Originally Posted by
barabek
This is genious, absolutely brilliant. China is going to pay us trillions because they realize we are the victims. "Oh, poor Americans, they suffered so much. Nobody suffered so much. Especially the pilots. Their careers were interrupted, 401ks decimated. Nobody suffered as much as American pilots. They need help and reimbursement from China."
Dude, wake up! It's everywhere, not only in this country. USA has been one of the last countries in the norther hemisphere that got infected. Every country and industry is suffering, most of them more then you and I. We are the lucky ones and it is our game to lose. Wake up and look around, turn off Fox or whatever you're watching. The world is falling apart in front of your eyes, but you're trying to get China pay for the CARES act. Idiotic would be an understatement...
It's not that far fetched...
You don't actually need to get china to AGREE to pay...
They have gazillions in assets on US soil, much of which is not liquid and not portable.
So all you need to do is get a US court to hear the case, and a US jury to rule in your favor and then you can help yourselves to whatever PRC assets are available in our jurisdiction. Without running afoul of international conventions. You might even be able to go after assets in other countries which have legal alignment with the US.
There's precedent, the most obvious examples are the family of terrorism victims going after the assets of rogue regimes in the US and the western world.
If it's not ALPA, I'd just about guarantee *somebody* is going to go after offshore PRC assets... probably a lot of somebodies.
Downside for ALPA is that it could stir up a hornets nest, PRC could do something like ban ALPA members from flying into their country.
Although I suspect it's more likely that the USG will get PRC to agree to some sort of reparations paid to the US government for further distribution to US persons who were harmed. A deal like that would have to include legislation banning lawsuits against PRC over the issue.
This all assumes that PRC really screwed the pooch on containing this and communicating with other nations... it's starting to look that way, and that last part is really going to bite them.