repatriate certain industries and become more independent and self-sufficient. This is about self-preservation not revenge. China will need to respect this and work on becoming a more benign member of the world community.

If China goes on the offensive and tries to restrict access to the resources we need, it will lead to confrontation and potentially conflict. Like any totalitarian state, it has reached an inevitable crossroads. Confrontation risks its future survival much more than cooperation.

We will not actively retaliate against China. But we will act in our own best interests. If that has a knock-on effect on China, it will only have itself to blame. Perhaps next time something like this happens it will have learned to behave like an equal partner.

For sure, if the virus had been restricted to China and Xi had asked the rest of the world for help, we would have queued to provide it. This is what a global community does.