As the world struggles with an Epidemic not seen in 100 years, China’s control of the New coronavirus outbreak is unique in every region of the world. China is the only country in the world that has banned its citizens from returning to their Home countries and banned people in infected areas from seeking treatment in order to prevent the epidemic. Critics say that China’s epidemic prevention measures have caused great suffering for many Chinese people, and that China has thus presented the world with a China that is out of step with human civilization under the Xi Jinping-led Chinese Communist Party.
Is the Chinese Communist Party-led epidemic prevention and fighting commendable?
The novel coronavirus outbreak (also known as the Wuhan pneumonia outbreak) that began in Wuhan, China around December 2019 became a public health catastrophe unseen in a century with a tight information blackout and misleading propaganda by the Xi Jinping-led Chinese Communist Party authorities in Wuhan and subsequently spread worldwide.
The Johns Hopkins University Global Epidemic Update report says that as of 8:30 p.m. EST on January 30, 2021, nearly 2.2 million people had died from the epidemic worldwide and more than 152 million people had contracted the virus.
To some observers and critics in China and abroad, the role played by the Chinese Communist authorities in this global epidemic of 100 years’ duration is surprising and frightening.
In the view of these observers and critics, from the very beginning of the epidemic, when it was most likely to be contained locally and thus nipped in the bud, the Chinese Communist authorities concealed the epidemic and spread misleading information that led to the outbreak, which led to a worldwide catastrophe with no end in sight, to the post-epidemic closure of the city, which was unprecedented in human history, to the recent resurgence of the epidemic. The Communist authorities’ treatment of Chinese lives and dignity has not only shocked the civilized world, but has also left the Chinese public suffering.
However, the Chinese Communist authorities, their controlled media, the Internet water army and those who listen to their propaganda say that despite all the shortcomings of the Communist authorities’ measures to prevent and combat the epidemic, no one can deny the world-renowned success of China’s fight against the epidemic under the leadership of the Communist Party, and no one can deny that this great success has brought back the vitality of China, the world’s second largest economy, which has brought benefits not only to the Chinese people but also to the world economy. No one can deny that this tremendous success has brought back the vitality of China, the world’s second largest economy, not only to the Chinese people but also to the world economy, and therefore the Communist authorities should be praised for successfully controlling the epidemic.
But in the view of Li Weidong, president of China Strategic Analysis, the Communist authorities are not to be commended for their leadership in preventing and combating the epidemic; their initial cover-up and misleading propaganda led to the outbreak in China that plagued the world, and their initial sweeping measures to prevent the epidemic were inhumane, including not allowing people in the infected areas to seek medical treatment, including the recent heavy sentence of Zhang Zhan, a citizen journalist who reported on the situation in the infected areas, and the blocking of people who were infected or suspected of being infected in order to prevent the epidemic. These included blocking the doors and windows of homes of those infected or suspected of being infected, and even sealing sick children in their rooms and starving them to death.
Li Weidong said that, leaving aside these amazing so-called anti-epidemic practices, there is nothing to praise about the Communist Party-led epidemic prevention, just in terms of its so-called effectiveness, results and efficiency. He said, “There is nothing to praise about this. It’s not effective in that it’s so brutal that no one is allowed in and no one is allowed out. It’s not effective in this place. The effectiveness lies in the same approach as Taiwan and New Zealand.”
What Li Weidong refers to here about Taiwan’s and New Zealand’s effective epidemic prevention and countermeasures is that these two democracies have achieved worldwide recognition of the success of their epidemic prevention and countermeasures. As the world struggles to cope with the epidemic, all countries acknowledge the enviable success of these two democracies through effective government responses based on expert advice and the active cooperation of the entire population.
However, some observers and critics in China and abroad have pointed out that the Chinese Communist authorities are clearly uncomfortable with the successes of Taiwan and New Zealand in combating the epidemic for a variety of reasons. They point out that the Chinese authorities have manipulated the World Health Organization (WHO) to suppress Taiwan’s participation in WHO activities at a Time when the world urgently needs to refer to and replicate Taiwan’s successes. At a time when the success of New Zealand’s epidemic prevention is admired and envied around the world, the Chinese Communist authorities are touting the discovery of a new coronavirus in frozen beef imported from New Zealand.
As of now, the consensus among experts from other countries around the world is that there is no scientific evidence to support the claim that frozen foods can carry and transmit the New Coronavirus.
At the same time, some observers of China issues have pointed out that the Chinese Communist authorities are very political when it comes to the epidemic. In order to be political, the Xi Jinping-led Chinese Communist Party authorities can ignore the opinions of experts around the world and blatantly promote the idea that imported frozen Food carries and spreads the epidemic virus, and can ignore the opinions of experts around the world and blatantly import pork from Russia, where the African swine fever epidemic has occurred, thus introducing African swine fever and bringing devastation to the pig industry in China, the world’s number one pig producer and pork consumer.
A unique epidemic prevention measure
In response to the deadly 100-year epidemic, countries around the world have introduced a variety of epidemic prevention measures. Among the variously stringent epidemic prevention measures and home orders introduced around the world, there is a written or unwritten rule that people who need to seek medical treatment outside the home are excluded from the home order.
However, China is unique among countries around the world in that its authorities have imposed blanket city closures, with written or unwritten rules that make it virtually impossible for people in infected areas to seek medical treatment outside the country, even if they are in critical condition. In addition, the Chinese government is the only country in the world that openly blocks citizens in foreign countries from returning to China to avoid importing cases.
For this reason, the Communist authorities have added to their previous policy of severely restricting the return of overseas citizens to China (i.e., only one airline from China to any one country, and no more than one flight per week per airline; and only one airline from a foreign country to China, and no more than one flight per week per airline) by introducing a five-one policy whereby embassies and consulates abroad hold the authority to determine The practice of having the embassies and consulates abroad hold the Health Code for determining the eligibility of citizens to return to China means that Chinese citizens cannot return to China without special permission from the Chinese embassies and consulates abroad, even if they have no means of living abroad, or even if they are sick in a foreign country and have no health insurance that would cause them to lose all their money.
Earlier, the Family of an elderly Chinese citizen reported on Chinese social media, Douban, that the elderly man had traveled to the United States to visit family in Hawaii before China issued its five-one policy restricting citizens from returning to China, and became ill there because he did not have U.S. health insurance and could not return home, causing him and his family to accumulate enough medical bills in the U.S. to wipe out his family’s fortune, but despite this, he was unable to return to his home and continued to Despite this, he was unable to return home and continued to accumulate medical bills in the U.S., leading the elderly man and his family to despair.
On the other hand, a young international student in the U.K. reported her own fortunate experience that she was unable to return to China as scheduled due to China’s 5-1 policy, and as a result, her international student visa in the U.K. expired and she lost her legal status for her stay in the U.K. as well as her health insurance in the U.K. However, she had to turn to the U.K. health insurance system and admit to them that she had overstayed her visa for her stay in the U.K. because she had burned her arm in an accident. To her surprise and delight, the public health care institutions in the UK arranged for her to receive free professional treatment promptly.
But in any case, the so-called achievements of China under the Chinese Communist Party on the issue of epidemic prevention and control up to now are still obvious and undeniable. China’s economy and social Life were once largely back to positive normal, and China’s emerging cases were once nearly zero. This has confused many people around the world, including in China, and made it difficult to evaluate the CCP’s inhumane measures to prevent and combat the epidemic.
Hu Ping, a scholar of philosophy, ethics and political science for many years and editor-in-chief of the political journal Beijing Spring, has been closely following the development of the epidemic and the philosophical, ethical and political issues raised by governments’ initiatives to combat the epidemic since it broke out in China and became the world’s worst catastrophe in a century.
Hu Ping told Voice of America that it is true that some people will find it difficult to evaluate the so-called success of the CCP’s brutal epidemic prevention measures, feeling bad about saying yes, but also bad about saying no, but for most people around the world, including most Chinese, the issues are actually very clear and no one is confused.
There is no doubt that the number of confirmed cases and deaths in North Korea is really quite low,” said Hu Ping. Here’s a simple question: How many of us envy North Korea (which is almost completely devoid of basic human rights)? How many people think we should learn from North Korea? I think such people must be very few. It is evident that people must be unimpressed with this Chinese Communist Party’s approach to fighting the epidemic at all costs. Otherwise people would have to learn from North Korea and take North Korea as a role model.”
Hu Ping pointed out that the reason why most people around the world, including most Chinese, are not confused about the big right and wrong issues of epidemic prevention is because they are not confused about such fundamental questions as what is civilization and what is barbarism.
What is barbarism and what is civilization
Hu Ping cites the history briefly described by the late French scholar Foucault in his famous book “Discipline and Punishment” as an example. A decree issued in France at the end of the seventeenth century stipulated what measures should be taken in the event of a plague in a place, including a strict spatial quarantine, the closure of cities and suburbs, and the prohibition to leave the infected area, and the death of violators.
The book “Discipline and Punishment” also mentions that more than three hundred years ago in France, in order to control the epidemic, the epidemic city was divided into districts, each district was under the responsibility of the district mayor, each street was under the responsibility of the warden, the movement of the residents of the street was closely monitored, and whoever left their neighborhood was to be executed; everyone had to be at home, food and drink were arranged by the authorities, in short, everyone had to be in a defined location, any small activity was to be monitored, everything Everything is under the control of the authorities.
Hu Ping said: The CCP supporters and the propaganda organs of the CCP claim that other countries should copy the successful operations of China’s epidemic prevention and control, but France did it more than 300 years ago and it is still there today. Why are the French not doing that today?
The Chinese Communist authorities keep emphasizing the need to talk about the big picture and grasp the big issues, and the epidemic prevention and control is now the big picture that the Chinese Communist authorities are talking about and grasping hard. In the eyes of critics and observers, the Communist authorities have indeed achieved untold “successes” in this regard, by taking an epidemic prevention approach at all costs, which is unbelievable to the public around the world.
But in Hu Ping’s view, it’s not a matter of not knowing the goods, it’s a matter of comparing them. He said, “This comparison, one with North Korea and one with France three hundred years ago and France today three hundred years later, I think we can come to a very clear conclusion, that is, we are not satisfied with the so-called anti-epidemic and anti-epidemic practices at all costs.”
Draconian approach to sealing off cities and provinces draws controversy
The various measures taken by Chinese authorities to seal cities and provinces to prevent the epidemic have drawn strong criticism among the Chinese public following the latest wave of the epidemic. The sudden closure of Tonghua, Jilin, left 300,000 residents without food or Medicine. The closure of Hebei province resulted in a Hebei child with an emergency illness being denied treatment in a Beijing hospital.
These harsh epidemic prevention measures have led some observers to suggest that the CCP’s approach is based on a similar mindset to that of the pig industry in dealing with swine fever, which is that when it comes to swine fever, it does not care whether the pigs are dead or alive, but controls the epidemic first, and the CCP’s approach is to control the epidemic first, regardless of whether the people in the infected areas are dead or alive.
Li Weidong, president of China Strategic Analysis magazine, expressed great dismay at this comparison of the CCP’s epidemic prevention to the pig industry’s approach to dealing with swine fever. According to Li, this argument is too extreme and one-sided, because it is well known that the Chinese Communist authorities do not slaughter people at all, as the pig industry does when it comes to swine fever.
In addition, people in China’s infected areas have medical needs, and it is not that they cannot be treated in the infected areas; there are sufficient medical resources in infected areas like Hebei; even if people need treatment outside the infected areas and are blocked, that is an isolated phenomenon, and it is not the intention of the authorities to let people die in the infected areas, said Li Weidong.
After all, the Chinese Communist authorities can also calculate economic accounts, and mass killings are not economically viable.
Hu Ping believes that in another way, the CCP’s response to the epidemic is highly similar and even highly similar to the pig industry’s response to swine fever. The two things that are the same (in the CCP’s management of people and management of pigs) is that neither sees the other as a dignified creature,” he said. Going back to the issue of people, now his approach to epidemic prevention is not to kill all the people, but just to adopt inhumane quarantine measures.”
Hu Ping said that the harsh anti-epidemic measures taken by the CCP authorities only apply to the general public, not to high officials and their families, and that powerful CCP officials can get the best protection and the greatest freedom; presidents, prime ministers and ministers in Western countries are infected, but no high ranking CCP officials are infected, and they get the best treatment even if they are given the virus, and are not restricted by the city closure order.
Hu Xijin, editor-in-chief of the Global Times, a tabloid owned by the People’s Daily, the central organ of the Communist Party, likened the harsh measures taken by the Chinese authorities to “breaking the wrist of a strong man. In every sense, Hu says, this “brave man’s wrist” approach to epidemic prevention is no different from the pig industry’s idea of culling pigs to control swine fever, based on the idea that each human life is not a unique one, but a number that can be taken at will.
Ethical and moral issues raised by the outbreak
Up to now, in the face of the new coronavirus epidemic, which is unprecedented in a century and has no end in sight, the actions and inactions of governments around the world have yielded different results, which approach, which policy is more effective and makes the public feel better, what is the death toll and mortality rate of the epidemic in each country, governments and even public health experts and infectious disease experts and statisticians are still Governments and even public health and infectious disease experts and statisticians are still trying to figure out these issues.
Some observers believe that China has the most draconian and inhumane epidemic prevention measures. In order to prevent epidemics, local authorities in China have chained doors, nailed doors with wooden boards, welded doors with welding torches, blocked doors with sand and stones, and many other practices that observers consider appalling, just to seal the doors of the homes of people believed to be infected with the virus. Such anti-epidemic measures also pose a moral dilemma for the rulers and people of each country, which is, can humanitarian goals be pursued in an inhumane manner?
The Chinese government and its supporters have been hinting or declaring, both publicly and privately, that China’s approach, while controversial, is an undeniable achievement in epidemic prevention; that human rights are, first and foremost, the right to live; and that the United States, with its empty shouting about human rights, has lost more than 400,000 people to the epidemic and the death toll continues to rise rapidly, an undisputed fact that other countries have no right to Other countries have no right to say anything about China, nor do people inside or outside of China have the right to say anything about the CCP’s work for the benefit of the Chinese people (safeguarding the best interests of the people).
Some observers point out that the reason why the CCP authorities introduced inhumane city closures a year ago and reintroduced inhumane city closures a year later when the epidemic rebounded was that there was little harsh condemnation of this practice by the CCP authorities inside and outside China, and many Chinese even expressed their approval of this inhumane practice of the CCP, both publicly and privately, that it worked after all and that there was nothing wrong with it. This is why the CCP has repeatedly been emboldened, even proud, to engage in such brutal practices.
Wang Juntao, a Ph.D. in political science from Columbia University and chairman of the China Democratic Party, told Voice of America that unfortunately the above observers are probably right. In his view, the Chinese Communist regime’s relentless suppression of people who care about the public interest and basic human rights in order to maintain its rule for more than 70 years has resulted in an evil that is both very obvious and very relevant to the Chinese people.
Wang Juntao said, “The Chinese public has developed a mentality that is indifferent to the public interest and indifferent to the death of others, because caring about this actually affects their own existence and development. I think of it this way, when I see what happened to that child (who was dying in Hebei but could not enter Beijing for treatment), most Chinese people actually don’t feel comfortable in their hearts, and some may feel very angry, but they don’t dare to care, or they can’t care.”
Wang Juntao also pointed out that the reason why the Chinese public mostly accepts or even agrees with the CCP’s epidemic prevention practices, either actively or passively, is that the Chinese public is confused by the CCP’s misleading propaganda and mistakenly believes that the epidemic in foreign countries, especially in the United States, has turned the United States into an unbearable hell, while the Chinese public does not know that even in New York, which is the hardest hit area of the epidemic in the United States, the public’s life is still basically normal and the public’s basic personal dignity and In short, the United States or any civilized country in the world does not have the prison conditions that China has to endure in order to prevent the epidemic.
Scholar Hu Ping also acknowledges that the Chinese Communist authorities’ repeated courage and willingness to adopt epidemic prevention methods regardless of the lives of specific individuals, and to continue to do so for the foreseeable future, does have something to do with the lack of basic human rights concepts among Chinese people/Chinese. He said, “[Many Chinese/Chinese] do not respect others as people with personal dignity, and more or less accept this idea [of disrespecting the dignity and lives of others], or at least are not so offended by it, to be in this situation.”
Wu Dalang who was poured poison by Pan Jinlian?
At the same time as Hu Ping made the above lament, a Chinese netizen, pained by the treatment of his family members by what they call inhumane epidemic prevention measures, posed the following discussion questions to the Chinese public from the perspective of basic human rights.
- What do you get in exchange for implementing closed management as an epidemic prevention measure in non-infected areas, at the expense of civil rights and normal life? How do the inputs compare with the outputs? Especially in important public institutions like hospitals.
- What is the basis for the correction and modification of the epidemic prevention measures from the central to the local level, which are getting tighter and tighter? Are the local management measures adopted through democratic procedures or legally justified?
- Is there a period of adjustment between policy formulation and implementation and the situation at the grassroots level? What are the channels for suggestions and requests for help, and how to ensure effective solutions?
Responses to this discussion question posted on the Chinese social media Douban have been banned. The original response has been hidden or deleted altogether. People familiar with the control of public opinion on the Chinese Communist Party’s network say that the Chinese authorities have been extraordinarily kind in not deleting the above discussion question.
As the civilized world is alarmed by the draconian measures taken by the Chinese Communist Party authorities to prevent the epidemic, a Chinese man, who asked not to be named for professional reasons, told VOA that the Chinese Communist Party authorities are asking the Chinese to swallow the bitter medicine to prevent and fight the epidemic, just as the murderer Pan Jinlian in the classic Chinese novel “Water Margin” used poison to kill her husband Wu Dalang.
In response to a written question from the Voice of America, the Chinese wrote: “Like Jinlian feeding Dailang medicine: ‘Dailang take the medicine first, and everything will be fine.’ The Golden Lotus Myth currently used by the Chinese Communist authorities against the Chinese people. The Chinese people are the dalang, ah, who no longer have the strength to say no more.”
CCP accused of playing Mao’s old tricks
But most observers in China and abroad believe that the Chinese people under the harsh rule of the CCP are rich in humor, especially in dark humor, as evidenced by a recent segment circulating among the Chinese Internet that satirizes the CCP authorities’ cascading epidemic prevention measures.
Health and Welfare Commission: High-risk ones should be quarantined/medium-risk ones should be tested for nucleic acid/low-risk ones are fine.
Province: Don’t come back for high risk / Nucleic acid test + home isolation for medium risk / Nucleic acid test for low risk.
City: Do not return for high risk / Nucleic acid test for medium risk + centralized isolation + home isolation / Nucleic acid test for low risk + home isolation.
Town: Don’t come back if you are high risk / Don’t come back if you are medium risk / Nucleic acid test + centralized isolation + home isolation if you are low risk.
Village: roll.
Perhaps because the cascading epidemic prevention measures have caused too much public discontent and sarcastic criticism, in recent days, the Chinese Communist authorities have again issued criticism from senior Communist government officials through the so-called central-level media such as the People’s Daily, the Communist Party’s leading party newspaper, that the epidemic prevention measures “cannot be increased without authorization, cascading, or across the board.”
Some observers have pointed out that the CCP authorities are obviously playing the same old trick as Mao Zedong did back then, that is, after the so-called Great Leap Forward Movement caused an economic disaster that led to starvation, Mao’s old subordinate and then Defense Minister Peng Dehuai’s euphemistic criticism on the matter was then ruthlessly attacked by Mao, but Mao then forwarded within the CCP a highly similar opinion to Peng’s from lower-level cadres and called on Mao to But Mao then forwarded a highly similar opinion to that of Peng Dehuai, and called on cadres at all levels of the Communist Party to tell the truth and report the facts.
But seeing what happened to Peng Dehuai, no one dared to tell the truth and report the facts, let alone criticize or oppose Mao’s blind command, and the Great Leap Forward campaign continued under Mao’s impetus, with tens of millions of people starving to death in the economic disaster and artificial famine Mao had created.
In January 1962, after the Great Famine, Mao vaguely admitted that he had made mistakes, but his new Minister of National Defense, Lin Biao, made a speech at the 7,000-member Communist Party cadre meeting, claiming that the mistakes made by the Communist Party earlier, including the Great Leap Forward, were caused by the failure of lower-level cadres to implement Mao’s instructions correctly. Lin Biao then became the second most powerful man in China.
In January 2021, observers in China and abroad were concerned about whether the statement by senior CCP officials and official-level media that “no unauthorized increases, no cascading, no across-the-board increases” was a cover for Xi Jinping, or whether the Xi administration was indeed aware that the CCP’s epidemic prevention measures up to now were indeed inhumane and despised by the civilized world. The Xi Jinping administration is aware of the fact that the CCP’s epidemic prevention measures up to now are inhumane and despised by the civilized world, and therefore should not be continued.
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