I have a niece who is a nurse in Wuhan. (The daughter of my Chinese wife’s sister. She is a HK girl married to a mainland man) She saw the people dying when this thing first started. It was building for a weeks before it was reported. The locals, through fear, did not even tell the central government what was happening. The initial strain of COVID was extremely deadly. That was, I think the strain that went to Italy. Once the central government was alerted they began to take remedial measures. But, it took them several weeks to grasp the scope of the problem. The PRC even built a huge temporary hospital to treat the sick. At least at first, the PRC was severely under reporting. They still are to this day. They want the public to believe they have the situation under control.
People here need to stop thinking of the PRC government as comic book villains. Evil people do not wake up every day and ask themselves, “How evil can I be today?” The evil man believes himself to be virtuous and good.
Totalitarians don’t just line people up and kill them for fun. NOt even in North Korea. If totalitarian governments kill people it is to preserve the state and the leadership. During the Great leap forward, the PRC murdered tens of millions. But here is the thing, they didn’t kill all those people just to kill them. It was in the states interest to do so, in order to industrialize China. The end - industrialization - in their eyes, justified the means. This is the central moral failing of all communist states. When the end justifies the means there is no crime the state can commit that is not justified.
The PRC never reported those deaths. (Assuming they even knew how many died) Even when the bodies of thousands of Chinese who’d starved to death were washing up on the Hong Kong and Japanese beaches, the PRC denied what was happening. To this day we do not know how many millions died. All we have is an estimate of between 15 and 50 MILLION. Westerners like Sydney Shapiro, who lived in China and worked for the ministry of translation (Propaganda) believed to their dying day that the numbers tallied by the UK and Japan were “Imperialist Propaganda.”
Totalitarian states have a vested interest in treating citizens well, though always with harsh court systems, because the most pressing issue the totalitarian regime faces is staying in power. Staying in power is the goal. The continuance of the state is the objective. Maintaining their grasp of the population is the means. Avoiding prison or the gallows the reason.
The social contract totalitarians make with populations is, “Tow the party line and you’ll be treated well. But, step out of line and we’ll cut you off at the knees.” That ceases to work if things are not great in the hinterland. They have to look good, at home and abroad.
So, no the PRC would not over report because it would mean the population had a reason to doubt that the government was legitimate. It would foment domestic unrest and threaten to undermine the existence of the state.
I realize this is a hard thing to understand but the PRC is not greatly more corrupt than the US at this point. It is also I think the nation with the greater percentage of it’s population that is Christian. The citizen there, at this time are not appreciably less free than the US. Not that the PRC is that great, but the US has gotten that bad.
Go ahead, flame away. I have my asbestos suit on.
I realize this is a hard thing to understand but the PRC is not greatly more corrupt than the US at this point. It is also I think the nation with the greater percentage of it’s population that is Christian. The citizen there, at this time are not appreciably less free than the US. Not that the PRC is that great, but the US has gotten that bad.
Every line in this statement is as wrong as it is possible to imagine.
There is the old philosopher’s question about whether anyone ever intentionally does evil. The CCP and its leadership may not see themselves as evil.
But they are.
I don’t think Democrats think of themselves as evil, and they justify stealing elections by saying it advances their noble causes.
I do believe that Democrats mostly think we are evil, even though we attempt to play by the rules outlined in the Constitution and for many of us in the Bible.