Coronavirus Shows the Vulnerability of the "Chinese Model"

America's would be dictator and China's dictator.

As Donald Trump - an admirer of autocratic regimes and head of an administration that is forcing out scientists and experts who do not support his climate change denying, anti-safety regulation agenda - delivers his State of the Union speech (I'm not watching because (i) I loath the sound of his voice, (ii) his remarks will be filled with lies, and (iii) there will be countless reports on what he said),  the health emergency in instructive as to the dangers of silencing those who seek to publicize inconvenient information and truths. By all accounts other than those of the Chinese government, the coronavirus outbreak was horribly mismanaged by the Chinese government and those who early on sought to warn of the danger were harassed and punished.    Indeed, the Chinese attempt to downplay the health emergency parallel's Trump's claim that Iranian rockets had not harmed any members of the U.S. military when, in fact numerous service members had suffered traumatic brain injuries.  A piece in the Washington Post looks who the Chinese government failed its own people and have put the world potentially at risk.  Here are highlights:

The “Chinese model,” as enthusiasts sometimes describe Beijing’s autocratic system for dictating policy, can look eerily successful — until you consider catastrophic events such as the recent coronavirus outbreak.

China’s response to the epidemic that began in Wuhan nearly two months ago shows some advantages of its police-state approach, and some severe disadvantages: Chinese authorities can commandeer resources to build a hospital in 10 days. But by stifling bad news and even arresting vigilant doctors, they create deep distrust at home and abroad, risking their ability to be effective.

Chinese people simply don’t believe their government. They know that government health data is suspect, just like China’s official economic numbers.

The public’s distrust of the government emerged in interviews conducted this week by an American business executive who worked in Shanghai for three years and who shared with me conversations with former colleagues there. These Shanghai residents expressed deep skepticism about official data, which as of Tuesday showed more than 23,000 cases and 490 deaths.

“I personally doubt the numbers are accurate. I believe there are lots of missing cases, especially in rural area,” said one of the Chinese residents. “I think there are definitely miscounted numbers as some people died before there were cases diagnosed,” said a second. “Don’t trust the official numbers,” bluntly cautioned a third.

This third Shanghai resident expressed a widely shared fear that the authorities didn’t learn from the SARS outbreak in 2003: “Seventeen years after SARS, they are still making the same mistakes, nightmare mistakes, that’s my deepest despair. From holding back the truth, to [inadequate] preparations for disaster, to [slow] speed of reaction. 

A dramatic example of how China’s police-state tactics backfired is the case of Dr. Li Wenliang, an ophthalmologist at Wuhan Central Hospital. In late December, Li noticed cases of a virus that resembled SARS. He posted a warning to other doctors on Dec. 30, advising them to wear protective clothing. On Jan. 1, the Wuhan Public Security Bureau, the local equivalent of the FBI, summoned Li to sign a statement that he had made “false comments” that “severely disturbed the social order.”

Xinhua News Agency joined the public shaming of Li and other doctors who had posted warnings. . . . . Three weeks after Li had tried to sound the alarm, China declared the virus outbreak a national emergency. The Supreme People’s Court later denounced the arrests of Li and others and said: “Rumors end when there is openness.”

Xu Zhiyuan, a Chinese journalist who decried Beijing’s actions in suppressing the SARS outbreak, wrote later about the costs of such censorship. The Times article quoted his social media post: “The system is successful in that it destroyed the people with integrity, the institutions with credibility and a society capable of narrating its own stories.”

The financial cost of suppressing information and letting coronavirus spread in its early weeks could run to hundreds of billions of dollars. Goldman Sachs estimated in a forecast for clients Tuesday that a severe outbreak could reduce China’s gross domestic product growth in 2020 by more than a full percentage point. Already, Chinese financial markets have taken a huge hit.

China’s command economy, managed by a one-party dictatorship, has achieved miracles in recent decades. In comparison, an open and contentious democracy like the United States can sometimes seem like a losing proposition. But we’re now witnessing a striking reminder of the need for open sources of information and public officials who aren’t cowed by political pressure.

Xi thundered on Monday that Chinese officials who “lack boldness” in responding to coronavirus will be punished. Perhaps he will dictate that patients who don’t get well quickly will be jailed, too.