Chinese medics arrive in England to help fight the virus.

Yes wet markets exist throughout the world. They sell fresh produce of all sorts including live animals for slaughter for consumption but not usually wild animals.

It seems that there is some confusion between wet markets and wildlife markets.

The trade in wildlife is the issue not the wet markets.

China introduced control of this trade after the SARS epidemic, but has moved swiftly to make it totally illegal. However cultural practices will be hard to break.

Wildlife markets exist throughout the world.

Whitewavemark2 bringing up climate change?

Are you aware that when China went into lockdown the lack of pollution the country normally emits regardless of any climate change worries was visible from space.

As I said previously no Country/State is ideal unfortunately the Chinese State is less ideal than the majority regarding human rights, animal rights and pollution/climate control.

Lots of strange comparisons going on here

Animal cruelty is abhorrent and does indeed happen everywhere

But these wet markets, not only in China, have been causing problems for years

This from 2006

www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16940861

gg13 are you aware of the regulations controlling such markets in China?

Are you aware that until science has done its work, nothing should be taken for granted?

Are you aware that accusing groups of unsubstantiated claims leads to xenophobia and even worse?

Are you aware that the next world wide disaster apart from climate change is almost certainly going to be related to the overuse of antibiotics?

Are you aware that China will be affected by this even though it’s use of antibiotics is far less than ours?

The Netherlands and Spain have returned thousands and thousands of items of PPE back to China in the last days due to multiple faults.

All Countries have faults, but the facts are there for all to see that the pandemic situation the world is in totally lies with the Chinese Government and the (non)regulated wet markets.

I abhor all forms of Animal cruelty, I have signed numerous petitions regarding the Muslim re-education centres in China and various other petitions on Human Rights issues regarding china.

Gagajo I am neither xenophobic or hysterical which seems to be your response to any poster with negativity towards China.

txquilt I assume that you are not saying the Chinese are uneducated?

Cruelty to animals is evidenced on many grand house walls in the U.K. and the chance to kill big game for nothing other than sport is still done by many wealthy folk. I believe Trump’s relatives.

Every year millions of game birds are breed simply to be shot out of the sky for sport. Red deer suffer the same fate.

So you simply can’t get away with trying to other another section of the human race. We are all in this together, we are all culpable.

See jabberwock? It isn’t that simple.

Seal culling is another example.

Killing elephants for their tusks

All in all the human race is a pariah species that I am rather ashamed of at times. You just can’t pick on one part of our race and say it is their fault. We are all including yourself playing fast and loose with the world.

Message deleted by Gransnet. Here's a link to our Talk Guidelines.

whitewave
Can you add laboratory animals
Chickens kept in horrific conditions
Dog fighting
Cock fighting
Badger killing
jabberwok look to your own countries bad practices before pointing the finger

Or eating live oysters.

And boiling live crabs and lobsters.

Did I miss the hysteria a few months ago when people were supportive of increasing trade with China?

PS. Whitewave Add hare coursing, which is quite a popular weekend activity in these parts, to that list.

Jabberwok, you surely must realise that the proportion of Chinese that have eaten dog (NEVER heard even an urban myth of cat, other than in the UK about Chinese takeaways) is probably 0.0001% of the Chinese population? You are writing hysterically. I genuinely feel for you if you're letting it get to you this much.

In the time I lived there, I met ONE person that had eaten dog. It was during the Great Leap Forward when 50 million Chinese starved to death and they would eat anything to stay alive. Poor Chinese aspire to eat McDonalds and Kentucky Fried Chicken. Wealthy Chinese are into haute cuisine. Not boiled dog.

The Chinese government is a hand in a velvet glove as far as the population there is concerned. Xi Jinping is very popular there right now because he has seen his people through a terrible trial.

Message deleted by Gransnet. Here's a link to our Talk Guidelines.

There are a lot of things relating to animals that I find distasteful.

Badger culling
Fox hunting
Bear baiting
Bull baiting
Massive level of migrating birds being killed
Whale hunting
Killing game birds for sport
Pig production

I’m sure everyone can add to the list. It is all cultural and stopping any of them is resisted strongly by those who take part.

Wet markets are a cheap source of fruit and veg, sold by the farmers that grow it.

No one will deny that culture may have played an important part in this virus, although it has yet to be evidenced.

I have argued that I would very much hope that every country in the world would support a WHO standard of meat markets and animal husbandry. However I think it will be a very difficult thing to get countries like China or USA to agree.

Whilst it might be possible to agree hygiene standards etc, the things that we in the West find most distasteful will not be changed by these rules. They are cultural rather than scientifically based.

Excuses? Or giving a less xenophobic and racist account?

The attitude of some posters on here is why the other thread was deleted.

BlueBelle I'm confused - I posted the tweet from Andrew Neil stating that the MSM won't be reporting this as a great Chinese mercy dash until they get answers to the questions he posed in the tweet. What is it that you can't see?

Tesco haven't been a solo brand in china since 2013. It merged with China Resources Enterprise. I think it has a 20% stake in the Chinese company.

Here here Jabberwok good post. It seems to me some posters are making excuses for China.

Message deleted by Gransnet. Here's a link to our Talk Guidelines.

Info about medical team here www.xinhuanet.com/english/2020-03/29/c_138926668.htm

Message deleted by Gransnet. Here's a link to our Talk Guidelines.

www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3271506/Tesco-ends-turtle-trade-Chain-s-Chinese-stores-stop-selling-reptiles-delicacy-complaints-campaigners.html