By institutionalizing “Xi Jinping thought” and enshrining it in foreign policy, the political regime run by the Chinese Communist Party operates on, according to their own words, “the lack of respect towards scientific data and the draconian checks within the Chinese system.”
In a similar vein, the ever-changing reporting criteria for the coronavirus epitomizes China’s arbitrary ‘standard’. The imprecision, or the intended inaccuracy, allows government officials to shrug off their accountability and the party members to carry out their political agendas.
Therefore, the most transparent and thorough set of data of the Wuhan pneumonia can only be obtained outside China. This is, for instance, the statistics from the Diamond Princess Cruise which has been anchored in Yokohama, Japan since February 4, 2020.
While the world is discussing whether the statistics released by PRC’s health authorities and WHO’s stance are in favour of China, Xi Jinping gave a rather clear answer in his political order that no anti-epidemic measures should put pressure on the PRC’s economic workings.
As German scientists and researchers found that the Wuhan Pneumonia virus could survive on object surfaces for up to several days, this increases the uncertainty of the prospect of China exports. When China’s economy depends very much on exports, which province would report itself as a epidemic area, when this might preveny foreign countries from trading with China. Under these circumstances, the already shaky Chinese data only loses its credibility further in the omnipresence of political order.
Likewise, the Hong Kong government, which does not possess any diplomatic powers, had cojoined Beijing to condemn countries like Italy for the refusal of PRC national’s entry during the coronavirus outbreak. Demonstrating this failed opportunism is also the Hong Kong government’s rejection of foreign reporters’ and scholars’ entry into Hong Kong since the Anti-extradition Law Movement in June 2019.
To a large extent, in comtemporary Chinese political culture dialectical idealism has overriden dialectical materialism, contrary to the Marxist philosophy supposedly followed by the Chinese Communist Party.
“Everything is possible as long as you believe in it”: This may summarize the general attitude held by all Chinese Communist Party officials on matters of fighting the epidemic and their political principles.