Gunners Shot

The Search for Alternate Truth

The Chinese Government has done a stupendous job in containing the COVID19 in their Country. They have saved a lot of lives and need to be complimented for that. They mounted a military type of response and mobilized all their resources to contain the outbreak and deal with it. However there are huge gaps between the actuality and what is being projected now. They say that truth is the first casualty in any war. It has been no different in the current war against the Chinese/ Wuhan COVID. While the world is fighting a war against the disease thrust upon it by China, wittingly or unwittingly, there is a serious effort on the part of China to search and paint an alternate truth. The motives of this alternate truth are reflected in the efforts by an authoritarian system which seeks to control its people and the rest of the world. The simple tool they have employed is propagating a narrative which suits China. The narrative has been shaped either by cloaking the truth or by aggressively promoting an alternate truth. In old terms it is called propaganda. The Chinese propaganda as it has played out needs understanding.

Government governs the people. In democratic societies, the governments are chosen by the people and for the people. When the governments fail to live up to the expectation of the people, they are changed liked diapers. New governments are brought in from the best available options by the people and asked to carry on. Democratically elected Governments accept the accountability of the hustings and move on when voted out of power. However in the authoritarian one-party system of China which captured power through the ‘barrel of a gun’, it must be sustained by convincing the people that the system the Communist Party offers is the best. If that conviction is not conveyed in a way people understand it, then it is back to the old maxim – ‘power flows through the barrel of a gun’. There is no question of giving up power and moving on. Hence the internal dimension of security is as important if not more than the external threat. 

From a different perspective, China has progressed to be a rich country. Its people are no more the poor peasant followers of the Mao era. There is a prosperous and burgeoning assenting Chinese middle class. It has driven the economic change to prosperity. This middle class has been outbound. It has seen democracy and accountability at close quarters. It demands answers. The danger is that sooner or later the influenceable and huge mass if unsatisfied, could turn into a dissenting middle class to drive a political change. There is also a poverty segment in China which is experiencing inequity. That segment must be an aspirational/ dissatisfied lot. These people cannot be handled by the gun anymore in this interconnected world. The other issue is that China wants to be a superpower. In its mental construct, a superpower is not only superior but infallible. After all it is the middle kingdom and it must project itself and behave accordingly. The external and internal issues need to be taken care of through its propaganda machinery to covey an overall conviction of being the best and only choice.     

The conviction to be conveyed is two faceted. The first facet is to internally convey and convince the Chinese people that all actions taken by the government is the best for them. The second facet is conveying a message indirectly to the people through the external world. It must be conveyed that the methods adopted by the international community are inferior to those adopted by the Chinese. This will keep them in a state of disadvantage forever in any future negotiation. In doing so it must be shown to the people that other international or democratic alternatives are inferior. Ever since the Virus surfaced in Wuhan in mid Nov these themes have been clearly visible either through censorship or propaganda by the Chinese State. The narrative has been played out in different stages as per the timeline of evolution of the crisis. The detailed time line of the outbreak up to 21 Mar 2020 is available @   https://www.devex.com/news/covid-19-a-timeline-of-the-coronavirus-outbreak-96396

Early Stages – Ignored and Cloaked. The outbreak started in mid Nov. It was reported to WHO on 31 Dec. The Wuhan Sea Food market was closed on 01 Jan 20. The Chinese Media were busy with the China Media Project activities and gave it only cursory coverage. This was the time when China missed the ball. Its focus was elsewhere.  If at that stage there was enough focus on the outbreak, it is possible that it could have been stopped in its tracks as mentioned by President Trump. Further, the origins of the outbreak are still hazy. It is not known if the outbreak was from the Seafood Market which was closed or the Wuhan BSL laboratory. It is also not known if the pace and scale of the outbreak was due to negligence of Wuhan Authorities or the Chinese Government itself. The entire issue is shrouded with lack of focus or clarity till the third week of Jan. Activities of the Chinese Government of this critical period have been cloaked out.

Local Outbreak Stage – Leadership Loss.  The Chinese really started responding around the third week of Jan 20. However Xi Jinping made a disappearing act and was not seen for about two weeks. Reasons not known so far. Did the fightback effort lack leadership? Probably. Were international authorities taken on board?  No. At this stage, leadership, transparency or inclusivity of international expertise was lacking in varying measures. That has been covered up. Overall it seems loss of leadership was compounded by some incompetence.  

International Outbreak Stage – Censorship. By the third week of Jan 20, cases started proliferating outside China. It was clear that this was a pandemic. WHO delayed declaring this outbreak as a pandemic till end Jan. Reports have appeared that WHO was pressurized to delay the declaration since it would have shown China in poor light! It was all about saving Chinese ‘Face’ over ‘Lives’. However by this time China was in military response mode. China had imposed censorship to ensure no news went out of Wuhan and the world knew very little as to what went on there.   It is felt in international circles that the censorship imposed by the Chinese and not allowing news to go out turned the virus into a pandemic of this proportion. Early in this stage other countries started putting restrictions on Chinese travelers. The Chinese were bellicose and called such restriction as an ‘overreaction’. It caused the other countries to take a deep breath and step back. This reflexive ‘underreaction’ probably delayed international reactions to combat the virus early. Also, the data being turned out by China was suspect since news from social media and evacuated personnel which was filtering out painted a different picture. The credibility of Chinese official reports was always poor, and it remains so. The general view is that China has vastly under-reported its numbers. In very simple terms it is called fudging or lying. 

Chinese Containment Stage – Fightback Propaganda. Between early Feb to early Mar 2020, the Chinese were able to contain the outbreak within the country. Immediately the Chinese tune changed, they started portraying their workers as heroes. That is perfectly ok since there was real effort by the people in the fightback. However they used the positivity so generated to coverup the major slip ups of initial delayed response. In this period they sacked all errant officials of Hubei and Wuhan seemingly to punish them. They shifted the blame to local officials and absolved the main leaders of their culpability or responsibility to ensure their longevity. All in all, the deficiencies of the Communist Party and the Central Government have been covered. Some dissenters have disappeared. They very clearly muzzled to block all negative reporting or communications. They also started a theme to say that China absorbed the initial impact of the outbreak and bought time for the rest of the world to react. They even released a book titled A Battle against Epidemic: China Combatting Covid-19 in 2020. This book presents the Party in terrific light as saviors of the masses.