#we have a food chain that notoriously ignores disasters

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Thinking about the Waffle House Index. Do y’all think the Waffle Houses in America closed during the eyepocalypse? Like we know it was bad, wrong, and all kinds of awful but did it close the Waffle Houses? Did it fully staff them? I don’t know what would be worse?

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Globalization to Disaster-Time to hold China accountable.

As the internet brought the world closer together, international logistics connected the dots between supply and markets to create an intricate network of global business transactions. A new world order of commerce has taken shape whether we like it or not. 

The abundance of lower cost-of-labor goods and materials, and the freedom to operate in less regulated countries has driven major manufacturing from the west to offshore operations in Asia and other parts of the world. 

China has been the single largest benefactor of this evolution and has done so by implementing aggressive tactics that at first, appear favorable to foreign companies to operate in the country. The caveat to this favorable business environment is the Chinese policy requiring mandatory local ownership, leveraging the company’s proprietary technologies while pushing other countries to open their markets for tax free Chinese goods.   The American public has remained blissfully unaware of the potential vulnerabilities of this new world order as they continue to fill their carts with cheap merchandise from their local major box stores, pharmacies and supermarkets. 

The outbreak and spread of Corona virus (Covid-19) and its impact on the world’s economies has exposed the weaknesses of this new world order. In trying to control the spread of this disease, America now finds itself facing a shortage of pharmaceutical and medical products that are urgently needed during this current heath crisis.  

The United States remains the global leader in drug research and development. However, about 60 percent of factories manufacturing drug ingredients and finished medicines for U.S. patients are located overseas, with China and India accounting for 40 percent. Chinese pharmaceutical companies now supply more than 90 percent of U.S. antibiotics, vitamin C, ibuprofen, hydrocortisone, and other medicines as well as 70 percent of acetaminophen.

For the past two decades, China has well taken advantage of these new opportunities for commerce to become the second largest economy in world.  However, with this success, the Chinese government has ignored or refused to engage in human rights, implement or maintain consumer safety policies or environmental stewardship.  China has often exported tainted food and pharmaceutical products with little to no accountability. 

The China One policy advocated by its President Xi Jinping to bring all of China under a single leader is about world dominance thru consolidation of power and economic dependencies.  The Chinese have used their amassed wealth from trade to push an agenda of territorial expansion and geopolitical influence in developing nations. They are leveraging massive loans to many small, developing nations to secure territorial assets and increase their military footprint. These countries, when they can’t afford to repay these loans become captive to Chinese policies.   

The current Chinese Authoritarian Government, President Xi Jinping can dictate how they spend their national wealth and implement programs with great speed to achieve their objectives. They are in control of 1.2 billion people’s minds with their message.  China is experiencing viral health crisis, but authorities are more focused on managing political damage and controlling the perception of their masses, in order to divert attention away from any potential uprising within the country.  Their most recent propaganda informs the Chinese people that the U.S Military developed and spread the virus in China.  The Chinese Government is nervous and acutely aware that the recent unrest in Hong Kong will resurface once the pandemic begins to wane.

 As of this writing, the Chinese government has refused to allow the CDC into the country and has ignored offers of assistance from the WHO to conduct onsite investigations.  In an article published last week in Xinhua, the state-run media agency, was the claim that China could impose pharmaceutical export controls on America at its discretion.  This threat highlights the actual control China has on the world’s supply chain and what they may be willing to do.  This is the new norm when it comes to China’s economic and military strategies. To suffocate nations with economic and/or geopolitical leverage where their native populations become rebellious to their own governments. China is a master of this craft after many years of well-oiled communist ideology. 

To date, there are over 132,000 confirmed cases and over 5000 deaths worldwide from the Covid-19 virus that originated in Wuhan, China.  As these numbers continue to grow for the foreseeable future, the world’s governments have not yet come out to address liability for this pandemic. The official name of this specific virus is SARS-CoV-2 and the disease it causes is the Coronavirus disease 2019 or COVID-19.  Coronaviruses are a family of viruses that are common within humans and various different species of animals, including camels, cattle, cats, dogs and bats. 

Trillions of dollars and thousands of lives are now being lost in this new world order and China should be held accountable.  This pandemic originated in the local Wuhan street markets where vendors sell raw meat, much of it tainted, from a variety of animals in unsanitary conditions. The practice of selling live animals such as dogs, cats and rats at these markets is prevalent throughout the country. The poor or non-existent sanitary conditions are perfect for incubating many diseases.  The world has witnessed several pandemics originating from China, including, the Hong Kong Flu, Russian Flu and more recently the SARs virus.   China has done very little to address the health and well-being of their own people with no consideration to the worldwide effects that result from their lack of action. 

The Chinese authorities’ focus is on economic growth over consumer safety, comes at a steep cost to the rest of the world.  In America and many other countries, businesses must comply with compulsory safety standards and are held accountable for their actions.  There is a substantial cost to business to maintain compliance and abide by rules and regulations, knowing what the consequences might be if they fail to do so. China has side-stepped many of these requirements without penalty or serious consequences.  The Chinese one-party authoritarian government is notorious for maintaining total control over their industries and people.  But why have they neglected basic food safety standards? 

The Chinese are masters at copying and counterfeiting manufactured products from the United States in an effort compete with America on the world market. They avoid regulations and compliance over dominance and profits. To this end, they do not accept the responsibility to safeguard the food, medicine or product safety for their own people.  This negligence and its resulting effects on the population has now traveled outside of China and the whole world is at risk of economic and social collapse from this outbreak. 

The United States and others must now hold accountable the government of China and the people responsible for this crisis. The world’s response to China should be an economic “shot-across-the-bow” to reconsider its current policies. A warning that you can’t reap the benefits economic development at the cost of humanity.  To do so, invites economic or criminal   retribution to those responsible.  Governments that fail to manage their economic development and social responsibilities should be restricted from participating in the world’s markets as responsible countries do.  There needs to be serious penalties in place to reign in and force retribution to those countries and individuals that do not comply with established health, safety and environmental practices and regulations. 

This should also be a clarion call for consumers who have increasingly relied on cheap “Made in China” goods for the past twenty plus years, at the risk of losing our local industries, skills and know-how.  We are now relying not only on trinkets from China but many of our life-saving medicines. 

The World should react to this pandemic as a crime against humanity. The message sent to China should be that they owe the world compensation for losses incurred from their violations and neglect of basic human rights and principles.  In the interim, the depletion of our national reserves and additional expense resulting from the Corona virus will need to be compensated and this compensation should come from a “Corona tax” levied against all Chinese imported products. While this action will certainly meet with some resistance from consumers for increased prices, it will also force the Chinese to reconsider their current actions in ignoring basic principles in the health and welfare of their own and the world’s citizens.  The immediate and long-term security for the United States can only be assured by rebuilding the country’s manufacturing infrastructure and reducing our dependence of foreign imports

 About the author: Ron Atapattu is the founder and President of the ShipOCI group of companies that include, Overseas Cargo, Inc, a third party logistics service provider specializing in the handling, storage, importation and export of perishable food products, Star Warehouse, one of the largest dry and temperature controlled warehouse facilities in the Southeastern United States and A Star Suppliers, makers and distributors of the elephantea™ line of organic tea products. Ron has over thirty years of experience in international supply chain logistics and has witnessed first-hand the practices of Chinese industries’ and Government that have led to the imbalance in trade and product safety failures that the world is experiencing today.