The Americans lie, the Russians bluff, but the Chinese seem to specialize in failing at both as the attempts of the east Asian power consistently do not reflect the image she wants to portray, but of a desperate and failing attempt at covering up the truth.
China seems to have made another mistake similar to this as President Xi declares “victory” over the COVID-19 coronavirus outbreak when clearly this is far from over.
Chinese leader Xi Jinping went on a carefully choreographed victory lap around Wuhan on Tuesday, lauding the dedication and tenacity of the Communist Party, health-care workers and ordinary people in defeating a coronavirus he had labeled a “devil.”
His first visit to Wuhan, the epicenter of the novel coronavirus outbreak, comes as the number of new infections in the country has plummeted and was designed to show the success of China’s response — and contrast them favorably against international efforts, analysts said.
“Now things are getting better and he wants to show that his leadership has been successful,” said Minxin Pei, a professor specializing in Chinese politics at Claremont McKenna College in California. “The messaging is that we should see the West’s response as bumbling and incompetent.” (source)
Since it is from Chinese state media, which is infamous for making even more blatant lies than the US, it is not to be trusted.
However, what matters more now is that China is attempting to give the impression that she is “superior” to the “incompetent” West, when the West is suffering from this.
In his attempt to seem strong, he is giving the impression that China is gloating while other nations are suffering, and to that refusing to help with the spread around the world, even as the whole world acknowledges and agrees that the virus came from a military lab in China.
China is isolating herself.
She has also shaken confidence in manufacturers, which China again seems to be trying to allay the fears of since she needs business from them.
One should watch and see if business begins to move out of China and to her neighbors, especially India, citing a lack of confidence in Chinese systems for safety and security.
The effects of this virus will most likely not be a “stronger China”, but a long-term weaker one because of the economic and political effects it will have, which in turn will leave her to defend herself, and with China’s military rival to her southwest in India with over a billion people and a rising nationalism and economy coupled with her historical northeast asian rival in Japan as well as tens of millions of angry Turkic peoples in her west-central regions over mistreatment of them by the Communist government, China may find herself as she has throughout the ages, where foreign forces sweep down upon her, destroy her nation, and enslave her people in the cyclical pattern of Chinese history for thousands of years, but this time with modern weapons.
Let the CCP “eat cake” right now, for her future is most likely a resting place on a guillotine.