A suggestion that China should pay “reparations” for the Covid-19 crisis made by a British former banker responsible a major financial collapse in the UK agitated people who accused him of a “staggering” lack of self-awareness.
Matt Ridley, who was chairman of the collapsed Northern Rock bank between 2004 and 2007, tweeted on Monday that he was “not a fan of reparations for the sins of past generations.” Nonetheless, he proposed that there might be “a case for demanding some sort of reparations from the Chinese government” due to the “terrible human suffering” the pandemic will inevitably cause.
Needless to say, Ridley, who described his own tenure as head of the failed bank as a “catastrophic black mark” on his CV, was raked over the Twitter coals for the “spectacular”irony of the idea.
When Northern Rock crashed, what consequences did you suffer?
It wasn’t just Ridley’s dodgy record as a banker that prompted accusations of hypocrisy, however. There were also plenty of proposals for the British government to pay its own reparations for centuries of imperialism, with particular focus on the Opium Wars in China.
“Have you ever read a history book? Because China will respond by asking Britain for reparations for waging war to open its Chinese markets to opium dealers in the 19th century,” one person wrote.
“The British Empire ravished China, flooded the place with opium as a weapon of war and colonized Hong Kong until 1997,” another said.
The lack of self-awareness here is incredible. Britain crippled the Chinese economy for decades during the Opium Wars. Gladstone described them as a “permanent disgrace”, and wrote: “I am in dread of the judgement of God upon England for our national iniquity towards China.”
“If it comes to reparations, many countries are due a massive pay out for Britain’s past sins. Where do we submit our claims?” one user wanted to know.
A million Irish people died in the famine because the British who owned the land sold all the good and viable crops and left the Irish with failed potatoes, then turned away aid from around the world because it would upset the markets. Where was Ireland's reparations??
Back in the present day, another person suggested that it might be Britain that eventually needs to pay reparations for “endangering” Europe with its sluggish response to the spread of the Covid-19 pandemic.
