Analysis: The debt issue has become the subject of intergovernmental decisions

When we finish filming, Shadou pops up a party for us long-distance guests. We are Yunnan in southern China to record a report on Xi Jinping's poverty reduction plan. It does not matter that it is the family's only hen slaughtered for the meal. When guests arrive, you should bid on what the house is capable of. This has always been the case and in China traditions are important. But we are many who share the food and the casserole is wiped out with a couple of bamboo rats cut in front of our eyes. We sometimes avoid cutting the food, but we try to eat what is offered when we travel in Asia.

In all cultures, people have learned to take advantage of the nutritional sources offered. In Fattigsverige no edible parts of animals were wasted; but today, such as pig feet and moose mule are almost curios.

The stereotypical image of the West in the Chinese is that they eat everything that moves. So, hunger and poverty are not the remembrances here either, but a misery that has not yet been fully resolved. Add to that the fact that Chinese cuisine not only attracts with flavors and smells; A sense of exciting consistency means that for us strange species of animals such as snakes and scorpions can appear in the delicacy recipes as well as for us questionable body parts such as gum seals and testicles.

Both domestic animals and game are sold in markets in China, live or freshly slaughtered. The ongoing corona pandemic is believed to be linked to such a so-called wet market in Wuhan City, Hubei Province.

The strongest hypothesis, presented by Chinese researchers in February, is that the virus came from bats with anthers as an intermediary. The myrtle is formally protected and imports are prohibited, but it is appreciated above all in folk medicine and has therefore been sold continuously in some markets. Although it was not possible to prove that it is the market in Wuhan that is behind, the Chinese leadership already introduced on February 24 a series of new laws to regulate or prohibit the management of wildlife in markets.

As the outside world has criticized China for delayed and fraudulent management of the infection, for which it was warned locally as early as December, debt issues have become the subject of intergovernmental action. US President Trump insists on saying "the Chinese virus" while a spokesman for China's foreign ministry contradicted a theory that the infection may have come from Americans who participated in a military sports contest in Wuhan in October last year. The rumor spread on Weibo, China's equivalent of Twitter, and in just a few days, the post had been viewed more than 160 million times.

In both the UK and the Netherlands, exchanges of views with Chinese and US diplomats on the debt theme have arisen. The conflict over the origin of the infection went so far that the two superpowers had difficulty agreeing on a joint statement at the G20 meeting in March.

When China's food markets now begin to reopen after the corona virus has been defeated, the outside world is amazed. For example, the British Daily Mail has published data from Guilin in southwestern China that trade in wild and domestic animals continues as before. However, this reporting focuses more on scandal headings than reliable data. In the western world, we are conditioned to swallow hard before the idea of ​​snake soup, we are upset by local traditions of eating dogs and cats, and we have abandoned the dependence of folk medicine on animal cooks for the Western scientific medical arts. Fully reasonable discussion topics, but more linked to taste, animal welfare and science view than to virus spread.

A more balanced assessment of China's food markets must weigh in that they are still the only food supply for many Chinese and that the spread of microbes from these markets is relatively low, according to WHO. Stopping trading with a set of exotic and proven infectious animals seems necessary - for everyone's sake, but it is important not to judge the food markets as a general health problem. No matter whose fault the spread of infection really is.