Continued pain may be harder to forget.

"More than 4.4 million laid-off workers applied for US unemployment benefits last week", which means that "Roughly 26 million have now filed for jobless aid in the five weeks since the coronavirus outbreak began forcing millions of employers to close their doors." "The enormous magnitude of job cuts has plunged the US economy into the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression of the 1930s. Some economists say the nations output could shrink by twice the amount that it did during the Great Recession which ended in 2009." China, where the pandemic originated, has embarked on a mission to become the biggest economy in the world and is using the outbreak to extend its influence, wrote Richard Pendelbury. "You have to strip the emotion away from it," said Prof Kerry Brown. "If in a few months' time Europe's growth is poor, America is struggling but China is OK, who do we turn to get good returns and find economic possibilities?" China wins. "In perhaps a sign of how China's leaders are determined not to let this moment pass them by, or to be cast as global villain, the response to any such criticism has been forceful and often angry." While western politicians and media get tied up in political correctness, contorting themselves not to appear racist, the Chinese have no such polish. The Chinese embassy in Paris wrote, "The residents of retirement homes were made to sign certificates of 'waiver of emergency care'; the nursing staff of the Ehpad abandoned their posts overnight, deserted completely, leaving their residents to die of hunger and disease." To that the French response was that it does "not conform to the quality of bilateral relationship". "You [Xi], your government and your scientists had to know long ago that coronavirus is highly infectious, but you left the world in the dark about it," wrote editor-in-chief of Bild Julian Reichelt. "You rule by surveillance. You wouldn't be president without surveillance. You monitor everything, every citizen, but you refuse to monitor the diseased wet markets in your country." To which the Chinese accused Reichelt of "nationalism, prejudice, and hostility against China". Why do the Chinese always respond by snarling? Because they do not want the world to discover that beneath their suits and ties they are uncivilized barbarians and because they know that other countries will give in to their uncultured intimidation. Reichelt or Tim Blair in Australia may be sticking two fingers to China, but will their governments collaborate to dissociate from China once this is over? It may happen if their economies really suffer.