"If this epidemic had occurred during the 1950s and 1960s, would it have put the United States and Europe in such embarrassment?" This question, a Chinese general asks it because he knows the answer: no, Europe and the United States would not speak of it - or hardly. And yet, it is indeed a so-called Hong Kong flu which developed, in 1968 and 1969, in Asia, Europe and the United States - through the Vietnam War. It caused hundreds of thousands of victims, including 30,000 in France. They were forgotten deaths. The United States represented the world's largest manufacturing industry - which had established itself during the First and especially the Second World War. Since then, the world has changed.
Half a century later, if America keeps its advanced technologies, it has lost (part of) its formidable production capacity. The Chinese general, already quoted, Qiao Liang, who left the air force to give courses at the university, and has just talked
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