But isn't the wet market hypothesis equally bad looking for China?
To me it is a difference, if a naturally mutated virus caused a global epidemic, than a lab made one.
Given the choice between blaming "the system" and all the ideologically unimaginable questions that would come with that and blaming some elderly Chinese guy who didn't cook his bat soup well enough, well that's not really a choice.
Imagine trying to tell some mid tier guy in the Taliban about the pros of educated women. It's just gonna bounce right off. That it could ever be worth it is just incomprehensibly foreign to him.
The lab leak theory bounced right off of a lot of people here for all the same reasons.
> blaming some elderly Chinese guy who didn't cook his bat soup well enough
that's also a bit racist. they just eat raccoon dogs, which we don't. and they bring live animals into the market, that people browse, which is the bigger problem.
and ask devoutly religious people what they think of americans eating pork and beef...
Furthermore, within China, alternative conspiracy theories claiming that the virus came from the US were allowed to circulate. A significant number of people in China actually believe that theory.