Great take on the vaccine and Taiwan as well.
Great read:
Only rarely would the two dominant economic powers, namely Germany and France, of the European Union do the Chinese or anyone a favor, however unintentional, and the beneficiaries should savor it since the next one maybe a longtime coming.
For politics sake, these Euros north of the Pyrenees want to deny recognition to the Chinese and Russian vaccines -- Sinovac, Sinopharm and Sputnik V -- in part to protect their own brands -- Pfizer BioNtech, AstraZeneca, Moderna, Johnson&Johnson, this last under the name Janssen.
The rebuff of the Chinese, Russian and farther afield Cuban too is a medically unjustified snub since these excluded types using more conventional methods of inoculation have been proven as efficacious with fewer nasty side effects.
What this stance means, unless revised, could be a barrier to high spending Chinese tourists in Europe, those who plunged 750 billion pound sterling into their travels a year before the Fort Detrick pestilence in part to buy overpriced brand trinkets whose appeal was more snobbery than esthetics. Bad news then for Louis Vitton, Cartier, Channel, Mont Blanc, Longchamp, Gucci, Löwe, Versace, Valentino, Prada which in any case were falling out of fashion when I last checked in an amateur sociological survey conducted in Paris, Milan, Barcelona, Berlin and London where I sojourned customarily prior to Fort Detrick infected springs, noticing the scarcity of Chinese forming queues outside those boutiques strangely quiet.
Henceforth then the deep pocketed mainlanders could stay home side to explore their own vast country, Russia, Central Asia and Latin America rather than to bore themselves numbed going to the umpteenth cathedral, gallery, ancient university and museum, the contents of which could be seen free of charge on 4K YouTube, narration provided via high fidelity with accompanying musical scores.
The Euros not welcoming the Chinese could be a relief for everyone and all the more since a Shenzhen theme park has replicated all the main monuments -- ersatz yes but that is just detail. As for me, I will follow my own advice to find my beloved Portugal in Macau, Spain in Cuba, Germany in Qingdao, France in Québec, Italy in New York and would not miss a beat.
