China’s String of “Bad Luck”

In recent weeks, the only positive news China seems to have had is that their trade deal with the US was finally completed and tariffs are beginning to be lifted. However, the other things they’ve faced in the midst of that one good thing is a whole bunch of other bad things that will hamper their economy in the short term. The coronavirus is the cause of the bad situations they now face.

Flights between China and other nations have been temporarily banned, the Chinese government has canceled many public events across the vast nation, nearly 20 cities and villages have been quarantined, companies foreign to China (like Apple) have suspended their business dealings there, and the death toll has surpassed 300 with thousands more infected. As if that isn’t enough bad news, the H5N1 bird flu is back and spreading in China, which makes this the third disease they’ve faced in recent months that is giving them major challenges, after they dealt with the spread of the swine flu and are grappling with the current coronavirus crisis.

As the scientists investigate the origins of the coronavirus to come up with a cure, some curious data has arisen. Researchers are finding that the disease may be a genetic alteration from a laboratory. It has an HIV strain in it that cannot naturally occur in the family of diseases it belongs to, raising concerns that it could be a manmade bioweapon that was released (accidentally or purposely) into the wild.

Could all of these challenges harming the government, economy, and common people of China be just a string of bad luck or is something else at play? Given China’s horrendous human rights record of forcibly murdering unborn babies, persecuting Christians and other religious sects, forced human organ donations, the unnecessary clamp-down on Hong Kong, and other atrocities, it’s not unusual to consider that, perhaps, it’s possible the three recent outbreaks of three different diseases could be divine judgment.

Many people are dismissive of the idea that God would even care to be involved in the affairs of men. Diseases, in their thinking, can only have scientific causes and ramifications–nothing more, nothing less. I beg to differ. I think it poetically and spiritually befitting that an oppressive government that has increased bans on Christian assemblies is having it’s god of economics and government-controlled routines banned to some extent by pestilences. If that’s the case, the question then becomes will the unbelievers in China double down on their sins or will there be more repentance that leads to salvation in Jesus Christ? I hope and pray the latter becomes reality.

7 At what instant I shall speak concerning a nation, and concerning a kingdom, to pluck up, and to pull down, and to destroy it;

8 If that nation, against whom I have pronounced, turn from their evil, I will repent of the evil that I thought to do unto them. Jeremiah 18

^{(Featured image of Forbidden City by calflier001 from Wikimedia Commons used under CC2.0 license.)}