China threatens to interfere with 2020 elections if GOP senators don't drop efforts to hold China accountable for Coronavirus.

China has threatened to interfere with 2020 elections if GOP Senators don't drop efforts to hold China accountable for the Coronavirus outbreak. Global Times. China is targeting at least four members of Congress, including Josh Hawley and Tom Cotton, and will put them on a sanctions list. The Senators are preparing a bill to allow American citizens to sue the Chinese government over damages inflicted by the Coronavirus outbreak. Missouri's Attorney General, Eric Schmitt and Mississippi's Attorney General Lynn Fitch, are both suing the Chinese government as well and have been targeted by China.  China says that states like Mississippi and Missouri could be targeted with tariffs on their exports and may use Chinese owned companies to pressure lawmakers there.

My Comment:

A quick note on the source. The Global Times is a state funded entity and as such you can know that this article is pretty much the official position of the Chinese government. I usually don't link to government outlets like this due to obvious bias, but in this case I will do so as the information inside of it is critical and is generally not available anywhere else. You would think that China threatening to interfere with out elections would be a bigger story but apparently the US media doesn't care. 

And it's clear that the Chinese government is trying to interfere with our elections. They want the GOP members that are interested in punishing China out of office and don't mind threatening the economy of the various states they are in if it means getting what they want. They will likely trash the economy of those states at the very least. 

I also won't be surprised if China doesn't pull out all of the stops against the United States and any politician, Republican or Democrat is under threat. My guess is that China will fund the opponents of these candidates through illegal means and will use their allies in the media to bash any candidate that is critical of them. 

I do think that China is largely responsible for the Coronavirus outbreak. I do think it is more likely than not that the virus escaped from one of their labs and even if it wasn't from a lab it's clear that China was lying about the severity and spread of the disease. Had China been more competent and told the truth thousands of Americans would still be alive right now. It's possible that the virus would have made it out of China if they told the truth and stopped travel right away but we would have had months more time to prepare a defense and we likely would have been able to use the track and trace method to stop the virus in their tracks. 

However, I don't know if China will be held accountable. President Trump is fairly tough on China but even he can only do so much. Opening up the country to lawsuits is mostly a meaningless measure as there is no way to enforce anything. It's a symbolic gesture at best and though I appreciate it I doubt China will actually pay for what they have done.