A Chinese doctor showed more courage, more concern for his fellow man than the entire Republican Senate save one……….
America, we have a problem not only with a power hungry president but also a cowed, totally complacent Senate……..
Correct both problems soon or we will regret it for many lives to come………2020 is the place to start……..
58
And it seems as if Xi and the Communist Party is putting the most effort into protecting themselves in Beijing, their sacred city, from the virus while health workers in Hubei are using tape to fix holes in their protective suits and are basically sacrificing their lives. I wouldn't be surprised if the Chinese people rose up and overthrew their oppressive overlords, maybe setting off a chain reaction around the globe.
When the Black Death swept through Europe in the middle of the 14th century, it was this factor that ultimately caused the unraveling of the feudal system and the rise of capitalism. So many died from all social castes that it created social instability and opportunities for those from the lower castes. The dearth of laborers drove up wages, and peasants were able to rise up. What will happen here if this gets really bad? You can't just hide out in Beijing.
18
US Doctors mislead public about severity of covid-19:
Prominent US doctors and news organizations have promoted a narrative that covid-19 is similar to flu and that the majority of cases are mild. Recent data from Singapore disproves this.
Singapore has a very modern and well resourced health care system and they are aggressively tracing contacts of known cases. It is unlikely they would miss mild cases unless those cases don't save symptoms.
Singapore currently reports 75 cases, of which 5 (6.7%) are in critical condition in the ICU. Influenza only sends 1.7% of cases to hospital, of which only a fraction enter the ICU. This data proves that covid-19 is far more lethal than influenza, contrary to the claims of prominent US doctors and media organizations. 75% of SIngapore cases remain hospitalized.
https://www.moh.gov.sg/news-highlights/details/one-more-case-discharged-three-new-cases-of-covid-19-infection-confirmed
10
We don't have freedom of speech.
Freedom of speech is used to confront the corrupt government.
Our government has betrayed our most fundamental principles but we keep voting for two same old political parties that have engineered and implemented the betrayal of our Constitution.
Not paying the taxes is the betrayal of the future fellow Americans.
If you need extra money to parent the fiscal austerity just print it and you will find your own spending.
Running the budget deficit is stealing the money from the next generations.
We all participate in such governmental policy.
That's not freedom but just the stealing.
4
It's probably just me but there were several occasions during the reading of this article about covid-19 and your description of Xi's response where my mind inserted Trump's for Xi's. Spouting nonsense really hit home. The two of them do blend in to each in some ways. Perhaps both nations can save time with a combined name, Trixump, where the p is silent.
16
But the Press is The Enemy of the People, and Sickness is Health.
13
The unconscionable mishandling of the situation is not limited to China. It’s being mishandled everywhere else, too.
Passengers disembarked from the Holland America Cruise ship were released to travel onward, commercially, without further quarantine..and yet an American woman amongst them, now in Malaysia, has been diagnosed with the virus. Can we guess what that means?
Uh...isn’t this precisely how the virus becomes a pandemic?
19
Thank you for showing us the roadmap for our future under Donald Trump. The elimination of billions of dollars for the NIH research budget , the EPA budget, and shifting of budgeted money to walls, drilling, fracking and huge tax breaks to spur growth and profits of petro chemicals and the toxic products they produce tell us why Donald Trump admires and send “Love Notes” to such leaders.
598
@SystemsThinker Here's a multiple choice question. Which is the most cost effective way to protect America:
1) Wipe out social security and medicare because "we can't afford it."
2) Build a giant wall on our Southern border
3) Ban abortion, IVF, and contraception
4) Build new generation weapons systems
5) Change tax law to further financialize our economy so as to increase the allocation of income to the managers of companies, the makers (not the takers)
6) Get Trump and his enablers out of office.
60
@SystemsThinker Yes, I think it's fair to say that Trump's approach to health care would be disastrous in an epidemic. It's not just his proposed cuts to NIH and CDC, but also his assault on Medicaid and Obamacare.
One of the lessons of China and the coronavirus is the importance of primary care. China largely did away with primary care in the 1980s, so today most doctors are hospital based. That is not a great system: Everybody should have a primary care physician.
To me, the single most appalling aspect of Trump's budget proposal is the way he would devastate Medicaid, the bulwark of health care for low-income Americans. It would hurt those people, but it would also make America more vulnerable to epidemics.
338
@SystemsThinker
Trump's budget? You make it seems as if Congress plays no role in the budget process, in order to put it all on Trump
8
“I cannot remain silent.”
“Rage against injustice; let your lives burn with a flame of decency; break through stultifying darkness and welcome the dawn.”
XU's words should inspire all of us to be more proactive about threats to our health , threats to our freedom, threats against a free press, and the deregulation of those elements that threaten our very existence through climate change.
Rage against the corruption that threatens America's very existence! Like XU “I cannot remain silent.” I work & pray that come 2021 we can welcome the dawn at home.
15
Stop asking Trump what he thinks. It doesn't matter what he thinks, and in any event, what he tells you is likely to be false.
20
Freedom isn’t a priory good or bad.
It depends on how we are going to use it.
If we exploit it to enjoy the opioid drugs, for binge drinking or to run the deceptive commercials creating the addiction among our children to the fast food by triggering their cravings, nobody is going to claim that freedom is great.
Freedom could be divided into two major categories – freedom to be stupid and freedom to be smart.
It means that the correct education and morality matter more than freedom.
It means we should have freedom to make mistakes but not to be chronically stupid or wrong.
8
Three superpowers, three corrupt narcissistic thugs in charge. This is a bad moment for the world for dealing with the coronavirus or any other problem.
There was a time when the USA would be a leader and truth-teller in a situation like this. Those days are over.
25
The US economy is highly dependent on China, far more dependent than either Republicans or Democrats or US corporate leadership will concede. If any individual or group is serious about combatting “climate change” they would boycott China (who is bringing one coal plant online per day). But you can’t boycott China because you’d have to start by boycotting your
1
Please finish
3
@Karen Hutton
Was he censored?
We are glad that the White House and Beijing were able to reach consensuses there is no danger associated with the global warming or the coronavirus outbreak.
Isn't it great that our government is so smart and theirs so stupid?
We have the freedom of speech and that makes us a priory smart?!
Freedom to speak doesn't mean that we are going to say something clever...
Actually, we have personally witnessed that both the conservative and liberal media outlets are intentionally misinforming their viewers and trying to whip them up into the rage and blind partisan obedience.
Our Democracy is in Peril and the Rule of Law means "He who makes lots of money can tell you what to do, who to do business with, who you can't to business with, etc..etc." That's our country. 3 people have as much money as 50 Percent of the population and people cheer.
IT's Worse than a monarchy.
And we only have 330 million people. Let's govern our own house (WE CAN'T) before we JUDGE AFRICA RUSSIA CHINA etc etc. Stop eating the Pablum.
7
Li Wenliang, we will not forget you. Likewise we will not forget the communist party hacks that arrested Li and had him sign a confession. Funny now Xi Jinping is now saying he was aware from the beginning. Does he have a Sharpie pen like President Bone Spurs that shows a memo he wrote documenting this? Or likely does he have insider hacks that lie for him?
Chinese people, now is the time to rise up and get rid of Xi and his cronies.
4
ALS is commonly known as "Lou Gherig's Disease". The Covid-19 coronavirus should be known as "Li Wenliang's Disease" in honor of the brave Chinese doctor who was punished for trying to warn the world, and who wound up dying of it.
14
China's big problem is that there is no freedom or democracy. There is no free press and no way to drill down to get to the truth. I wonder how a nation with so many educated and very capable people can continue to repress what must be building in many citizens - the desire to be free, to be able to think for themselves and to speak out when they see deception and injustice.
But none of us here can afford to be smug for what the Chinese leadership is doing is not much different from what the Trump administration is doing to our country. Mitch McConnell, Lindsey Graham, William Barr and Donald Trump are quite comfortable with the tactics and approaches used by the Chinese government. It is not as if any of them have any concern for the truth, for them like the leaders in China this is about power not truth.
22
We in the United States are dealing with out own "corrupt, thuggish and narcissistic" leadership.
29
Missing in all this is the matter of where almost all of these emergent viruses (flu, SARS, corona virus) first appear in human populations, large scale livestock markets or places where livestock are held in close proximity to humans. Check me on this and draw your own conclusions.
5
Thank you so much for the article. Everything applies to my government down South
9
The ancient Rome wasn’t built overnight but during many centuries, through the trials, errors and advances.
Seven decades ago, our world came to the brink of nuclear annihilation over something incredibly stupid - the best path toward the just and fair society.
There were two trajectories, one from the very right and the other from the very left.
One started from the oligarchic capitalism without any worker rights or social benefits. The other originated from the Stalinist dictatorship.
Both sides have been improving over the decades.
The capitalism added the Social Security programs, Medicare and Medicaid in the thirties.
Tito’s socialism ended the state ownership of corporations and replaced it with the social one. It chose independent way forward without alliance to Moscow by creating the non-aligned movement.
America responded by allowing the worker pension funds to be invested into the corporate ownership, thus basically having those be socially owned in some way.
In the meantime, both the USSR and Yugoslavia collapsed. Beijing promptly adjusted its course.
The socialism in China added the market economy and private corporate ownership.
Now there are the strong attempts in America to dismantle the critical social safety net after the end of Cold War.
Suddenly the Scandinavian countries have grabbed the lead in this race.
We don’t need the wars to decide the outcome but the decades of peaceful evolution.
4
Trump and XI....great minds think alike.
11
None of what China has done should surprise anyone. China is a totalitarian state that controls every aspect of its citizen’s lives—think Big Brother in 1984. The ruling communist party must always put on a good face for its citizens and the rest of the world.
5
Soon they'll require everyone to wear 'fitness' device to monitor each person's temperature to identify potentially infected people.
1
We have to stop the march of Trump to a dictatorship. I have lived in East Europe for half of my life, and I can only deeply bow in deepest respect to Prof. Xu for his bravery. China is an embodiment of Orwell's "1984" and this is what our "dear leader" looks to as a model for us.
17
“Meanwhile, the Communist Party instinctively organized a cover-up, ordering the police to crack down on eight doctors accused of trying to alert others to the risks. National television programs repeatedly denounced the doctors as rumormongers.”
The question is, what was their motivation to do so?
Although no one has proven the virus was engineered in the Wuhan lab while performing immunotherapy research, no one has disproven it either.
1
@J House
Although no one has proven that I engineered Covid-19, no one has disproven it either.
8
@Lisa Simeone
While that is true, one also has to assume you don't have a level 4 containment facility at your residence, nor is there any evidence the virus originated in your city. We can also assume you weren't performing experiments with corona viruses, as they were in Wuhan. We can also rule out that the SARS corona virus leaked from your facility in the past, whereas in China, that is an unfortunate fact.
2
Because there was no funding going forward, the U.S. department that handles global pandemics was recently forced to shut down. In view of what we've been witnessing in China this seems like one of the more unwise decisions of the present administration.
As the Climate Crisis worsens, it's predicted we'll be seeing more and more of these worldwide diseases for which there'll be no previous inoculation, so it would be most prudent of the new administration next year to provide funding for the department meant to handle these threats. Yet one more imperative reason to vote Trump out.
11
Thanks for publicizing Professor Xu Zhangrun’s courageous stance.
Until his sensible demands for free speech and democracy in mainland China are met, the whole world is at risk from the CCP’s endless capacity for bungling.
It’s worth a reference in the same context to the plight of Hong Kong and Taiwan. The thought that the world might acquiesce in allowing this oafish communist tyranny to prevail in these two territories is monstrous.
You say that China is caught between 21st C modernity and 19th C politics. Make that Han dynasty politics.
3
We tend to forget that there will be paid commentators here on just about any discussion to do with China or Russia. That is just a fact. Their governments have always been aware of the relatively cheap methods of influencing international discussions. In a less ominous fashion I also see different political parties show up here as well.
This is an article/opinion piece about how China, a totalitarian government, dealt with the opening stages of a possible pandemic virus. Comments that switch the conversation to the US are ahead of schedule and suspect. There will be time to discuss Trump's bumbling in the coming months.
The Corona virus is out of the bottle, human nature pulled the cork. Talk about falling life expectancies in the states and rising in China are based snapshots in time. I wouldn't trade places with those folks, no matter how disgusted I am with the clown prince and his inept joker's currently are running our government. Good luck to the planet.
7
@Bill Cullen, Author
I agree with your comments but I do wonder if it is not so much paid commenters but very patriotic students (360,000) and recent immigrants. The "whataboutism" and false narrative is rampant and I do wonder it the NYT, WAPO and other large publications should turn off the comment sections for articles about Russia, China and politics in general. Mostly I think that most comment sections are just a huge time suck that limits reading other articles. If you have ever noticed most Think Tanks don't even have a comment section and for good reason.
1
How could it possibly be surprising to hear Trump parroting Chinese propaganda, it what a toast does, it’s what Trump does.
6
Thank you so much Mr. Kristof. The metaphor could not be clearer.
9
Difficult to see where this goes? Really? It's China. There's FAR too many people and wealth invested in keeping the status quo EXACTLY the way it is to ever effect any change. EVER. If a ground swell of protest does happen, the government will just send in troops from a different province and Tiananmen Square exterminate them. You know I'm right.
2
Trump is doing the same thing to the scientists at NASA, CDC, and the EPA for climate change and guns. Not to mention the DOJ.
15
Is this not the entire history of humanity in a nutshell. A true hero and humanitarian like Li Wenliang does exactly what the whole world would hope and pray one would do given both his knowledge and compassion. In a sane world he would have immediately been listened to; and many lives would have been saved from this horrible disease. Of course we don`t. live in a sane world; do we?! No; instead of doing the right thing; Xi Jinping and the Chinese Communist government silences and punishes him for making China look bad; and raising fears that some horrible outbreak in their midst was posing a major health risk to China and beyond. Politics; not humanity; as usual rules the day. Some time in the future I have no doubt the entire planet will be caught up in some wildfire outbreak like this; where WHO and all the true heroes will be ignored and silenced by some stinking political agenda; and millions and millions will die just like the 1918 Spanish Flu; simply because of insane and evil political agenda that refuses to admit such truth and immediate danger to humanity; because it is inconvenient to some idiot named Xi; Trump; or whoever is in power and wants to hide facts and truth until it is too late. The world may have gotten lucky this time. It seems the worst may have past. Next time we may not be so lucky unless morons in power listen to a hero like Li Wenliang.
6
You criticize China for having doctors, working in a desperate, medical emergency, putting on diapers.
Here in the wonderful, 21st century democracy of the good ol' USA, where the government nevvvvvver lies to its people, our system forces truck drivers to wear diapers as they work so that Amazon packages can be delivered in one day instead of two.
Some helluva contrast. Speaking of outstanding government responsibility to its citizens... how's Puerto Rico doing?
10
So, this "disappearance" could be why the putative Sen Paul wishes to out the historical "whistle-blower" to have his cohort thugs apply the "final solution" to said whistle-blower. Always thought the Sen. had a malevolent personality given his "leaf raking" tussle with his neighbor. The Sen. should resign, he's out of hie ability wheelhouse, just like the WH.
10
Hmmmm. Looking to politicize scientific research...curtail free speech...eliminate a free press....develop a personality cult....
The Chinese replace the name of their leader with ours in protest articles..... Looks like you’re doing the exact opposite and...I suspect that you are knowingly doing this.
1
I think it's worth nothing that many Chinese came to accept their lack of liberty and freedoms so as to insure safety and order. I think they perceived it as a social contract of some type. We'll keep out opinions to ourselves. We'll do as you say, without question. You keep us healthy and safe. The Coronavirus has shown that the government is not really holding up their end of the bargain. I think that Chinese citizens are realizing now, that just as Ben Franklin once suggested; 'those that give up liberty in the name of safety will probably lose both and deserve neither.'
I mention this here, now, because it seems to me that many Americans are going down this very road now*. Giving up essential rights - theirs and/or others - for the illusion of safety. trump was elected on this premise and will continue to sell this vision in 2020.
How very tragic.
*trump can't be blamed for everything...The Patriot Act is where it all started to unravel, methinks.
7
China is a Potemkin village. Chinese people intuitively understand there are unchanging moral principles that should form the basis of all human conduct. However they seem to place a premium on group rights as opposed to individual rights as the foundation of the social contract.
2
Are we that much better? I recall that some years ago, at North Carolina State University, a professor who called attention to an infectious agent was roundly condemned by the political authorities, personally abused, and maybe fired. (I don't recall all details; I think the germ was some type of listeria.) Ultimately she was proven correct and her work was accepted, but it took a long time.
These abuses will happen anywhere that people in power feel threatened; they aren't limited to the evil Communists, though we like to gloat that they are.
9
Surprised Trump talks the same?? No one should be as he would do the same. Just look how he screwed up that hurricane hitting Alabama, changed the map and told NOAA to be quite.
7
I have no argument with any of the points made by Mr. Kristof.
However, I should like to comment on one misconception:
Mr. Kristof cites an open-access peer-reviewed article in Viruses
https://www.mdpi.com/1999-4915/11/3/210
from about a year ago predicting the outbreak and various hot spots.
Does Mr. Kristof think that politicians anywhere, anytime, will relate to such articles quickly and efficiently. Note the rapid timeline of publication of the journal article. Governments can barely sneeze that fast. Even if picked up in the Chinese scientific community and accepted, and that is always a question and takes time, governments tend to act slowly on journal publications (if at all).
All governments should have a greater connection to what goes on and is published in the scientific world, but the speed there is beyond the ken of politicians.
I do not write this as an apologia for the Chinese; they screwed it up enough even without this, just to put things in perspective.
8
Who knew? China opened a new university every week for years. No wonder they're getting ahead of us, in spite of their communist dictatorship. Meanwhile, here in the USA we adopt "stupid" as a governing philosophy. Rome burns.
18
Not few weeks,months but a full one year ago China’s communist regime were informed about possible new virus outbreak but it was ignored and communists tried to silence the virologists instead calling them as rumormongers. That’s what wrong in most nations where idiots are ruling them and looting public treasuries left & right,sometimes for political reasons,sometimes for pocket interests investing in related industries before their stocks jumps up. Inside informations have helped many leaders in all over the world make hundreds of thousands of bucks and many in millions through earliest first hand informations since last 7 to 10 decades.
2
Any one-party system is doomed… There must be an opposition party...A legal and legitimate second or third party...A one-party system necessarily needs a secret police...Oppression and all that good ole Soviet stuff...It don’t work...It can never work...Xi has a future in history’s dustbin...
4
@Corn fed City Boy Tell than to Trump and his cultists.
5
@Corn fed City Boy The Trump cult are todays Stalinists.
5
What a distorted and shameful report!
1
Dictatorships and all authoritarian/communist governments will always lie. They are incompetent and corrupt, that’s what they do. Go figure when they have to manage a new virus outbreak like the one we’re witnessing now. Well said Nicholas. I don’t know what the NY Times would be without you.
4
"Corrupt, thuggish and narcissistic leadership." Surely you are writing about King Trump.
8
When oppressive governments consistently lie and hide/coverup the truth, it is nearly impossible to be given the benefit of the doubt by their own people in a crisis; the very time a society must work together for solutions that will save lives
4
Professor Xu is a brave man, indeed...I hope you get a Chinese language version up soon...
4
At least Xu Zhangrun won't have to face a Trump tweet storm like his 'fake news' would have earned here.
6
Nominate Dr. Li for the Nobel Peace Prize.
8
Our despot idiopath hates whistleblowers, truth-tellers, and anyone who is not under His laughable and hypnotic spell.
With me so far?
China’s despot Xi almost sounds functional by comparison.
6
Chernobyl redux.
5
"Citizens can’t denounce Xi by name, but they are skilled in evading censors — such as by substituting President Trump’s name for Xi’s."
Kill two birds with one stone ...
10
@ejb Roger Stone
A Nobel Prize nomination seems proper.
2
‘I Cannot Remain Silent’ -- a nice quotation of L.N. Tolstoy, 1908.
Sorry, if this comment is redundant and the author attributes it to the Tolstoyan source -- the article text disappears on my screen a few seconds after opening it.
1
The problem with an authoritarian regime like China's ,if we are stupid enough to re-elect Trump give up the House and Senate we will have a dictatorship with a blowhard like Trump who is a pathological liar and sociopathe albeit with a booming stock market til it crashes.
5
Dictators hate whistleblowers.
7
Oh my Kristof, wonder how your familial associations feel about this, You have been one of the foremost proponent of Chinese style governance. Back peddling now???
1
There is no difference between the incompetence and immorality of Chinese leadership’s handling of corona virus and our government’s handling of climate change.
8
It has become so fashionable to criticize China that even our better journalists have gotten on the bandwagon. A country that has destroyed Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, and Syria and that practiced slavery for 200 years ought to cut other countries some slack.
10
What ever the reason, we need to do everything we can to help. This is a world threat and not just a China threat. "Give peace a chance." ... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C3_0GqPvr4U
4
China, and now the world, has its deadly virus killing thousands. We have our Trumposis, aborting the brains of millions here, and soon the world? Indifference, arrogance and populace stupidity ensure catastrophic decline in humans, if not humanity.
4
Uh oh, come on NYT blind follower lefties, you know what the below comment means, just like Putin, Xi must have "the goods" on Trump! Sounds like Trump is a "puppet" of the Xi regime, and I bet they're colluding as we speak! When Trump wins the next election I'm now betting that $100K in Facebook ads generated by China will be the cause of the Dem's loss! "It’s thus strange to find Trump repeating Xi’s talking points: “I spoke with President Xi,” Trump said, “and they’re working very, very hard, and I think it’s going to all work out fine.”
2
A warning to trump cult members, no? I hope this rings a bell for republicans, who attack whistleblowers as traitors to trump.
When someone says they can no longer stay silent, at great danger to themselves if they speak, they deserve to be heard without being torn to shreds by partisan jackals.
At this point, republicans want to prosecute America's prosecutors! They want to reward the dirty trickster Roger Stone's smarmy lies, while smearing Lt. Col. Vindman. Not only will they willingly vilify patriots like Taylor and Vindman, they do it while pouring out adulation on......Rudy.
This doctor is dead now. Too bad he had to die in ignominious regard. Stop shooting the messengers!
Oh, also, let's ask trump how well-funded the CDC is, or what plan there currently is to quarantine and prepare. Just asking. He'll tell us he's got it all under perfect control, and his followers will become furious if anyone asks further.
trumpies are getting more North Korean by the day, what with their unquestioned dearleader!
7
Chernobyl and the CPUSSR.
Coronavirus and Xi.
Trump and the “Republican Party”.
Pick your disaster...
7
Once again, I am nonplussed by the number of comments here which juxtapose the situation in the United States with that in China, as if there is any equivalency between our system of government and that of Beijing, and between the freedoms and opportunities we enjoy.
Sure, things in the United States are far from perfect. But unlike Chinese citizens, we in the US can vote every two years to change our leaders; we are free to travel anywhere we like; we are free to speak our minds, organize ourselves to protest, and have unlimited access to information from around the globe; we are not surveilled by central state authorities, and our freedoms are not limited willy nilly on the basis of whether or not those authorities perceive our behaviour as hostile to the state.
In other words, we here in the USA are not born into a totalitarian system of government.
Most importantly, the United States is, has been and will remain a beacon of hope to people around the world who are looking for a better life. Foreigners seem to have a FAR better sense of our political system and the opportunities we enjoy to change our elected representatives and laws.
By contrast, foreigners are NOT lining up to get entrance visas to live in China.
6
Yep. Regardless of where Trump’d like to take the country, anybody who thinks we’re just as bad as everybody else seriously needs to get out more.
1
Why are the Chinese so brilliant in their opposition? I don't think the Occupy Wall Street ever reached the Hong Kong protest power. There is a big cultural difference. I have personally experienced the willingness of Chinese -- here in the US -- to be bold and courageous politically. Where white people don't. I don't know where its from but it is amazing and inspiring and points to a good future.
4
@Rich
Its from being born into a totalitarian system of life. The Chinese KNOW what they do not have.
3
Trump is a Xi in training. He’d love nothing more than to be the Supreme and Almighty Leader he so covets and admires in others. All of his rhetoric about the Press being “ the ENEMY of the PEOPLE” and the purging of truth tellers like Vindman is his minor league attempts to see how far he can go towards winning the prize of Almighty Leader.
9
@PS
I don't believe that China has a house and senate that is able to impeach Mr. Xi. In other words, hyperbole is not an adequate substitute for rational argumentation.
2
“Rage against injustice; let your lives burn with a flame of decency; break through stultifying darkness and welcome the dawn.” — Xu Zhangrun
May this brave man’s words reach all the way into the hearts of the Republicans in the U.S. Senate.
7
How darkly ironic that one way Chinese citizens, who wish to denounce Xi’s policies, are able to “evade the censors” is by “substituting President Trump’s name for Xi’s.” That both man share the same authoritarian instincts is clear and that Trump would praise Xi’s (mis)handling of this health disaster is unsurprising. Although Xi is able to render brave dissidents like Professor Xu “incommunicado,” which Trump cannot do (yet), Trump is able to use the power of the presidency to lie, insult and fire his opponents and harness the right wing media to treat demonstrable facts as “fake news.”
The Chinese may have “The One,” and the North Koreans their “Dear Leader,” but we now have a man who more and more wants to be referred to as “The Chosen One.” God help us if we don’t vote him out next November. VOTE!
6
to the author: great informative article w/sources!
5
Please never tell me that I am being treated by a doctor who's wearing a diaper so as not to have had to go to the bathroom for the past 36 hours.
2
..."Meanwhile, the Communist Party instinctively organized a cover-up, ordering the police to crack down on eight doctors accused of trying to alert others to the risks. National television programs repeatedly denounced the doctors as rumormongers.
One of those eight doctors, Li Wenliang, caught the virus and died — causing public outrage. Some Chinese make the point that if Li had been in charge of China, rather than President Xi Jinping, many lives might have been saved."...
2
Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, Director General of the World Health Organization and former health minister of Ethiopia, who cut HIV/AIDS and malaria rates in Ethiopia and stemmed the Ebola crisis, said of China's response on the coronavirus:
"China “doesn’t need to be asked to be praised” for its efforts to contain the spread of the virus...China has done many good things to slow down the virus, the whole world can judge. There is no spinning here."
Of President Xi Jinping:
"You know we always ask for political commitment, political leadership. That's what we have seen (in President Xi),"
Tedros added that his comments were not merely personal, but that they represented the view of the WHO.
He said one British board member of the agency characterised the Chinese decision to lock down Wuhan, a city of 11 million, as “heroic”. (https://www.scmp.com/news/china/science/article/3050351/coronavirus-who-head-stands-his-praise-china-and-xi-jinping)
So who would you rather trust? Head of a neutral international organization and an experienced public health expert, one who actually traveled to China and seen the response first hand? Or the New York Times, which in my living memory has never published anything positive about the Chinese government.
Ah, yes, those picky, picky, picky fascists at the NYT—picky about the Cultural Revolution and a couple million dead, picky about Tienanmin Square, picky about the invasion of Tibet, picky about the internment of a million or so Uighurs, picky about China’s gawdawful air quality. Even picky about Xi’s lying.
Picky, picky, picky.
5
It begins to look like Chernobyl in China.
6
Minor point: the genetic material of coronaviruses is actually RNA, not DNA.
5
Chinese money and the lust for Chinese business can buy a lot of silence.
Preach, Nick. Preach.
3
Mr Kristof's opinion pieces exemplify in their very essence contradiction--Marxist, Hegelian, Kantian, Epimenidean, and his very own brand of Kristofian abjectness and confusion: self-negating, self-discounting, self-deceiving, self-licking fragments of white patrician web mendacity. Among other things, Mr. Kristof recycles clearly debunked myths about the Chinese response--that it was slow, incompetent, or covered up--not one of these assertions bears honest scrutiny:https://www.unz.com/article/how-to-yellow-cake-a-tragedy/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kO5EXjFKE7U
Other howlers: he projects US flaws and incompetence onto China. The US is led by zealous lawyers and ambitious businessmen; scientists are a bothersome, upstart trade guild. This is why it took the US 6 months to declare an emergency for the San Diego H1N1 A Virus, which claimed 150,000 to 575,000 dead. In the China, the "scientists and technocrats" that he lauds, but thinks are marginalized, actually ARE the political class in China. That's why they are breaking new ground in epidemiological response" (according to the WHO), as well as beating the US hands down in every category of human welfare: with a per capita GDP at only one fifth of the US's, they already surpass the US in healthy life expectancy. and have practically eradicated poverty.
3
And trump repeats xi’s lies....
Is there a club? We know trump is ignorant and full of distrust, but his fellow autocrats always get favorable treatment.
What’s the matter with this picture?
How can so many Americans casually accept his malfeasance? Are we that gullible? Why is he accepted and trusted by so many?
5
Xi Jinping and Donald Trump are both as much exemplars of the vagaries of winning the human genetic daddy lottery as is Queen Elizabeth II.
Xi is the princeling son of a Chinese Long March legend father who was raised then purged by Mao Zedong before being resurrected by Deng Xiaoping.
Xi Jinping once led a collective term limited leadership before he proclaimed the Mandate of Heaven of a Chinese Emperor and the Cult of Personality of Chairman Mao Zedong to reign and rule until his natural death.
Xi is the first Chinese leader since Mao Zedong whose thoughts are deemed worthy of study by members of the Chinese Communist Party and the first Chinese Core Leader since Deng Xiaoping.
Because Xi has no political nor governing peers he can only punch down and look cowardly and weak by blaming underlings and/or make his collective former partners like Premier Li Kejianq and Foreign Minister Wang Yi run and speak interference for him.
Donald Trump was the second son of a New York City real estate baron daddy whose wealth saved him from his sustained serial business bankruptcies and defaults. Trump played a successful businessman on reality TV.
But the coronavirus is a lot smarter and wiser than both men. While sharing the innate inability of both men to express and show any humble human empathy for any of their fellow human beings fears of coronavirus and to effectively deal with it.
7
It is about time that people here accept the fact that China is a brutal dictatorship. China is also engaging in a soft war on the United States, engaging in massive theft of our technology. They use our Universities as conduits for a one way information flow from the US to China (see Harvard). We are too distracted from our own stupid political infighting to defend ourselves. Wake up!
4
It's difficult to know whether the corona virus is really more severe than a normal virus because there is no way to get accurate numbers of cases. Undoubtedly many people do not go to the doctor. However, recently it was reported that 1700 healthcare workers had contracted the virus and of those 1700, 6 had died. For this group the death rate was 0.3%, which is more that what occurs for a normal influenza, but not that much. This suggests that the fear surrounding this virus are really not based on rational information.
I suppose, the governments and their corporate owners are really worried about what it will do to the economy. They can't stand any money getting away from them.
1
The real danger in pieces like this is that they foster complacency borne of perceived superiority. If we take a look in the mirror, it should be clear that we would not have done better, and unless we start preparing in earnest, are unlikely to do better when Covid arrives in any real numbers. What this doctor orders is a large dose of humility.
3
If I owned a company with ties to China (manufacturing there for example) I would certainly rethink whether it's worth the risk to keep it there. This will a game-changer for China IMHO. The risk of working with China may not be worth it and even if it is there are ethical considerations. This is a country whose leadership cannot be trusted to say or to do the right thing. Does that sound familiar?
5
I think we should all be wary of jumping on the anti-China train. In the way most of the world only deals with emergencies and crisis, not in true and systematic planning, most countries would display the same behavior as the Chinese government. The USA also mishandled the AIDS epidemic. The USA also treats whistle-blowers very badly. Ideally, we should all find a way to help now and plan for the world in which weather and infectious disease see no borders.
7
Politicians around the world are way behind the curve of science.
5
As trump and Xi prove repeatedly, power does not confer wisdom, the ability to govern well, or concern for one’s country. Power ultimately confers only the fear of losing power—the result of which is folly, bad governance, and widespread destruction.
8
The Chinese military junta--like all fascist autocracies--cannot allow any form of free speech, and will never allow a Bill of Rights in China that guarantees such.
The Chinese junta will never allow free speech and a free press, because they are frightened such basic freedoms would shatter the illusions they have created and forced upon the Chinese people.
It is a very sad thing to witness in the 21st century--especially when a doctor who tries to warn everyone of a dangerous pathogen is arrested and silenced.
3
@SAJP We have a Bill of Rights, or at least we used to. What good has it done against corrupt, thuggish and narcissistic leadership?
6
@SAJP: Power is the only thing worth living for, apparently, and that means other people must be crushed.
1
@Curry: The Bill of Rights is actually a list of limitations to Congressional employment of powers delegated to it in Arcticle I of the Constitution. It does not list or enumerate any rights or powers the people have withheld from the government altogether.
1
Most unfortunately, leadership in the USA is starting to
resemble China's.
13
Kristoff hits this one out of the park!
5
There is now a headline here on the NYT website asserting that Xi knew about the corona virus almost two weeks before acknowledging it publicly. So the most disturbing aspect of China’s censorship is not simply the violation of civil liberties, but that government control of media is obscuring critical information, and promoting propaganda that doesn’t meet scientific facts.
6
It is now revealed AGAIN that China is barely a second rate nation that cannot keep its people safe..but has a military of great strength with a government that is decayed, unstable and corrupt. It is the real paper tiger of the world.
It pretends to be first tier among nations. It struts on the world stage with a third rate costume that only fools and flatters itself
4
I am looking forward to Chinese Premiere Xi and the US President meeting both wearing masks.
5
President Xi seeks to be a president for life and supports an autocracy. He seeks to pull his country backwards. Many of his countrymen are in revolt and call out the government for its ineptitude. Unable to criticize hm by name, they substitute our president's name for Xi's.
The parallels to our own government are legion. And if and when COVID-19 gets a foothold in America, the outcome will be nearly the same and the underlying ineptitude of our government will be laid bare (again).
Science matters. Truth matters. No red hat is a protection from a virus.
12
You can also make this statement about the loss of democracy in the United States under the current tyranny of Trump: “Rage against injustice; let your lives burn with a flame of decency; break through stultifying darkness and welcome the dawn.” Let's at least vote to get rid of the evil in our own corrupt government, White House and Senate.
9
The Chinese people criticize “ the corrupt, thuggish and narcissistic leadership” of their Dictatorship. That sounds like the “leadership” of the US under the Trump Dictatorship.
7
Dr. Li is a hero to all people, especially the Chinese people he tried so hard to protect. No matter how true something is, the bearer of bad news is too often punished.
15 Feb 2020, 1:14 PM MST
9
In Xi we have a dear leader as caring for the nation as our own. And yes, I am being sarcastic.
7
Nick, What took you 20 years to realize that China is in more than one way a PLAGUE?
3
Silence first, followed by denials, followed by attacks on the science, followed by intimidation, followed by arrests, followed by disappearances, is The Chinese Way.
6
The population density of this Petri dish we live in called planet Earth has reached a critical mass; aided by transportation (and to some extent communication) which will make events like this more and more common. We simply must reduce this planet's population. Once our population is reduced, many other headline crises will drop by the wayside. Wake up!
4
I'm not sure if I agree or disagree with this opinion, as in all things there are two sides to the story, yes china can be painted as the evil actor in this drama -however my thoughts are if we look at it in black-and-white and the Chinese are the bad guys and America is a good guy where does that get us
I'd rather look at the black and white Of American politics and think
So you can accuse China of being a fascist country but what do you say to our own politics
The Justice Department and the president endorsing criminals and persecuting patriots
Does this bring us back to the fascist government of Germany and Italy of the 1930s ,
Does this lead us to the end of the Roman empire and beginning of the imperial empire in Rome.
The same things that happened in Greece during the Peloponnesian war are now occurring in America ---Athens did many of the same things with populous governments, where the leaders were not educated and using populist movements
Which caused the end of the Athenian Empire until now-- it is not recovered
6
Let's remember, America is home to the worlds preeminent medical virologist, Donald J Trump. As he has often repeated "He alone can stop the coronavirus". I for one will go back to bed knowing that there is absolutely no chance that anyone in America will contact the coronavirus. And just like climate change, impeachment and the Mueller Report, it is just another Chinese witch hunting for a hoax.
9
I pray that Chinese citizens are able to take back their country.
3
“Rage against injustice; let your lives burn with a flame of decency; break through stultifying darkness and welcome the dawn.”
Nice advice for every American, not just the Chinese.
10
Good for you Nick, you nailed this one
2
Kristof writes: "Ordinary Chinese see through government propaganda..." I wish this were true in our country.
8
This is all outrageous, but Americans should pay attention to another example of Trump's legitimizing a dictator - even North Korea's homicidal ruler enjoyed Trump's accolades. If voters tolerate this behavior that flies in the face of the values of this country, they don't deserve to live in a democracy. And if they keep at it, they probably soon won't live in one...
6
Xi's blame shifting suggests he understands how vulnerable he is—possibly the CCP as well—if the this thing really goes south.
3
Are we certain that Dr. Wenliang died of the virus? He looked like a young man. Aren't the elderly and babies most at risk?
1
Thanks for an informative commentary Mr Kristoff.
Just a quick note re: Chinese scientist sequencing the Coronavirus DNA . I think you meant RNA.
2
I’m a fan of your writing and ideas but to say “doctors “ only not inclusive of nurses and other healthcare workers is not accurate
4
Mr. Kristof,
We have a virulent diseases in the United States and too
many people are remaining silent.
We have the diseases of hatefulness, corruption, dishonesty and immorality and it has infected our government from the president to cabinet to republican party. These diseases are rapidly destroying our democracy, our morality, our world standing.
There are many people who know what is happening and should be speaking out -- and some have bravely told the truth like Lt. Col. Vindman, Fiona Hill, Marie Yovanovitch.
They did this at peril or discrimination, harassment and bodily harm to them or their family.
Where are the others who should be screaming the truth?
John Bolton how can you be silent - to sell your book?
John Kelly you waited a long time to say very little.
All republicans - you know the full truth and you are silent.
So there is no cure for this dangerous illness destroying our democracy until people who know the truth start telling all the know. Sadly, these people are all cowards and our country is on its way authoritarianism.
So, Mr. Kristof your message about the lies and dangers from Chinese government is completely applicable to the lies and dangers from our government.
Besides translation into Chinese, publish it on Fox news and Breitbart and put a copy in every Republican's mailbox.
8
Perhaps this reflects the present divide in this country, but my reaction to this story was it demonstrated clearly why communism and its little brother socialism are failed systems. Then I read the comments and it is all about Trump, his cutting of CDC budget or his call with President Xi that " it will all work out fine". What would you have him say, that it is hopeless and we are all going to die? He has to be positive in order not to create a panic. And cutting the CDC budget or any government service does not mean you want the unchecked spread of virus. It simply means that our government needs trimming and that the solution to all problems is not necessarily more money. Which brings me to a final point, Sanders the leading Democratic candidate is the socialist candidate and a takeover of all of our healthcare by Medicare for all. In light of coronavirus, do you think that is a solution or a problem?
1
More misplaced Trump bashing. Why do most articles that have nothing to do with Trump end up bashing him?
1
@James
Because his corruption, cowardice, hypocrisy, viciousness, ignorance, and brutality affect everything in this country.
10
@James Ricciardi "That situation is not as bad as the one which prevails in the US under Trump."
Right on! It continues to amaze me how many comments here extol the virtues of US democracy when there is ZERO democracy in the US and healthcare is a national disgrace and being made even worse the Trump and the entire GOP. In fact the US has become so corrupt and so racist that Trump is now a dictator and has already destroyed the Constitution, the rule of law and democracy. He and Barr have totally corrupted the Justice Department, selectively absolving criminals who are Trump's friends, and targeting Trump's perceived enemies for prosecution. This makes America the richest banana republic in history!
"Trump's social media policy which is 21st century."
Yes, social media is Trump's 21st Century propaganda machine and coupled with Faux Noise the US now has a world-class propaganda machine that rivals the one in Russia. Trump uses social media for all it's worth (and so did the Russians on Trump's behalf in 2015) and he uses it to distract, to spread malicious lies and to fan the flames of racism, hate and division.
Trump is a walking Molotov cocktail and it was those Americans so full of hate who decided to vote for him so that he could destroy America for them. Trump is doing exactly what they wanted.
9
Not at all strange to hear Donald John Trump repeating the Xi talking points. It’s what he does as he wants the same ridiculous adulation.
9
I am more worried about the Hepatitis A coverup by the Florida Health Department. Last year three people died within 5 miles of me and they said “wash your hands”. Even though the Sheriff offered to help they did not investigate. This year the paper says someone died in December or January but the Health people say privacy laws keep them from saying anything. At least China admits people died. The Patriots owner sex scandal is covered in excruciating Ken Starr detail but they won’t do anything or admit anything about a deadly disease.
4
"More recently, Xi has tugged China backward, stifling social media and journalism while cultivating something approaching a North Korea-style personality cult around himself."
There's a lot of that going around these days. All over the world.
7
articles like this and almost 99% of any article or news have a perpetual anti-Trump bias, even while denouncing Xi Ji Ping u have managed to criticize and denounce President Trump for saying encouraging words to Chinese if he would have criticized u would have called him unsympathetic or undiplomatic.
articles and editorials like these Is one of the key reasons I do not subscribe to NY times at all.
@mukut
I'm confused. You say you don't subscribe to the NYT yet you read it. Why do you read it?
7
The United States is not far behind China with the Trump administration's ineptitude. Can you imagine an emergency of this scale and how the Trump administration and Republicans, who don't believe in science, would deal with it? I have no doubt there would be cover-ups and lies.
9
"The One himself is clueless." Is it any wonder then that Trump is repeating Xi's talking points?
Give Xi some credit though. At least he didn't claim that the moon was actually once a part of Mars...
5
Still waiting for the brave voices from inside our Justice, Treasury and State Departments, to inoculate America from Trumpism.
7
Interesting... the Chinese people are demanding a more direct democracy responsible to the people, while Americans, in cult-like fashion, support a would-be dictator.
8
trump hasn’t said a word about the coronavirus. Scary!
2
Why would you say that its "strange" for trump to applaud Xi? He loves dictators...he wants to be one when he grows up.
7
Mr Kristof...not a single compassionate word about the Chinese who died, who may well still die? Not a word of compassion for the Chinese who are sick? Not a a supportive word for the Chinese fighting this virus in the hospitals...in the streets...in the neighborhoods?
I get it. China's governance is not to our liking...but we lose our humanity and our sentience because of our dislike and ideological disagreement.
I expected better of you.
4
Who is providing MASKS for the Brave Doctors treating the CORONA VIRUS epidemic in China?
3
Thank you Nicholas.
3
From the comments, it sounds like Kristof is guilty of not criticizing Trump and/or the US enough in order to present a balanced view.
1
It’s thus strange to find Trump repeating Xi’s talking points: “I spoke with President Xi,” Trump said, “and they’re working very, very hard, and I think it’s going to all work out fine.”
Indeed, fine. 1,383 dead; 64,000 infected. Two dictators endangering all humans on this planet. Happy 2020.
8
Xu wrote. “Although everyone looks to The One for the nod of approval, The One himself is clueless.”
Wow. Just substitute two words:
“Although his base looks to The One for the nod of approval, The One himself is clueless.”
And we've got Trump and America!
Sad that Trump and the GOP have descended to the level of the Chinese Communist Party.
8
My patriotic duty is to recognize our weakest points and define them so we have the chance to eliminate them if we wish so.
3
Both the #1 and #2 economic and political heavyweights of the planet are 'lead' (I use the term loosely) by incompetent dysfunctionals. Climate change has its camel nose under the tent wall of the entire planet.
The stock market keeps going higher.
Tremendous disconnects are operating.
4
Our clueless emperor gave away rolls of paper towels to hurricane survivors in Puerto Rico to the applause of his "base".
How's that any different than Xi?
8
This is a brave voice, just like our republican senators' brave voices!
3
"It’s thus strange to find Trump repeating Xi’s talking points"
Disturbing, yes. Strange, no. Trump admires dictators and wants to be one himself. He demands that same sort of fealty from those around him. Praise is only for him, not for the people who actually make policy and do the work.
8
I think coronavirus will be China's Chernobyl - China's leadership has been exposed for what they are, just as the Soviet Union's was.
4
Maybe it is high time for a good article on why people should not travel on cruise ships and how bad they are for the environment?
4
Here’s how political opponents can stand up and attack Republican policies : Trump’s devastating cuts to Medicaid will yield a reservoir of poor people in central cities in which a virus of this kind can easily begin and then quickly threaten the health of us all, even those in gated communities.
8
The pandemic is a wakeup call to us all. There are medical pandemics. Social pandemics. Racial pandemics. Environmental pandemics. Political pandemics. Moral pandemics. One is currently in China. The rest are in the USA.
7
“China’s mishandling of the coronavirus outbreak has imperiled itself and the world because it is a land of 21st-century science and 19th-century politics.”
And a minus 100th century BC food safety system.
Wild animals in cages at food markets. Sell and slaughter to go.
This is the breeding ground for the next global Plague.
7
@Toms Quill
You think factory farming is any better? Research CAFOs and the hideousness therein.
3
This assessment corresponds to what I've seen on Al Jeezera. The medical people and scientists are doing a good job, but the politicians are panicking.
There is good reason to panic. 1. economic fallout: No one wants to lose big GDP and have angry workers. This is especially true in China where the deal is no say in governance, high levels of obvious corruption (more than we have here) in exchange for raising living standards. 2. A few billion people in mass panic would/will be very very ugly.
Local officials went into denial, central government officials went into denial...until they couldn't.
If we had a good functioning government we would be mobilizing everything we could to help China contain this virus. Laughing at the guy down the street is stupid when that misfortune can easily come and visit us.
4
Au contraire, it's not at all strange for Trump to be repeating Xi's words. It is expected. And reading posters here attack Nick for criticizing China shows the extent to which Trump has normalized the use of the big lie in this country - to protect one's own position - even those who grudgingly admit it's wrong shrug it off. Trump is normalizing corruption in government every day he continues in office and gets away with his lies.
8
Communist Chinese statistics are notoriously resilient. And all over China the populace are beginning to realize that its time for them to speak truth to authority, who are guilty of a cover up. Its also an eyeopener for America too. We cannot allow our Senators and President to get away with a coverup.
6
You got one thing right. Silencing doctors and scientists is unquestionably wrong. Even using a Sharpie does not make it ok.
But, the idea that American are really more free is laughable. The genius of the ruling elite in America is that they have managed to convince Americans that they are getting what they wanted, what they voted for, that they are free. Never mind that what they get is not in their best interests. And the tool that they wield so effectively is, of course, fear. So, in the Land of Freedom and Wealth , we incarcerate more people than any other nation, we bomb and destroy countries without justification, we torture, we have no sick days, we elected Trump. But it's fine, it's better, it's democracy, the people have spoken! Laughable.
I have been perplexed by how much Americans, left or right, loathe China. How important it is to imagine Chinese citizens as slaves yearning for American freedom. I think I understand. If they are more successful at anything, lowering mortality, improving standard of living, it threatens our mental house of cards. It would be worse if average Chinese citizens could actually enjoy their prosperity instead of serving as beasts of burden to enrich a brutal elite(you know writing this makes me think of another country). Why would I put up with NYC's filthy subways and the need to work 3 jobs if I didn't have it better? If I didn't imagine those poor Chinese, gagged and whipped like chattel. Wake up and rise up America!
10
@Student
Wonderful, thoughtful, accurate comment.
Thank you
4
@Student No one is forcing you to live in NYC and work three jobs. If you find it so disagreeable there are many good colleges in smaller cities that are very nice.
Although Democracies do have problems you only have to look online for any Freedom Index Rating to realize that true democratic countries are rated highest (Looking at you New Zealand) and get progressively worse the more authoritarian a country is. Yes, the U.S. has slipped recently (#15) but it is alot more free than China (#126). And if you think that Americans loathe China because of racism I think you only have to look at Hong Kong (#3) or Taiwan (#19) and realize they are on the front lines of pushing back against China.
No sick days? Even McDonalds has paid sick days. You just need to combine your three jobs into one and get more hours.
And yes we do have a problem with incarceration rates and that is bad on us but did you know that China executes in three days what the U.S. does in a year. They execute more than all other countries combined. (Amnesty International). You have heard what is going on in Xinjiang with the Uyghurs right?
And Chinese don't think of themselves as "beasts of burden" for their country or ours.
2
I was talking to a young Chinese professional in Shanghai who referred to China as a “happy “ prison. I had to chuckle. Happy for some.
1
Mr. Kristof writes: "More recently, Xi has tugged China backward, stifling social media and journalism while cultivating something approaching a North Korea-style personality cult around himself."
I'm puzzled. Why go all the way to North Korea for an example?
5
There may be not a few of us, here in the United States, who suspect that Donald Trump might feel quite at home in China.
7
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/15/world/asia/coronavirus-china-live-updates.html?action=click&module=Top%20Stories&pgtype=Homepage
Here is a link to a story posted Saturday afternoon that Xi was aware of the situation nearly two weeks before publicly addressing the corona virus.
4
This kind of self protection by "leaders" is what we are seeing in the US and will see more of, if the current occupant of the White House is reelected.
6
Dr. Li Wenliang must be recognized in some fashion as the brave and honorable man that he was. What a loss to humanity.
6
Why aren't they using Traditional Chinese Medicine? (Herbs and acupuncture)
They are. Which is scary as traditional Chinese medicine is as evidence based and as effective as homeopathy, prayer, purging, colonic irrigation and other woowoo medicine from the West .
2
I hope the young voting people of America read Xu's statement; to let their lives burn with a flame of decency and vote out corrupt, thuggish and narcissistic leadership. The future belongs to our youth- they must rage againstthe current injustice in our political system for the sake of their future and elect someone who has decency and their inherent interests and future at heart. A leader who cares more about the people and environmental issues than an unsatiable thirst for power and money.
7
I'll not criticize the Chinese government for two reasons: 1) I don't know what it did or didn't do. All I know is what I read. 2) I live in a country where millions of Americans elected and support a lying despot.
9
As someone who has split their time between North America and China for over 20 years I despair of US China relations in reading NYT coverage of the Coronavirus. An air of barely concealed "we told you our system was 'better'" triumphal giddiness almost threatens to overwhelm the one-sided (only the bad please) coverage of this story. If this outbreak had occurred in the US the traditional disaster story arc would have been followed including a heaping helping of the "heroes" of the story bravely addressing the challenge. There is no shortage of those in China the volunteer doctors, nurses and health professionals flocking to Wuhan oblivious of risk to help in the situation. Ordinary citizens helping to build the new hospitals, delivering food to the quarantined. And yes heresy of heresy Chinese government officials from cities across China "twining with cities in Hubei to help get them the resources and support they need. The list is endless. But if your goal is hammering China and its system you like the ever loyal on the geopolitical level US media inflate the negative and ignore the positive. Nothing new in the wider context of the NYT's feverishly, some would say panicky, constant negative China coverage but more than a bit sad to see them going so low as to take advantage of crisis like this to score cheap geopolitical propaganda points by distorting the news of a challenge no government or people could handle smoothly. Oh well, geopolitical imperatives and all that.
32
@Belasco
THANK YOU for this sentence, " An air of barely concealed "we told you our system was 'better'" triumphal giddiness almost threatens to overwhelm the one-sided (only the bad please) coverage of this story."
and.
" Nothing new in the wider context of the NYT's feverishly, some would say panicky, constant negative China coverage but more than a bit sad to see them going so low as to take advantage of crisis like this to score cheap geopolitical propaganda points by distorting the news of a challenge no government or people could handle smoothly."
I am deeply despairing of the NYT's unrelenting bashing of China and Russia.
The US, Democrats and Republicans, and Mr Kristof are so quick to demonize, often thinking violent revolution, complete with the usual death and destruction is the path to "freedom".
At least, Mr. Kristof suggested that the US must have some humility relative to China relative to life span.
But, with the highest rate of incarceration in the world, the US needs much more humility.
The best result of the Trump presidency is that Europe, Russia and China recognize what a flawed world leader the US is and has been, and countries are working together in ways that will ignore and counter the worst US tendencies.
9
Imagine that a coronavirus broke out in the United States. With our healthcare system that's based on making money for the CEOs, those who have no health insurance will be doomed to die without medical help. If such a disease were break out here, we'd have more deaths than the Chinese do now. We'd never be able to quarantine our individualist populace, and that individualist populace would not have access to hospitals. And, with the Trump administration, and Republicans in general, wanting to rid the US of Obamacare and, God forbid, give healthcare to "illegals", we'd be doomed. For those Americans who are against providing healthcare to "illegals", viruses and bacteria don't know the immigration status of humans.
152
@Karen P. If this becomes a pandemic, you won’t have to use your imagination for long.
12
An it seems the the US, under Trump is headed to be land of 19th century science and 16th century politic. The denial of science--so the Chinese can't denounce Xi by name, but EPA staff are prohibited from using the words "climate change" And remember Trump's famous bungled map of Hurricane Dorian, in which Donald insisted Dorian would hit Alabama and then bullied NOAA into backing him up?Silencing over science. Look at Xi, look at Putin. These are the leaders that Trump admires (dare I say envies)? Trump's re-election should carry a warning sticker--Trump is dangerous to the health of our country, our planet and our citizenry.
6
The Chinese know what a problem their government is relative to their health. That is as far as it will go. There is is no will to force a change.
1
We have two far deadlier, intractable, chronic epidemics in the United States. Both continue unabated as a result of a toxic stew of regressive politics and government policy, propaganda and corporate greed:
1. Over 30,000 deaths per year, and tens of thousands more serious, permanent injuries from gunfire, including homicides, suicides and accidents that affect everyone from infants to the elderly.
2. Addiction to opioid drugs, with a similar number of deaths from drug overdose and tens of thousands more lives destroyed by ongoing addiction, with related loss of productivity, domestic violence, suicide and crime.
This may not exonerate the Chinese government from its boneheaded response to the coronavirus outbreak; but I’ve heard it said those who dwell in glass houses should refrain from hurling stones.
7
Chinese scientists did not sequence the virus’s DNA, as it is an RNA virus that replicates without a DNA intermediate. Chinese scientists created a cDNA copy of the viral genome, then sequenced that.
Kristof didn’t mention that China has also decided to violate the patent of a US company, Gilead Sciences, which makes remdesivir, an antiviral that is effective against SARS-CoV-2. Gilead has offered to supply the drug at very low cost.
https://www.fiercepharma.com/pharma-asia/chinese-firm-copies-gilead-s-remdesivir-most-promising-drug-against-new-coronavirus
6
This pandemic could well topple Xi and end the Communist Party's monolithic rule in China. And if it starts felling Americans in any big way, I have very little faith in Trump or his HHS secretary to handle it.
6
Xu is a brave man I hope he is ok..
Sadly, given where we're at we Americans should also heed the advice to:
“Rage against injustice; let your lives burn with a flame of decency; break through stultifying darkness and welcome the dawn.”
4
How clever and astute of the Chinese resistance to avoid censorship by substituting the name Trump for Xi. They are alike on so many levels, fomenting their own sort of contagion.
3
" 'I spoke with President Xi,' Trump said, 'and they’re working very, very hard, and I think it’s going to all work out fine.' "
These folks exemplify brave, principled, patriotic. They are acting on behalf of the wellbeing of their fellow citizens, at unimaginable personal expense. They know all too well what the repercussions will be, and yet they persevere. Their ideals and values are precisely the ones we once championed, before January 2017. Our own present administration is also inept, superficial, corrupt, secretive, dishonest. Their response to Puerto Rico after the hurricanes was incompetent and racist. Our own leader has created his own white nationalist personality cult. One difference is, the Chinese people can see through the machinations of their own leader. I don't find it strange at all to hear our summer soldier and sunshine patriot parroting the words of their autocrat. I feel great sadness for these brave people and their families. Speaking up means prison and torture for the speaker, and poverty and persecution for their families.
3
I am still waiting for a NYT columnist to write about what the US response would be if and when the new coronavirus lands and spreads in the US. Would the US with its « medical care for the lucky ones » system and its anti-« socialism » stance be able to institute policies of containment and universal treatment of a deadly coronavirus pandemic? I strongly doubt the US would fare better than China.
8
It is definitely appropriate to substitute Trump for Xi in condemning the Chinese leader, and your comments on Trump's "strangeness" in using Xi's talking points is to be expected of Trump. Trump has acted like a dictator ever since he came in to office. His MO (Method of Operating) is very similar to Xi's. He rules the country the same way any dictator rules. His goals and demands are loyalty is to himself, not to the welfare of the country. He holds himself above the law. He covers up facts that reflect badly on him to the detriment of our democracy. He lies to make himself look good. He admires dictatorial rule--he wants to have it. He admires dictators--he wants to be like them. He thinks HE is all three branches of our government--tells the legislative and the judicial branch what to do and says he "has every right to do so." (He is clueless to the checks and balances in the Constitution.) In his view of the world "HE IS THE ONE." "ONLY HE CAN DO IT RIGHT." In reality he is also CLUELESS.
5
What frightens me is trump. I’m reading “A Stable Genius,” by Carol Leonnig and Philip Rucker. So what’s the relevance to the coronavirus and Xi. Trump’s extraordinary ignorance. How would he handle an outbreak of the disease here?
Here’s an example of trump’s ignorance. He did not know about Pearl Harbor. Gen. Kelly, trump’s Chief of Staff had to tell him about the Japanese sneak attack.
If his knowledge of world events is so shallow, we are in a lot of trouble if a world crises comes our way.
9
For humanitarian reasons and because what happens in China affects the well-being of people in America and in countries around the world, we must care about the mishandling of the coronavirus tragedy.
It is the great misfortune of the Chinese people to have the self-promoting President Xi in charge at this critical juncture, just as it is America’s misfortune to have President Xi’s foolish enabler, Donald Trump, as our head of government.
The Chinese military props up President Xi and conducts cruel and lethal campaigns to punish dissenters, but in the United States our military cannot be blamed for the dangerous regime of President Trump.
The ignorant and corrupt Trump administration, in spite of being propped up by Attorney General Barr, the Republican leaders of the Senate and a narrow majority of our Supreme Court, is immediately vulnerable to the will of the people through a free press and our voting booths.
We have only ourselves to blame if Donald Trump is allowed to continue to wreak havoc.
4
Mr. Kristof,
Your reply to Kenan Porobic, I believe, misses the point and irrelevant to the comment. The fact is that the U.S. military budget has increased very year and is now at more than $770B is insane. You don't need this kind of budget to carry out some of the military actions you described as justified in your reply. Coupled with the fact that the U.S. maintains over 700 military bases around the world, the only rationale for this is that the U.S. wants to be the most dominantly hegemonic and most militarily powerful nation on earth regardless of the decimate of the American middle class, stagnant wages, lack of affordable health care, child care, third world infrastructure, opioid epidemic, income inequality and countless other issues in the U.S. domestically.
The point of Porobic's comment is that these trillion of dollars were wasted and the tragedy is that the U.S. keeps spending more and ordinary Americans and the world are paying a very high price for this arrogance and ignorance.
4
Thank you for this fair and accurate description of the Chinese state and dilemma. The comments overwhelmingly provide evidence of the epidemic facing America, Trump Derangement Syndrome. That so many people could read your fine article and convert it into a diatribe against Trump shows how biased and reflexive those who claim to be objective analysts of human activity have become.
1
Mr. Kristof:
I find this China bashing gratuitous and cynical.
According to The Economist, the punishment Dr. Li received from his dimwitted tormentors was a rebuke: They made him promise to never do it again. That’s it. Dr. Li was never jailed, beaten, fined, nor professionally sanctioned. Had he not gotten sick, he would have been able to continue practicing ophthalmology.
Dr. Li acquired the virus that ultimately killed him from an asymptomatic 82 year old glaucoma patient. Because she was not ill, neither she nor he wore a mask. No one, not even Dr. Li, knew at the time that the virus could be transmitted by asymptomatic people. It took a while to figure that out.
Had Dr. Li been persistent in making his concerns known via official medical channels instead of blindsiding his bosses by posting them on WeChat, he very likely would have been treated differently. Blindsiding your boss under any circumstances is a sure fire way to get into trouble anywhere, including in the USA.
While Dr. Li’s death was indeed tragic, is an exaggeration to claim that he was abused by the Chinese authorities or that their negligence caused his death.
The US healthcare system would be very hard pressed to react as focused, coordinated, and resolutely as the Chinese have.
As you should know well, Chinese culture is very hierarchical, paternalistic and authoritarian. They are not going to change a system that has brought them unprecedented progress over the past 40 years.
Give it a rest.
31
It's a shame Xi can't see that providing a unified, international approach to health crises emanating from China would bolster his image as a leader and technocrat. Instead, he puts his mediocrity and base political instincts on full, deplorable, display.
27
@Dave
Dictators share common traits.
Look closer...
8
This coronavirus epidemic has reached a critical juncture. The story is too big for the Chinese government to cover up. Though the Chinese official reports including its claims that its control efforts are succeeding the truths are otherwise. Once praised by the World Health Organization and its scientists worldwide for the quick and transparent response to this new virus, China now faces international vilification and domestic unrest. the continued cover-ups, repression and lies have failed to stop the virus.
28
To anyone who is, or would be, a student of China I suggest a read of Yang Jisheng's book "Tombstone." It's a look at 1950's China when +35 million citizens died of starvation directly attributed to inept ideological strictures of the CCP (Chinese Communist Party).
You read the book and I guarantee that you will not be surprised by anything you see going on there today. After all, the same political party is in place. In fact I'd all but guarantee many of the VERY SAME PEOPLE who were around then are still within it, in powerful positions, today. There is no such thing as aging out within that party.
The Middle Kingdom has always been a top down, hierarchically structured society. In fact one could argue that theirs was the first bureaucratic State, put in place to tame the Yang Tze river. It's a system that has its limitations, but overall it has worked well for them for some 2 thousand years. I don't see them changing it, and quite frankly I get the "if it ain't broke don't fix it" logic they often express.
But the CCP is a malignancy within that structure. A metastatic growth intent on retaining its grip on power at all cost. It does not suffer any other type of competitive organizational structure due to irrational fear. A fear increasingly well founded; because sooner or later the average Chinese citizen will realize that the only way to cure such cancer is to entirely cut it out. So watch out when this begins to happen.
John~
American Net'Zen
45
The 1950s are so long ago in a fast moving China you may as well judge the US by the actions of the events leading up to the US civil war. The party leading China now is Communist now in the same way North Korea is a democratic republic of the people. Name only. The function of the CCP is to rule without end regardless of idealogy.
1
John Barry's book on the Spanish Flu (The Great Influenza) is a sobering read. Barry writes that the Spanish Flu started in the United States, and the medical experts in the government recognized the risks and made all the right recommendations. Those recommendations were ignored by President Woodrow Wilson, who thought canceling war bond rallies or pausing training that crammed infected troops together would endanger the war effort. As a result, the flu spread world wide. Wikipedia says that 500 million people were infected and between 17 and 50 million died. One should thus be a bit cautious in saying 19th century political leadership on virus containment is a problem in China when 20th century political leadership in the US on the same issue was woeful.
412
@Guy34 Get your point but a) it is now the 21st century and it is China's leadership that is mishandling the coronavirus problem (as it did with SARS and HIV earlier this century) and b) the Spanish flu epidemic was over a hundred years ago, and was of unknown cause, viruses having even been found only in 1892 and hardly well known to medical science in 1918. We still get the flu from the influenza strain call H1N1 which is no longer nearly as deadly as it was in the late 19 teens.
31
@Guy34
One of those who died was my grandmother who was 32 who left behind 5 children one of them was my mother who was 5 years old. This is the first I’ve heard of the politics behind this tragedy.
29
@Guy34 For another well researched opinion on the origins and reactions to the "Spanish Flu" pandemic, particularly its probable origins, I recommend "Pale Rider", written long before the current corona virus situation and by a German author/researcher. Although it is not concerned with U.S. politics at the time, it draws significantly different conclusions on the probable origins of that pandemic.
15
The most important takeaway here is that the Chinese government’s approach to governing made this disaster more likely to happen and then greatly hampered the fight against it. Even now, based on Xi’s recent pronouncements, its decisions are being made based primarily on the government’s rather than the people’s interest.
The exact same thing happened with a different disaster, presided over by a different authoritarian government: the Chernobyl nuclear accident in the USSR in the 1980s, as hauntingly portrayed in the recent HBO miniseries “Chernobyl”. President Gorbachev later stated his belief that the government’s actions as the crisis unfolded ultimately contributed to the downfall of the USSR itself, by removing the last shred of doubt among its citizens that the government cared more about safeguarding its image than their well-being.
The problem in one way may be even more pernicious in the US than in China or the former USSR. The level of skepticism that develops in people involuntarily force fed lies does not exist in the subset of the population in a country that voluntarily subjects itself to being propagandized. The recent words from Trump’s former Chief of Staff General John Kelly should I think serve as a stark warning: “ you have to be careful about what you are watching and reading, because the media has taken sides. So if you only watch Fox News, because it's reinforcing what you believe, you are not an informed citizen."
41
@jaco
Just as there is a difference between "facts" and "alternative facts", there is a difference between an uninformed person who exclusively watches Fox (or a Sinclair station etc.) and a person whose exclusive source of information is the NYT.
Those who read the NYT may have incomplete information about the latest Fox "facts" and what needs corrections (which can be read every day in the NYT) about names on photos or dates of events. The actual facts of journalism (when, where, how and who plus sometimes why) are generally correct as of the time of the event. Opinions are clearly labelled; news events as reported are clearly attributed to named reporters or sources which may be unnamed but designated by location: "A source close to the president in the White House." or "a source from the Pentagon".
Those who watch Fox, read the WSJ or other Murdoch publications are uninformed about the reality of an event. A good example would be the ridiculous idea that Sec. Clinton ran a child abuse ring from a pizza restaurant in Brooklyn.
6
@Lynda Any person who uses just one source of information for news is kidding themselves if they believe that they are well-informed.
2
I live in Wuhan. I’m in lockdown quarantine right now, and here’s a sobering observation.
By far the vast majority of Chinese are not complaining. There is no 1.4 billion mouths screaming to be free. Far and away, the bulk of China’s population shuts up and does what the Emperor says. A stunning number, easily the majority are cheerleaders for the Party. That could of course change, but right now I see Chinese turning inward and being angry at the world. I do not see internal upheaval.
Older people have no desire for revolution. They lived through one already, they do NOT want another one. Young people in Shanghai or Beijing are one population. Here in the interior, it’s like 1930’s America; kids just want a job and some money. Even when I try to draw them out, they refuse to denounce leaders or even suggest they made a mistake. The vast majority of Chinese still live I small towns and cities. They think Xi is doing a great job.
Mr. Kristof mouths a Western ideal to which the average Chinese has no interest. Somewhere, someone, maybe several, are seething. They are so far, invisible, and it’s not due to censorship.
154
@Kurt
I think what you're seeing in Wuhan is not that much different from Asia in general. I've lived around East and SE Asia for 25 years and people here simply don't see the point of spouting off all the time, like we do in the US. "Sure, you could say that, but why would you," is a common personal philosophy here. Frankly, we could do with some of that.
.
But the western notion of freedom not being of interest there? I don't think that is accurate. People want to be free, and when the CCP and their dictatorship outlive their usefulness, their time will come too. If Chinese shrug and go about their business today it's because they had an $86/per capita GDP 50 years ago. The CCP have raised that significantly for about 20% of them.
.
When that runs out of gas, so will tolerance of the CCP's corrupt dictatorship. The current combination of problems - coronavirus, economy slowing, Hong Kong, Taiwan, and trade war - is interesting. Xi Jinping, Emperor for Life, might decide early retirement is an attractive option if things keep going south under him.
30
@Kurt
C understand Xi statement without endorsing it. That is how things are for now there."Whether you kill me once or dozens of times- statement" into infinity, proclamation, none of it thwarts his ascent to be current reality attainment to preside over Chinese system role.
West Coaster You are entitled to your opinion. I do not believe your opinion is correct. It displays you have not spent extensive time in the Chinese countryside. I live here. In the countryside. All of my family (Chinese, living in countryside) would disagree with you. SE Asia is decidedly NOT China. It has no bearing in the discussion. Concepts of personal freedom are not part of the Chinese culture; read history. It is a relatively recent phenomenon that the topic is even discussed.
Folks travel someplace, extrapolate to assumptions, and apply them indiscriminately to reflect their personal bias or desires. What you imagine simply is not true.
24
It doesn't make me brave, to submit comments here. I won't be imprisoned or tortured for doing so. My family won't suffer generations of impoverishment and persecution as a consequence. All the same, my decision to begin commenting here in 2016, having never left an online comment before on any news site, was also motivated by principles and patriotism, that is, by the very same abiding thought: "I cannot remain silent." These brave individuals in China are thinking only of the wellbeing of all of their fellow citizens, and are motivated by many of the very same ideals and values that our own president and his party have jettisoned.
370
@Robert "...motivated by many of the very same ideals and values that our own president and his party have jettisoned." And they jettisoned them starting with Nixon.
31
@Robert I hope you are correct but with the emperors election coming up we all may have a problem if he’s not defeated convincingly. I’m sure it won’t take very long for the re education camps to be up and running if we don’t get rid of him.
27
You won’t be imprisoned or tortured for speaking out... yet. The longer Trump is in office, the more likely we are to become like China. We’re already seeing evidence of his attack on our freedoms.
32
So Trump basically hamstrings the CDC by pulling 2 billion in funding and says President Xi is doing a good job handling the crisis. Makes you wonder how Trump would handle an outbreak here. Belief in science should probably be a prerequisite for an American President, but this one is unable or unwilling to connect the dots. Climate change+population density+lack of resources+emerging pathogens+lack of funding=many deaths.
308
We are likely going to get to find out.
6
@anthony + gun violence + self blind folding as well
3
Authoritarian regimes whether China or the Trump administration politicize everything -- especially science and the justice system. Kristof points out that during the SARS outbreak the Chinese government punished the whistleblower -- now doesn't that sounds familiar? At some point U.S. citizens like their Chinese cohorts will also grow "impatient with the corrupt, thuggish and narcissistic leadership."
"The contrast between heroic doctors and bumbling political leaders could not be more stark." How true and how incredibly disturbing.
54
@Ann Authoritarian regimes are fundamentally weak and they politicize everything to remain in power. But politicize everything by it self will not work when real disasters occur.
2
I wonder, strictly hypothetically and speculatively speaking rather than make any assertions consisting of whether cia murdered that doctor, at least in theory being relegated for now to mostly abstracts in China to create a martyr out of him there for the media concept factors development. Don't think they in China mishandle that coronavirus at all episode. New cases of infected subjects are dwindling and strict quarantine has been working to achieve its objectives. Furthermore, a common annual flu circulation has resulted in more deaths than that novelty virus which is of dubious higher virulent attributes than seasonal flu propagation. That is considered routine and inevitable to humans exposure to those pathogens without calling it pandemics.
1
Having taught in China in 1987, traveled in China in 2013, and known many Chinese students here in the US, I’ve always wondered when the revolution would happen. There are so many highly educated, worldly Chinese citizens who have been abroad now and see what other worlds can look like. I can’t imagine how it will happen, but I won’t be surprised when it does that it will be the intellectuals who finally take lead and win out. Perhaps the same might be true in our country—If we don’t lose all intelligent, open-minded persons during this time of political trashing of all science, knowledge, and experience. The parallels to Chinese history are indeed terrifying.
1
As others have commented here, the phrase “land of 21st-century science and 19th-century politics” aptly describes what Trump is trying to do with our politics, but he is also trying to decimate science research and take that back to the 19th century as well. What continues to amaze me is that he still has supporters who worship him instead of the whole population being angry at him for undermining the rule of law and setting himself up as an authoritarian ruler who can do anything he wants with no restraints whatsoever on his actions. I daresay that the whole country would be up in arms, including Democrats, if a Democratic president were doing these things. So why are Republicans so accepting of Trump’s destruction not only of presidential norms and common decency, but also his enormous expansion of presidential power that is setting dangerous precedents for future presidents and jeopardizes the very Constitutional guarantees that we have relied on for generations?
2
The article is enjoyable but the main point is unfortunately not made. How would a democratic government necessarily do better in preventing the spread of the virus. It could easily do worse by having a mass panic. Whether or not a democracy in China would be better for the Chinese than what they have is largely a question independent of the coronavirus.
1
Didn't "Dr. " Trump make a incoherent statement about CV but assured all that " warmer weather was coming and it would mitigate the virus. After all he knows more about everything-- just ask him or his supporters.
5
Kudos to those brave and conscious people who put societal welfare ahead of their personal interests, who has the spine to raise their voice knowing fully they will end up facing adverse outcomes.
4
Bush's Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld once excused his not having armored vehicles that could withstand roadside bombs with the words "things happen" , as if to say, "don't expect leaders to anticipate the big problems. " Problems happen. Government is complex and authoritarian ones are more concerned with maintaining power than with long-range plans for sustaining themselves. Focusing on the short-term, keeping and expanding power now, rather than on worrying about what might happen in the future is all they will worry about. And so we have this handling of this outbreak which might break the Chinese economy because of China's lack of preparation. We should take this situation there seriously here in our own America, because we are presently too focused on the now while ignoring the future. Think of climate policy, the budget with its deficit too large to be used as a weapon in recessions, the loss of alliances, and the neglect of infra-structure maintenance and expansion.
5
I don't expect the situation would be any better had the epidemic originated in the United States while under the "rule" of the Trump administration. It frightens me to think of what would or will happen here if the virus takes root here. Most certainly it will be used to stoke fear and justify oppression, thing Trump seems to take joy in.
7
Just imagine Coronavirus here. How many of us can afford our copays for a week or more in a hospital isolation unit?
And if the US developed antiviral drug works (likely developed with US taxpayer grants), we will equally likely pay the highest global prices for this medicine.
Our health care system is best in the world for providers, not so much for us, the clients.
11
@Susan
Our government is paying for quarantined patients.
I use the corona outbreak as a way to teach my students that when a regime targets free speech, we don't just suffer socially and politically, we suffer physically. I don't let them connect the dots anymore. I also tell them that when Trump and other US politicians attack the First Amendment, it could mean our lives.
17
What in the world could the Chinese Govt. do to stop the spread of this disease? If it were Ebola, it could be quarantined, because of the limitations of 90% fatality to case. In this case it is spread similarly to the common cold or Infuenza with 61K deaths out of 43 Million cases in 2018. The case mortality rate for Corona is 2% so the deaths would be in the neighborhood of nearly a million. Quarantine will not prevent the spread as we have found out, but could slow it down enough to develop a vaccine. Herd immunity is also a factor, which will have to be built up over time. We can hope it is seasonal like Flu. Controlling the press could actually be helpful to prevent panic, but, hey, the press guy (note again not Journalist) would have trouble getting the story without going to China.
1
China was ruled for thousands of years by local bureaucrats. An old Chinese saying goes "The mountains are tall, and the emperor is far away". Most decisions are made locally, not in Beijing. With 1.4 B people to rule, it's even more true in modern China today.
So far, Cvid-19 killed far less people than the annual common flu. Yes we must be on alert as WHO suggests. But I don't believe Xi is responsible for Dr. Xu's death!
In our own democratic decision making, I do believe Trump is responsible for the deaths of thousands of Syrians and Kurd's.
5
The consumption of wildlife will lead to disease. The chinese must stop this practice. Whether it was inherited as a cultural artifact or a response to past famines, it threatens everyone.
The chinese cannot build islands to protect themselves from disease. They must change.
9
As soon as I saw mention of Trump I knew what to expect. The man never says anything resembling the truth. But it sounds like he and Xi have the same kind of inflated ego. Even when they're completely wrong, they take credit for being absolutely right.
11
We can arrogantly assume that others so want to be like us that all we need to do is go about the world and unleash the furies of the pented-up. Or, rather, we could focus our efforts on furthering the inherent advantages of a society predicated on the core American value of a balance between the rights of the individual and the responsibilities to the collective; we could be the beacon that we've been in the past. The former has been shown to be dramatically ineffective everywhere except mid-century Europe. The latter has been undermined by a steady gathering of wealth and power in the government, large corporations and a tiny group of extremely wealthy individuals. We need to fix our own house before we "doctor" the rest of the world. I'm much more concerned about our internal rot than a virus originating half-way around the world (although the complicity of "leaders" in both situations is an eerie parallel).
7
@Tad La Fountain "rights of the individual and the responsibilities to the collective..." Well well... And what about the rights of the many and the responsibilities of the individual? Harping on the latter allows oligarchs to divide and rule, and it rots the ties that used to bind us into an effective society facing our problems together. So if you want to be governed by the ghost of Ayn Rand and Chuck Koch, count me out.
9
@Tad La Fountain
Exactly so! Our greatest strength and influence is that beacon you refer to. It is interesting that the press (as opposed to, say, Journalism) has become so enamored of the spectacle, that there is so little serious thought.
@Des Johnson There appears to be some confusion. The individual has natural rights, but the collective - being a social construct - has no such natural rights, only those granted by the individuals who comprise the society (who may expand or contract such societal rights as they see fit). But individuals do have responsibilities to the collective; they don't have the right to do as they darn well please with no regard to societal consequences. Striking that balance has been a first-order problem for the species - probably since the hunter-gatherers first banded together, and possibly going back to their primate ancestors. But it's been well-documented that when we gravitate to extremes that we get in trouble: anarchy at one end, totalitarianism at the other. One thing's for sure - when too many individuals default on their responsibilities and look to something bigger to pick up the load, it is a slippery slope to societal breakdown of one form or other. A communist state such as China should view its current leadership vacuum as essentially preordained, and when an American president declares that "Only I can save us," we're on the same path.
3
Influenza has killed between 12,000 to 60,000 people each year, for the last decade in America alone. This is with immunizations available for free for most Americans. All deaths are tragic. This new virus is a major concern, but is getting more hype than deserved.
4
Mr Kristof, thank you for spreading more light on Xu and his courageous message. The similarities between Xi and trump are so frighteningly identical. I truly fear for mankind. Image America has its own strong man and those profiting from it are not even the masses at his rallies. Deplorable.
9
Interestingly, I've found some on the liberal/left of politics (my side of politics) in the West keen to censor online factual comments about Covid19 using similar language - that it's fearmongering etc. I understand the fear: that some of the less savvy people online will denigrate Chinese people as a group due to a virus in one Chinese region. But this is no excuse for using the same rhetoric as Xi to stifle discussion in the name of avoiding panic.
2
Mr. Xu says "...they can't keep 1.4 billion mouths shut." Unfortunately, in their high-tech police state, they can come pretty close.
15
Trump is worse than Xi. Trump is disagreeing with 99% of the scientists from around the world re Climate Change and our own experts here in the US on everything from renewable energy to tariffs to monetary policy. While China builds up its infrastructure and renewable energy sector, Trump allows Russia to hack into our infrastructure computers making our whole inferior system even less secure.
15
Trump also parroted Xi’s assertion that corona virus should taper off when Spring arrives and the temperature increases. Even if that is correct, how many lives will be lost in the meantime?
1
You could do as the Chinese and substitute Donald Trump for Xi Jinping -- in writing a parallel report on myriad issues in the United States, from climate change to the relaxing of EPA standards, asking why the American public is not outraged
6
Nicholas, I think it all boils down to the attitude that Xi has and previous Chinese leaders have also perhaps had toward their citizenry, indeed humanity: They are of little worth, and but a means to an end. That goal is prosperity for the top regardless of the struggles of, well, the proletariat. And in all honesty, we must wonder about that similar mind-set when we witness our major US enterprises greedily and aggressively running toward that cheap labor in this Asian country. It is not hard to imagine the threat that can befall us in America when we consider not only Trump but also those oligarchs who keep him in power. This coronavirus is a horrible and devastating virus which could have been assuaged if not stopped. As you write, in this day and age with the advancement of medical science and considering the brilliant minds of doctors and researchers in China (as well as here), this can be viewed as nothing less than a violation of the dignity, care, and treatment of all peoples.
5
Xi is trying to take credit but he deserves blame. I hope the Chinese start a mass rebellion that removes Xi from power and forces the government to be open and responsive to the needs of the people.
1
@Eric "...and forces the government to be open and responsive to the needs of the people."
You mean like in the United States?
2
Nick (because I feel a kinship),
As always, thoughtful and incisive. Difficult to imagine that things will change, but hope springs eternal.
You mentioned "corrupt, thuggish and narcissistic leadership." Although clearly citizens of the USA enjoy boundless benefits compared to citizens of China, if we re-elect DJT, then we will not have changed our "corrupt, thuggish and narcissistic leader" when we had the chance.
I guess the adage "that no army marches to war on a full stomach" applies to voters. But are our stomachs truly full, and of what value is a full stomach when one's heart is empty, or worse, filled with hatred?
Regardless, thank you for your inspirational reporting.
John
4
We have a growing crisis of global warming. Our scientist have been warning us for 35 years and our president thinks its a hoax. We have all the freedoms in the world and still distortion and disinformation in the US halts real progress. We have more in common with China than were capable of admitting.
7
When two of the world's superpowers are suffering from a fatal virus of faith in their cultures and their governments, it's time for a change that cannot come soon enough. Yet those still in charge of those cultures will cling to their power resist with all of their might regardless of how many lives are lost. This isn't the first time and it definitely won't be the last. The only antidote is truth.
4
Anything that Trump has to say about coronavirus must be taken with great caution. Trump dos not read, if his name is not prominently displayed in the article. Unfortunately this does not include any scientific research findings. It appears that Xi Jinping shares this shortsighted bias. We are all imperiled by their intellectual limitations. The two largest economies in the world are being governed by narcissistic, intellectual lightweights. This was a significant problem when the Soviets addressed Chernobyl, where politicians also thwarted scientists.
7
I find it hilarious and ironic that folks in the US respond to criticism of authoritarian China with a criticism of the US. That's something that wouldn't be allowed in China.
1
A chilling piece about how stifling information doesn’t make the truth any different (whether it’s about this virus or something else).
4
I respectfully submit that I find it strange that you find it “strange” that Trump is repeating Xi’s talking points. He readily repeats Putin’s and has been for quite some time. It is what he does. When are we going to stop finding Trump’s behavior odd? He is as dangerous to our country as the coronavirus is to China. I wish more journalists would realize that we are playing information warfare before it is too late.
8
Are we talking about the China that demands social media obey their rules and consent to government firewalls? That China?
The same China that Google, Facebook and others submit to the every whim of the Party, so their bottom line grows ever more? That China?
At least all of that violence in Hong Kong stopped.
2
This competent essay is marred by the simplistic assertion that China’s progress is responsible for Beijing babies having a longer life expectancy than those born in DC or NY. Multiple factors influence life expectancy, including genetics. It is unfortunate the Times permits its columnists to opine on technical matters when they are not qualified to do so.
1
Are you suggesting the increase in life expectancy in China over the last century is due to genetics?
Just as the recent decrease in life expectancy for working class white males in the US has nothing to do with opiates, lost jobs and despair but is due to weakness of the individual?
1
For a two week period in early January, no new cases were reported and the outbreak appeared to be under control. Given what has happened since, it now seems likely that people were in fact getting sick from covid-19 but the cases were reported as something else. While the Chinese government was trying to censor reality, the outbreak grew in size by 30-fold.
I am quite fed up with Chinese government whining about how the US over reacted by shutting our borders to incoming Chinese travelers. When you export a deadly pathogen to 26 countries, there are consequences. I am even more fed up with the WHO acting as China's public relations agency rather than trying to protect global health. The WHO tried to claim that asymptomatic transmission was rare at a time when nearly 20% of the cases outside China were due to a nearly asymptomatic carrier in Germany.
There is also what appears to be a coordinated PR campaign claiming that the real problem is an epidemic of anti-Chinese racism. This has the effect of suppressing criticism of the Chinese government by people outside China. Perhaps demonstrating Beijing's reach, some of this has even appeared in the pages of the New York Times.
The Chinese scientific and medical community has published a lot of very useful information about the virus. They have provided many valuable warnings about the tricks covid-19 has.
The bottom line is that the Chinese regime has to stop the virus. If they can't do that, censorship won't save them.
This is why we must preserve a free, independent press.
9
"My column notes the incongruity between China’s 21st-century science and its 19th-century politics, between its heroic doctors and its bungling leaders."
We also have a bungling leader who knows more than our scientists.
President Trump said that "in theory" once the weather warms up Coronavirus, which he referred to as "the virus," will "miraculously" go away. Trump did not offer any scientific explanation to back up his claim.
6
Dear Mr. Kristof,
At least the Chinese citizens have the tyrannical government and the lack of freedom of speech as justification for the conditions they live in.
What is our excuse for the current polarization, division, antagonism, paralysis, bias, hatred and prejudice?
4
Trump and Xi are the same side of the coin. Both revel on personality cult. Both are dictators who expect nothing but loyalty and total admiration for them. Their words are the ultimate truths that must never be challenged.
The difference is that America and China used to be different. We used to push China to become like America. Now America has a President that adores the Chinese leader and the Chinese ways. We became like China and the Senate just watched with their mouths open in joy.
It's 1933.
6
Dear Mr. Kristoff, why do you think the Chinese government chose to persecute doctors who were trying to warn the public about the Coronavirus? It is because they were afraid of how a viral outbreak would make them look to the world? Or how it would affect their economy? Or is this just another example of how the Chinese government tries to control its people by keeping them ignorant?
Responding to a viral outbreak by silencing the doctors doesn't make any sense.
2
Uh, a very smart man (Richard Feynman) once said "Nature cannot be fooled." And I believe him. So I have never understood these doomed-to-fail attempts to hide an epidemic. Quite often when large numbers of people get sick and some die, attention is paid. This article is redolent of Monty Python's Dead Parrot sketch...
2
Trump wants to control this country like XI controls China. The Republican congress is just like the National Peoples Congress.
6
With 1.4 B, the most populated country in the world, rumor mongering is not uncommon. It is also possibly very hard for every doctor to attract attention and receive recognition. Whether the regime's mishandling of the Corona virus, COVID-19, that emerged from Wuhan was a deliberate instinctively organized cover-up or a colossal blunder will get debated until eternity. Dr Li Wenliang was a profile in courage and did his best until his final breath when the virus destroyed his lungs and the equipment needed for his final days got moved and taken away from his bed side., He lost his race with the virus multiplying in his lungs before his immune system could hold up.
Enough has been made of the Chinese communist regime's mishandling of the coronavirus by arm chair opinion columnists. I understand that not everyone is a career virologist like me and unfortunately there are only a handful of us who understand viruses and how they cause disease. From the speed with which this virus has spread passing barriers like masks, gloves and gowns is just totally baffling. this is one of a kind highly contagious, sturdy virus that has outsmarted virologists in China just after another virus of a different family, not corona infected pigs and thousands of pigs were put down.
I really don't know what any other country would have done if 1000s of their people were infected with a deadly virus like this particular corona virus. If we had figured out HIV, we would have a vaccine by now.
2
Thank you, Nicholas.
Let your voice be heard.
1
China is also a land with 14th century food handling practices.
2
Despite mistakes it seems to me that China is doing a very competent job in preventing the spread of the virus. I seriously
doubt that the government we are contending with in this country would even come to close to being as effective as
what is going on in China.
Trump attacks science and the very nature of truth itself. Perhaps Kristof should take this into consideration. He comes
off as chauvinistic and xenophobic.
Mike
1
I read this moning that France has reported the first death in the country through this caronavirus. The frightening danger of this virus seems to have found it's way to many countries and all emanating from China, the people affected mostly Chinese, an unexpected horror after celebrating their CNY with family. One feels sorry for their plight when their ruler, to save face, thought he could hide it when he knew full well that on previous occasions other deadly viruses also originated in China but at least, albeit after the horse bolted, there are now people who can see the dire consquences and are brave enought to speak out at the risk of being punished for speaking the truth. Has a local ring to it somehow???
1
"It’s thus strange to find Trump repeating Xi’s talking points."
No, no, Mr. Kristof. Given the "rotten core" of China's authoritarian government that this crisis has revealed, it would be strange and surprising not to see Trump praise Xi. It's exactly that rotten core of authoritarianism that Trump and his Republican enablers and co-conspirators are working to install in the United States. Let us hope together that your column doesn't end up as a prediction of what the U.S will look like facing a national emergency in five or ten years.
6
When the conflict was between science and religion, I simplified the issue to "When your child is sick, do you send for a doctor or a priest?' Now the issue is "Should you send for a doctor or a politician?"
Does it make any sense in the US to wait for Trump to say something sensible? He should not be in the loop.
3
Anybody think Trump will be handle a geometric escalation of an epidemic here with rational thought and calmness to not cause more fear in our population? Anybody think he won’t start pointing fingers at somebody, ANYBODY he can to his political advantage. Anybody think he won’t compare himself favorably to Obama, who he’ll say “blew it” on Ebola (which he most certainly did not)? Anybody think Lindsey Graham and Sean Hannity won’t say “he’s finally become the president and leader we knew he was all along” as the death toll rises?
4
“...a flame of decency...”
A powerful image.
A courageous risking-voice.
In a global neighborhood contaged by complacencies and
complicities; infected by willful blindness, deafness,
indifference, asphyxiating ignorance. And self-wounding Silence!
Flames, however bright, impermanent in essence
need stoking. Feeding.
By...
A courageous voice amidst so many unaccountables.
A courageous voice needing continuous support.
Stoking. Feeding. Sharings that light and lead needed Way(s).
For ALL of US, wherever we may BE.
By choice, or not.
Risking making choices.
Thank you for your voice.
A semantic flame and light.
1
The irony is thick enough to cut with a knife. In China, most of the population is shrewd enough to disregard the official communications from the government and get their information from scientific sources surreptitiously. In America, ~40% of the population disregards scientific truth and gets their information from the official state television at Fox. We're heading in opposite directions.
5
This is how authoritarian governments work, suppress information especially criticism of the ruling party and its great leader. Attack first and react to the crisis of the moment later. This is how "all" authoritarian governments work not just China. A government full of "loyal" toadies and yes men seeking to curry favor with the leadership and thereby gain influence and power. Sound familiar? Yeah, that's Trumps administration and the republican party too. Also Putin's Russia, Erdogan's Turkey and all the other "great leaders" that Trump admires so. Think it doesn't apply to us eh, Trump and his lackeys are purging and forcing out civil service professionals all across the federal government in favor of "political" sycophants whose only qualifications are blind loyalty to the "great leader" Trump. Just like China et:al, ain't that gonna be grand with President for life Trump with his own cult of personality.
6
Mr. Kristof,
At least the Chinese citizens have the tyrannical government and the lack of freedom of speech as justification for the conditions they live in.
What is our excuse for the current rampant polarization, division, antagonism, paralysis, bias, hatred and prejudice?
1
The Chinese leadership feels they can get away with trampling on the rights of the helpless. I think this is God's warning to the Chinese to stop trampling the rights of their minorities.
"It’s thus strange to find Trump repeating Xi’s talking points"
Why does that seem strange to you Mr Kristof? Have you seen anything that Trump has done about the environment, regulations, climate chanage, healthcare, etc that doesn't make things worse? Do you think if confronted with the coronavirus he would actually outperform Xi?
4
Imagine if it happened in europe and being delt by eu elites then speak to me about the chinese...
There seems to be in the 21st century a plethora of inadequate political leaders. We happen to have our own fine example. The difference between the larger Chinese middle class and the American equivalent is that they seem to be better educated and even under their dire circumstances of sanitized news understand that something is amiss. Our Fox News equivalent continues to bamboozle silly Americans who would normally seek the truth if they were just.....well, smarter!
2
Mao seemed to have positive intentions. As did Hugo Chavez. and, Marx. And Bernie Sanders.
Command and Control economies, socialist or communist call them what you will, always end with an ugly bureaucracy that cares only for its own power. History is clear.
Big government is inefficient. Humans in big government puff up in their power, want more; corruption always unfolds.
Beware unintended consequences.
Beware big government
3
Between China being afraid of quickly getting a handle on a coronavirus they let it simmer and spread WAY outside China into dozens of other countries which is the worst public relations debacle ever!
Toss in President Trump who is tone deaf to the rise in various preventable childhood diseases here in the states and even encourages the conspiracy theorists who denounce vaccines!
Instead on on into the future it's more like back to the dark ages!! Sad!
2
It is implausible that Li Wenliang died from the Coronovirus.
He was exposed to the virus in its earliest days in December, and, he was virus free well past the incubation time for the current virus, which, is 2-3 weeks.
For him to be exposed early when nobody was taking any protection, recognize the virus, survive for around 4 weeks, symptom free, then, suddenly acquire the virus and die?
The probability of this occurrence is very, very small.
3
@Michael
read the article in the Economist. On Jan 8th he treated a woman for acute angle glaucoma, a painful emergency, who showed no symptoms and later was found to have a stall in the market the virus originated. Three weeks later his testing turned positive for Corvid-19. A few days after treating the woman without wearing a mask, he developed respiratory symptoms and sent his family away for safety. He was admitted to the hospital only after testing positive. Despite treatment his lung function did not improve and gradually worsened.
That’s why they are employing strict quarantines. Every exposure, every day could lead to infection. They are unsure how long the nonsymptomatic phase of infection lasts. The longer that is, the longer the time person to person transmission can occur because you think that person is healthy. I believe I also read somewhere that the testing is only 30-40% accurate and Dr Li was tested multiple times bc of symptoms before finally being classified as positive. Would earlier treatment have saved him? I don’t believe there is enough info at this time
1
Michael...You are apparently unaware of the very strange characteristics of this new virus. There are hundreds of credibly documented cases of incubation rates from a few days to several weeks. Sometimes there are carriers that show no symptoms. Please do not express opinions founded on personal beliefs. It is anti science.
I’m glad to live in a country where I can criticise my prime minister without fear. But before freedom of speech is freedom of thought and that can’t be taken from anyone. RIP Dr Li Wenliang, hero of China.
8
A baby born in Beijing has a longer life expectancy than a baby born in Washington. Really?
Whose data does that comparison rely on? China’s?
4
@Meg Dear Meg, the US ranks below a whole range of countries, some which no doubt you regard as backward, on a growing number of measures such as quality of healthcare, education and general infrastructure. This on-going belief that the US is best at everything is increasingly clouding your ability to recognise that for many of your country men and women the US is closer to being a 3rd world country than a 1st world one. I understand that those people voted for Trump ..... the very sad thing is that he and the GOP are the least likely to actually help them and increasingly look like many autocratic regimes in countries Americans in their ignorance look down upon as a matter of habit.
4
@Meg I believe it was Fox News.
1
@Tom W
Actually, it’s the NYTimes quoting the Chinese government.
Par for course.
1
The Communist Party will not change and indeed, they will claim that only communism could have closed down their entire country in the face of the deadly virus. They hope that when this epidemic finally ends, people will forget their early bumbling. But internally, there will be a lot of finger pointing. Don't expect a mea culpa from President Xi, but some other heads may roll.
China and hopefully the world will learn an important lesson - don't mess with public health. Usually relegated as an after thought and in deference to the military and police, we spend precious too little money on public health research, bioterrorism preparedness, WHO funding, and the authority of health in the face of an epidemic.
One would have to wonder how prepared America would be if the epidemic began here given our dysfunctional health care system, our exclusion of immigrants, our competitive rather than collaborative model of delivering health care, our blithely continuing "business as usual" with our penchant to borrow money to pay for war or the opioid epidemic and our own undervaluing of public health. We should be afraid.
10
Excellent article. Thanks for informing us about theses brave and selfless doctors.
I would feel better if I thought that any other of the current governments around the world would have dealt with the same situation better than the Chinese did. I have serious doubts.
10
No county is going to handle this well. Even the countries with the best healthcare systems are not prepared for handling large numbers of sick people at once.
4
@Smilodon7 Possibly true. But it’s the denial of free speech, and the undermining of science, that have exacerbated the crisis. That is, I believe, the point of this article. Had the Chinese government not covered up what they knew about the corona virus in the first place, and not censored Dr. Li’s warnings, this would be an epidemic, not a pandemic.
6
The article isn’t about handling sick people, it’s about attacking doctors and incompetently prioritising political power over taking action in the face of a health crisis. Attacking the scientist rather than the disease
1
The only good thing that might come from this disaster in China, might be the strengthening of the movement for regime-change. This would be very different than what has happened there previously, but it's possible.
6
Many historians believe that the Black Death kickstarted the development of modern society from the stagnation of the middle ages. Up until then, primogeniture and inefficiency, left few resources for investment. The Black Death, however, by eliminating 1/3 of the population, provided the surviving generation with excess capital to invest in disruption technologies of their time.
If Covid-19 mutates into something more lethal (let's called in Thanos-19), perhaps we'll have the solution to global climate change and the difficulty of finding parking in San Francisco. It'll be easier to get into what's left of Stanford and Harvard.
So Hail Trump. He's pulling out resources from the CDC at just the right moment.
10
@Eben
I hope that everyone recognizes your last sentence as satirical.
1
“Rage against injustice; let your lives burn with a flame of decency; break through stultifying darkness and welcome the dawn.”
Thank you Xu for your call to action against clueless 19th century politics and to set aside our fear. Health care, the environment, education, and civil rights, are basic human rights. These are rights we deserve and should no longer remain silent about.
12
@Luke And as you write this, our chances of employing rage against injustice and finding decency are diminishing daily, as too many of us go about our daily business of easy shopping and endless TV. Democracy may be messy, but it’s precious. Let us not squander the legacy of the Founding Fathers because we are over fed with cheap goods and easy entertainment.
4
Dear Mr. Kristof:
As in previous columns, you assert that "it’s a tribute to China’s progress that a baby born in Beijing today has a longer official life expectancy (82 years) than a baby born in Washington, D.C. (78), or New York City (81)."
You must be aware that Beijing, like other Chinese cities, enforces Draconian residency restrictions (the "hukou" system) that severely limit migration. So life expectancy in Beijing should not be taken as a measure of the quality of public health in China as a whole (where life expectancy is in fact close to 77 years).
Your insistence on this argument only serves to reward a practice that is reminiscent of the "pass laws" of apartheid-era South Africa.
5
One of the most plentiful resources available in China is people. It would appear that the Chinese government treat its boundless resource like we treat water or fuel, you know, yes it’s valuable, but it’s ok to waste a bit to achieve your goal. Unfortunately the goal is the glory of China, and that goal out ranks literally everything else.
13
Kristof may turn out to be essentially, perhaps even completely right. However, there is a bit of self-righteous presumptuous in make his statements so definitively at this point. There is so much we do not know about how this epidemic will evolve, how Chinese policies will work out, whether they were reasonable even if things get further out of hand, the appropriaate balance of public health and medical measures, and many other things.
Epidemiological statistics are hard to record and aggregate in the moment, let alone tease out consensus meaning by qualified people. China is a vast country whose health (as well as other) infrastructure is new compared to most Western countries. I am not saying criticism is out of bounds, but before we get too smugly certain, think of the statistical disaster that was the recent Iowa primary, a miniscule event compared to China and the Wuhan coronavirus epidemic.
5
@Steve Fankuchen The apologetics offered here for a government that allows and also actually encourages the attack on Doctors who are doing there job to inform the medical community and population at large of the beginnings of a potentially lethal epidemic is startling.
China is a country which is a living and breathing embodiment of the book "1984" with state-sanctioned "doublespeak" and internment/reeducation camps for indigenous populations who are not "Han" Chinese to quash any kind of conversation related to self-expression and self-determination.
The looming environmental disaster which roils the countryside and urban areas due to rapid unregulated industrialization have caused an 800% increase in cancers in the last 20 years to the point at which the government cannot keep up with providing the needed number of cancer treatment hospital beds.
9
@Steve Fankuchen
The Iowa primary problems were immediately discussed openly and critically online and in a free press without attempts by the government to suppress and control the narrative...so as an example of a shortcoming of the American system in comparison to the Chinese governments handling of the COVID-19 epidemic is a poor comparison.
The Iowa primary "statistical disaster" did not cost 1500 lives (to date) and growing.
8
This is journalism at its best and it must be protected at all costs. Thank you Mr. Kristof.
27
Thanks, Nicholas. I am a teacher in HK and have shared your pieces with my students.
8
Months of protest in Hong Kong and not a flicker of support across the border by their fellow Cantonese speakers.
Kristol grudgingly acknowledges the advances in life expectancy from.a health system which has faced heavy criticism recently. He doesn't mention the incredible rise in living standards over the last 40 years which has created a middle class enjoying a living standard their parents could only dream about. Sure people complain about their government in China but most think the leapfrogging past other nations of Chinese power and wealth is a source of pride after a century of humiliation.
The idea that there is a volcano of pent up fury ready to overthrow the CCP belongs with the belief the US invaders of Iraq would be met with cheers and flowers for their liberation. A few dissatisfied intellectuals is not a mass movement.
.
14
@Herne: Your last paragraph says something very important. Many Americans seem to think that countries all over the world are just waiting to be 'liberated' by the US. Sure, Chinese people will speak critically of their government... but they are also, in most cases, intensely patriotic people who love their country, very much like Americans.
5
@ShenBowen
Do not mistake "state-sponsored" and "state-sanctioned" shows of patriotism with some sort of groundswell of popular support for the lack of individual freedom of expression and open elections on the mainland.
This is not about America being perfect and sanctimonious....this is about all peoples having the rights to freely express themselves and to be able to openly criticize and then be able to change their government at the ballot box without fear of reprisal and retribution.
If you ask any Chinese person on the ground if they would want that kind of freedom and political power expressed directly in free election I doubt they would argue against that.
5
Great piece, Nicholas.
This is when you’re at your best.
24
@Mark
100% agree! #1 in oped...
It seems like a strange coincidence that a new corona virus would appear at a market only twenty miles away from the "Wuhan Institute of Virology," a lab which apparently has worked on corona viruses. It's also probable that China was ramping up its research on viruses to deal with the massive swine flue problem they've been having.
Perhaps someone from the lab got infected, then did some shopping at the market? Perhaps the virus leaked out of the lab and the market is the closest thing to place the blame on?
16
@John Chenango
The Wuhan National Biosafety Laboratory is a biosecurity level 4 maximum security virology lab, China's first, which opened two years ago. It is equipped for primate research and primates are difficult to control. Chinese regulations are not as strict as we have here so something could have leaked out. Our CDC has had a number of mishaps (from 2015):
"Of greater concern were 199 instances of potential occupational exposure to pathogens, which resulted in the monitoring of 908 lab workers. Many possible exposures (671) occurred in people working with diagnostic specimens outside of registered labs prior to a sample's identification as a select agent, the FSAP said, adding that no illnesses, deaths, or environmental transmission occurred as a result of the breaches."
http://www.cidrap.umn.edu/news-perspective/2016/07/federal-report-discloses-incidents-high-containment-labs
And a 2014 Anthrax scare:
https://www.nytimes.com/2014/06/20/health/up-to-75-cdc-scientists-may-have-been-exposed-to-anthrax.html?ref=health&_r=1
So breaches do happen. Primates are infected to test vaccines prior to human testing. And the SARs virus has escaped multiple times from a Beijing containment lab.
Biosafety experts (Richard Ebright and Tim Trevan) have previously voiced concerns that China's hierarchical society is not ideal for biosafety, which requires open communication.
Black swan events are improbable, but with enough time, they're guaranteed to happen. Here too.
14
Those wet markets are a disaster waiting to happen. It’s not that hard to believe that this is where it came from. Scientists have been warning about this for years. By all means, tighten biosecurity at the labs. But the wet markets need to go too.
2
It is exciting to think of a China where an enraged middle class overthrows — peacefully — an inept oligarchy, and engages with the world along peaceful, democratic, and commercial lines. It is a counterpoint to the omnipresent narrative of China as an Adversary, with whom we are locked in zero-sum conflict. The evidence of the past 50 years (pace Brexit and our own retrenchment) is a validation of Adam Smith’s insight that (at a macro level) countries are better off in multilateral cooperation and specialization. Imagine what the world’s two greatest economies could achieve together.
A separate thought on Trump repetition of Xi’s talking points. We all tend to trust people more that we understand and identify with. Trump identifies, maybe, with the absolute devotion to self-aggrandizement, retention of power, and corrupt self-dealing of Xi, Erdogan, Netanyahu, Johnson, Bolsonaro, and others (maybe even Maduro and Jong-Il). He repeats the points because he believes Xi, over the experts and career professionals he does not understand, and therefore does not trust. It should come as no surprise. It is disturbing and distressing how many people admire and want to be ruled by these men (and they are all men) but American voters need to carefully look at the countries these men run, and decide in November if that’s what they want too.
52
@Guacknyt, how is the current system “zero sum gain”? Both China and US have benefited over the last decade.
I have nothing against political change, but I certainly don’t recommend revolution. Democracy can still be tyranny - why do you think all those Americans voted for a stooge who would “blow up the system”?
I see a lot of opinion here that is based on cherry-picked facts, including the author himself, who has not yet apologised for perpetuating the lie about a massacre in Tiananmen Square (google WikiLeaks Tiananmen Square for the US Embassy cables).
We Americans "must have some humility in critiquing China's totalitarian regime," Mr. Kristof?
A baby born in Washington DC or New York City may have a slightly lower life expectancy than a baby born in China (not sure I believe Chinese statistics), but the life of that American baby will be far, far richer, with freedoms and opportunities that the Chinese baby will scarcely be able to imagine because the Chinese baby will be living its life under oppressive totalitarian rule.
I would argue that quality is far more important than quantity in this particular calculation. And the brutal regime in Beijing is worthy of our opprobrium.
11
@David H: I'm an American (not of Chinese heritage) and a frequent visitor to China. The China you describe bears absolutely no relationship to the China I know. China is a country of well-educated people, with a vibrant economy and rich cultural life. Yes, people who speak out against the government, or oppose the government, are treated very harshly, but the numbers of dissidents is relatively small (I'm NOT defending how they're treated, it's wrong), but it's not a country of enslaved people. I've been to large cities and stayed in small villages, I can tell you that your description of China does not match the reality for most Chinese people. They lead rich lives and, particularly today, have lots of opportunity. When the epidemic is over (which I hope is soon) you should travel there and see for yourself.
12
@David H
According to NYT articles read a few years ago population in Harlem, NYC have lower life expectancy than Bangladeshis and those don't survive beyond 60 years of age on average.
8
@David H: I think you would find that most Chinese would disagree with you, even if some would agree. And I have seen US-educated Chinese returning to China because of the opportunities. This would seem to give the lie to your blanket statement. You clearly over-estimate the benefits of the US system. The deck is stacked against you if you are born poor and black in the US, and many rural white are not doing well either.
3
I followed the link and read Professor Xu’s essay through. A courageous and wise man.
35
In China, "The One."
And here, in the U.S., we are now accustomed to officials in all sorts of capacities and positions of high responsibility speaking only to and for 'an audience of one -- Donald J. Trump.'
Yeah, that always goes well.
116
"China’s mishandling of the coronavirus outbreak has imperiled itself and the world because it is a land of 21st-century science and 19th-century politics."
That situation is not as bad as the one which prevails in the US under Trump. The US is a land of 19th century science and 18th century politics. The sole exception is Trump's social media policy which is 21st century.
71
Anybody feel good with Trump in charge when this Coronavirus starts spreading here? Because it will. He is not the leader we need in a crisis.
4
@James Ricciardi
I’d say that USA science is 29th century, BUT not for lack of efforts by scientists. Yes, it’s a shame what Republicans have done to science in the USA. Here are a few examples...
Ronald Reagan delayed funding the CDC during the early years of HIV/AIDS, and he couldn’t even bring himself to publicly say—let alone address — AIDS. Reagan was too beholden to conservative christians and their nonsense about AIDS being god’s punishment for LGBT folks.
Then we have various Republicans speaking nonsense about rape. My “favorite” is how a woman’s body supposedly knows how to shut down and not get pregnant from rape.
We, also, see Republican denials of global warming... because... it’s snowing, and a Republican brought a snowball into the Senate’s chamber. No longer able to deny global warming and climate change, Republicans now deny the anthropogenic causes of warming/change.
Now the USA is undergoing the anti-science scourges brought forth by Donald Trump. From global warming/climate change is a “Chinese hoax” to claims that radiation can be good/beneficial for fauna and flora, the possibilities for scientific idiocies under the Trump administration are endless.
1
@James Ricciardi
19th century science, 18th century politics and Bronze Age
religion.
3
We should be preparing now should the virus become prevalent here. I fear that our response will not optimal. Our medical systems are fragmented. Too many people aren't getting the medical care they need, leaving them vulnerable to contracting disease. The Trump administration wants to cut spending for the NIH, etc. We should be learning from what is happening in China instead of just criticizing their obvious missteps.
96
This coronavirus outbreak clearly demonstrates why democracy and freedom of the press are so vital to the health and safety of a vibrant society. Let's hope that China eventually comes to adopt the American model, and not the other way around.
38
@Blue Moon
Strict quarantine rather than make or keep encouraging "serfs" shop(the way USA would have "handled it" with disastrous consequences, had it been ground zero for coronavirus) until drop is what curtails, eliminates local flare up to scale into real pandemic episode that is being rapidly aborted by Chinese "heavy handed" measurements deployments there.
1
@Blue Moon
At this point, we are hardly an admirable example of freedom of the press; rather we are a cautionary tale of the abuse that precious right.
We are seeing freedom of the press run amok and brandished as weaponry, as the right-wing media blatantly try to destroy the credibility and functionality of our justice system in Roger Stone's case --- and others, of course.
Stone's threat actors include the authors of Pizzagate, the frank lunatic Alex Jones, Tucker Carlson, Hannity and others, all braying in unison to undermine the legality of Stone's trial and of the judge.
They are cynically abusing our freedom of the press to sow discord, misinform, and whip up the masses to follow Trump blindly as he shreds legal precedent and orderly governance.
Pray that China doesn't adopt today's "American model" because we are out of control. At least Chinese know now that they were reading disinformation about the epidemic. But we Americans can't even imagine what kind of clatfart our president and his chorus will hurl at us next.
4
@Blue Moon
The American model under Trump is nothing to emulate.
4
Nicholas,
On politics: It's for the Chinese to change the accountability of their government, not US. Let's not go there. Let's stay out.
On disease: We will never eradicate it. Something new is always going to arise. It seems that the new ones are coming from animals. Payback.
12
@John
It's rather obviously not for the Chinese people to change their government, at least not on their own. They live under a repressive autocracy that brutally punishes any kind of dissent. That's the political problem at issue, remember?
And it makes no sense to be fatalistic about disease when modern science has enabled us to virtually eradicate many deadly diseases, including smallpox and polio.
19
@John: Mr. Kristof writes of freedom of speech and its relationship to disease response. A commenter volunteers to refuse treatment for inexorable diseases. That is like confronting interminable poorly-financed highway repairs with a personal view about parking lot payment modes. Barely related and unconstructive.
6
@Erick some of which are coming back because of anti vac folks... mostly the same ones who think climate change is a hoax.
1
how can anyone feel sympathy for a society where its citizens decided to give up their personal rights and liberties so they could get a piece of the pie; the consumer "pie" that is. "The Roman saying: "give them bread and circus(es)" rings true even in Communist China. Unfortunately it's not communist , its an oppressive political system. The leaders and their minions don't care about the general welfare of its citizens, only for their positions of power and vast wealth. We here have a better social safety net then they do according to Chines nationals i have spoken to. So, as much as i should have sympathy, i don'. I just sometimes laugh at them , but also shake my head and shrug my shoulders. They might as well remove the definition of "freedom" from their vocabulary.
5
How is it useful, intelligent or humane to confound a govt system with individual people trapped within it? As a Canadian, should I laugh at you and dismiss your worth as human because you’re currently a citizen under the sociopath dictator Trump? Come in, weren’t you just asking for this?
2
@Sarah Lane sorry, its apples and oranges and who said i don't feel the same way here in the U.S.? We talk about getting rid of the Electoral College but we never do, the majority twice in the last 20 years have vote for another person to be president, but this antiquated system gave us 2 monsters as president, so i don't have sympathy for people in this country. we don't walk our talk. China is different, its citizens not only tolerate oppression but encourage it, just read the way citizens are dealing with virus that tells you a lot Cultural traditions dominate vs common sense, science and personal freedoms.
It's disturbing that Mr. Kristof sees human suffering as one more opportunity for China-bashing. Yes, local officials thought it was their job to suppress information about the epidemic. Their treatment of Dr. Li was criminal, as was the cover-up. I believe that Xi has acted responsibly in leading a national effort to combat the virus. He would have nothing to gain by doing anything else.
We had exactly the same thing happen in my home city, New York, when, following 9/11, Christy Whitman, the EPA head, declared that the air at ground-zero was safe to breathe, based on no evidence at all. We know the consequences. Public officials hold the misguided belief that it is their duty to provide reassurance, even when that reassurance isn't justified.
It took years for the US government to recognize AIDs and provide adequate funding to combat the disease. And the poisoning of the water in Flint was certainly a cover-up by local officials.
Yes, Mr. Kristof, China has an authoritarian government, we get it, but authoritarian governments hardly have a monopoly on poor management of health crises. When the Chinese people grow tired of their current form of government, they will rise up against it as they did in 1911. Back in the days of Ike, that was called Self Determination of Peoples. Chinese politics is something for the Chinese people to sort out, NOT the US.
Interestingly, the 1911 Revolution had its first success in Wuhan.
28
@ShenBowen The issue is the crucial first weeks when it could have best been contained. It is the system of speech suppression that Xi believes in that caused medical professionals and other officials who could have acted earlier to not be able to speak out about the virus. Correct that only China's people can make change in their government, but you and I and Mr. Kristof are free to -- and should -- write or talk about important issues like this, both foreign and domestic.
32
@Jac Zac: I certainly agree with you that the suppression of information in the early weeks of the epidemic cost many lives, and the actions of local officials to silence the doctors was criminal. No question about that. I agree also that Xi has created an environment in which free speech is suppressed. My concern is ththe constant drumbeat of anti-Beijing sentiment coming from Mr. Kristof and others is not helpful. Yes, people in China are concerned about their freedoms, but they are also aware of threats from the US. They are quite aware of
1
@Jac Zac: My bad... my finger slipped and hit submit before I was done.
@Jac Zac: I certainly agree with you that the suppression of information in the early weeks of the epidemic cost many lives, and the actions of local officials to silence the doctors was criminal. No question about that. I agree also that Xi has created an environment in which free speech is suppressed. My concern is that the constant drumbeat of anti-Beijing sentiment coming from Mr. Kristof and others is not helpful. Yes, people in China are concerned about their freedoms, but they are also concerned about threats from the US. Consider, for example, what the American reaction would be if China routinely maintained a large naval presence in the Caribbean, as we do in the South China Sea. People are quite aware that the US will pull the trigger on 'shock and awe' at the slightest provocation, whether true or not. China knows what many countries have learned, that the US likes nothing better than regime change, and that the US is not an entirely rational actor. Just my personal opinion that Mr. Kristof's constant anti-Beijing rhetoric does sometimes sound like American promotion of regime change in China. Doing this when China is dealing with a difficult humanitarian crisis does not leave me with a good feeling.
4
Yes, all the criticisms are justified. But we should also look at the biggest threats to mankind today: global warming. Epidemics come and go. They brings deaths and horrors, but only a blip in time and history. Global warming is devastating and long lasting. Can you say something about Mr. Trump?
16
@SpadeAce Epidemics are as a much of a force as climate change or fluctuations. They are NOT unrelated.
17
Let us not overlook the efforts of Trump to aid in the cover-up. He is working to convince his base that everything would be fine in this country if he were to become like dictator in China who has, according to Trump, things working out just fine.
72
I'm not here to defend the Chinese government, it's certainly oppressive and self-protective, but it's also true in the age of the internet that it's easy to spread panic, misinformation, disinformation, and political dissent. In such an environment governments lose credibility and social cohesion breaks down. However faulty China's response to the virus, it looks like they've done a pretty good job of restricting its spread and, even if we can't praise their methods, it's wrong to attack them for the job they've done.
6
It remains to be seen how good a job they are doing in preventing the spread of this virus.
1
Huh?
I read Xu Zhangrun's essay and I salute his bravery. He has previously been punished for his writing and no doubt he will be punished for this latest essay. I urge everyone to read it.
Lest we start to feel superior about what might happen if and when a similar epidemic started in the US, I also urge everyone to read Ed Yong's article in The Atlantic from July/August, 2018: "The Next Plague is Coming: Is America Ready?" It is a sobering look at our preparation (or lack thereof) for the next infectious disease epidemic.
61
Read up on why one of the variants of Ebola is called Ebola Reston. Now why would an Ebola virus have the name of a city in the US? We didn’t just dodge a bullet, we dodged a nuclear weapon with that one. And most people have no idea it ever happened. Think about the consequences had that strain of the virus been as deadly to people as the other strains of Ebola. We got really, really unbelievably lucky.
1
Sifting through the various media reports on the handling of the Coronavirus by the Chinese authorities one has to be careful to vet them for the political agenda and biases of the reporters.
That said, I value Kristof's take, albeit I recognize he and I do see China differently.
That said, the question then arises, would any other government have handled this situation any more adroitly? Or, perhaps more pointedly, would the US leadership be able to do a better job?
As ham handed and overly autocratic some of China's actions may be, could the US actually construct a 1000 bed hospital in 10 days as was done in Wuhan?
And come to think of it, would the good old boys who are always screaming about their "freedoms" and their "gun rights" be willing to accept quarantining if tested positive.
Before we so quickly condemn China's leadership, a leadership that does seem to have done a major league screwup here, let us reflect on how well things will go here if we too are faced with such a public health crisis.
40
@George S. Let it be, let it be. Let the information flows as it may. The outbreak of the virus was detected as early as Dec 10, 2019. Authorities sat on it because they were afraid of speaking up.
15
@George S.
Coronavirus has created grossly exaggerated if measure it objectively mass hysteria in Chinese population to overwhelm and inundate their healthcare sector when everyone with slightly elevated temperature, normally tackled at home with plenty of tea and maybe a pill of aspirin have chosen to rush toward hospitals because of presumptions that have been infected with coronavirus, Ironically, it has rendered the situation much worse because in confined spaceg virus has been spreading among "patients" that confine themselves to hospitals emergency rooms without being diagnosed with that specific ailment while significantly increasing the odds to be afflicted with it in those hospitals intake facilities.
1
@George S.
Coronavirus has created grossly exaggerated if measure it objectively mass hysteria in Chinese population to overwhelm and inundate their healthcare sector when everyone with slightly elevated temperature, normally tackled at home with plenty of tea and maybe a pill of aspirin have chosen to rush toward hospitals because of presumptions that have been infected with coronavirus, Ironically, it has rendered the situation much worse because in confined spaces virus has been spreading among "patients" that confine themselves to hospitals emergency rooms without being diagnosed with that specific ailment while significantly increasing the odds to be afflicted with it in those hospitals intake facilities.
1
Thanks for this eye-opening article. I did not realize there was this growing level of dissatisfaction with the communist dictatorship within the Chinese population. This is good news but I won't hedge my bets that a change of regime is forthcoming. The government's control is too strong.
Comparing levels of cluelessness, I don't think Xi has anything to fear from Trump. I found it quite funny that the Chinese would use Trump's name instead of Xi to bypass censorship.
25
@Fly on the wall
If lame cia fools think that coronavirus will cause "regime change" in China by cultivating discontent than what Russian Slavs did(Democratic revolution in Ukraine with catapults in Kievy by USA to congratulate them so that pervert elections in deeply flawed democracy scheme to teach people how to live with elections consequences) to facilitate Trump's ascent will be trivial in their Chinese wrath retaliation later in payback loads viciousness responses to those that are responsible for such idiots projects.
These statistics may be correct in so far as they reflect reported numbers:
it’s a tribute to China’s progress that a baby born in Beijing today has a longer official life expectancy (82 years) than a baby born in Washington, D.C. (78), or New York City (81)
However, in an editorial questioning the disconnect between science and politics, I find it highly ironic that the author cites these numbers without questioning their provenence and acknowledging that (1) government politicians report these numbers, (2) that "life expectancy" is itself an ambiguous concept such that numbers from different countries may well compare apples and oranges (e.g. all births, births that survive the first 24 hrs or 72 hrs, births from babies carried to fulll-term discounting premature births, etc.) and (3) the comparison includes "official" numbers from the same government accused of possibly obfuscating Corona virus figures. China may well have made enormous strides in science and technology. Using questionable government statistics only when they support your arguments seems unreasonable at best.
7
@Thom China is a racially homogeneous country. America is not a racially homogeneous country.
Race matters to outcomes.
What is life expectancy for Blacks born in NYC? Whites? Asians?
That would be more telling.
Meat-eaters everywhere are responsible for this viral outbreak and for the future ones that may be even more deadly.
If you must eat meat, eat it once every few weeks or so, and then demand that it be very expensive, from a free-range animal.
Eating wildlife (as in China) and eating dirt-cheap meat produced in our own hideous factory farms is irresponsible and selfish. Okay, so perhaps you don't care about the animals suffering hideous cruelties: then how about you care about your fellow humans, including the ones who aren't meat-eaters but who will be just as susceptible to the viruses that come out of the meat-eating industries?
We have so many other possible sources of healthy protein nowadays that most people on the planet could easily stop eating meat and stop endangering us all. Doing that will be far more effective than agonizing about which leader we have, and whether leaders should or should not listen to doctors when they speak out.
19
@EB
It's from bats. The Chinese don't eat bats. They do eat pangolins, considered to be a possible intermediate host, and their scales, but as part of ancient Chinese medical beliefs. So much for the notion that the antiquity of Chinese medicine equals validity.
13
@EB China has withstood thousands of years of recurring famine from crop failures, by developing a starvation based diet of learning to eat ANYTHING they could get their hands on during those times of crisis. It's deeply ingrained in the Chinese culture, and criticizing them for eating meat products will not easily penetrate their newly arrived at ability to do so. Most Chinese still have memories somewhere in their families of the most recent mass starvation during the reign of Mao, in our lifetimes.
My son has lived in Taipei for twenty years and mostly works in China. People there are coming to vegetarianism but during a health panic of this scale, I'd lay off the lecturing.
7
@Entera - No, sorry: the time for "lecturing" (speaking common sense, rather) is now, while people are paying attention. Otherwise,when this is over, people will go back to their normal, cruel, irresponsible, selfish habits, blithely assuming it will never happen again. And those habits endanger me and mine, and everyone else trying to eat and live responsibly.
It's so tiresome when people try to justify abuses of today by bringing in stuff about starvation, famine, etc. of yesterday. Be responsible for yourself, today. Your ancestors' conditions are no excuse.
1
It is not just the Chinese government that is incapable of responding to new medical threats.
Ronald Reagan was loath to even say the word “AIDS” long enough to let Americans get a really good head start spreading that virus.
I’m pretty sure Reagan was not a communist, but he was 19th century in many ways, just as you describe the government of China: looking backward and idealizing a non-existant past, and trying to control the lives of those who did not conform to the leaders view of the world.
60
@Michael Reagan arrested and silenced any doctors talking about AIDS too. Let’s not forget that.
1
They didn’t say anything about it because to them, it was infecting the right people. They did not care that a bunch of gay men were getting sick.
1
Pandemic, nuclear war and global environmental catastrophe, the biggest threat to our very survival require open societies, international cooperation and international standards.
The USA under our current regime has walked away from global leadership and responsibility. We are all citizens of the planet earth.
Xi, Putin, Trump and the growing number of strong men across the globe is something we all need to think about when we elect US Presidents. It's not good enough to simply monetize US power. We need to stand for something and use our power of persuasion for more than the personal wealth of our Oligarchs.
Another great column. Thank you!
78
I was recently in China on a tour that went to 10 different areas of the country. It is definitely not my impression that “Ordinary Chinese see through government propaganda.” On the contrary. Even the most well educated, well travelled of them parrot the official government line about everything, unthinkingly. - China is kind to Uighurs and proud of all its minorities. China is environmentally concerned. China takes care of its citizens. And on and on. The apparent country wide lack of critical thinking is frightening snd chilling and pervasive.
50
@Danelle Knapp is it not possible that they are protecting themselves by mouthing stuff they do not actually believe? I was in the USSR in 1965 and encountered that sort of thing all the time --- but every once in a while the protective shield would slip -- mostly through the jokes.
33
@Danelle Knapp I agree. Most of my Chinese friends although highly educated still believe all the government propaganda and confuse patriotism with defending CCP and would be reluctant to criticize the party. These are understandable as they benefited from the current economic development. But this coronavirus outbreak has brought tragedy and impacted a large number of people in a scale that has not been seen before and more people begin to wake up although still the minority.
6
Well, maybe. Or maybe they say that because that is the safest thing to do in such a society. The nail that sticks up is the one that gets hammered.
4
Earlier in the day during an exchange with a friend, an international public heath expert, I asked for her opinion of this new virus spreading across the globe.
Possibly millions will be infected was her input, but many will be carriers, and she would like to respond to the latest appeal for masks and health kits for the medical team in China.
It is no longer a matter of remaining silent but of taking action, and Mr. Kristof might post a website for those of us able to respond to this emergency request.
The virus has no nationality, religion or political agenda, but will continue to spread without discrimination during the height of the flu and other seasonal hazards.
Dr. Li's mission was to save lives at the cost of his own. Others are following in his footsteps, and while politicians will keep clocking each other on the head, those who care about the safety of medical workers in China, here and beyond, have been given a moment in time to respond.
"Blindness", an award-winning novel, where only one woman maintained her vision, throws politics out the window.
Here's to 'Doctors Without Borders', and to The World Health Organization.
38
Thank you, Nicholas Kristof, for championing free speech. Governments of various types have restricted it for millennia; the death sentence for Socrates was issued by a democracy, while America's most famous contemporary whistle-blowers, Chelsea Manning and Edward Snowden -- one was imprisoned and tortured, while the other is safe in exile due to the antagonism between the U.S. and Russian governments. Disbanding government is a prerequisite for free speech.
19
In reading this enlightened article by Nicholas, I am not surprised about the anger of many Chinese people with their leadership. For my own sake, I read it again and included Trump's name and Global Warming as the issue. We must realize that Trump chooses to deny the human factor in warming, hence endangering all of humanity as the earth increases in temperature. I would blame Trump as the Chinese are blaming their leadership. And, to me, the warming issue is even more serious, for obvious reasons. Without action, I don't see a solution.
54
NYT's China-bashing continues. Is the hidden agenda regime change? Let's assume that COVID-19 had started in the US in the middle of the all-important (to our economy) Christmas shopping season, like the Lunar New Year is for China. Wouldn't you agree that our business and political leaders would have tried to downplay its severity during the initial weeks of the epidemic (until it went out of control)? For fear that it might adversely affect our stock market, hasn't Mr. Trump been telling us at every opportunity that we have nothing to worry about and that the epidemic will be gone by April?
I admire and applaud China for mobilizing all its resources, including building 1500-bed hospitals in a few days, and imposing a quarantine, to contain this epidemic. God forbid such an epidemic were to occur in a country with "freedom-of-speech" like India, where it would probably spread to millions within months.
All said and done, looking at the miracle that China has created over the last 70 years, I believe that authoritarian rule is not much worse than the pseudo-democracy in which we, and many other countries live.
19
@Zara1234,
Not with our Last President. He would have been addressing the Nation on Christmas Eve if need be, with a team of medical experts by his side, explaining to the Public at Large some basic facts about this new brand of flu; the cautionary measures that were being taken to contain it, and sharing common sense reminders on daily hygiene, while taking answers from The Press.
3
@Zara1234 totally agree. authoritarian rule is better by far. I yearn for our leaders to be able arrest and silence anyone they don’t like.
Think a bit deeper, Nicholas!
Early hints to the public of a potentially-deadly new virus was a criminally irresponsible act that created panic before preventive behaviors could be recommended, and isolation and quarantine measures put in place.
The public is justifiably enraged that the disease has so rapidly spread beyond the initial site of infection. Chinese authorities should investigate and prosecute those who prematurely divulged the sensitive medical information that sent people fleeing Wuhan to spread the disease to the wide world!
2
Is this the best use of scarce resources right now, going after people who tried to warn of the virus and those who attempted to flee? I’d rather we used everything we had to fight the virus rather than spending valuable time and effort looking for people to pin the blame on.
2
@AynRant So what should have been done , continue the cover up ?
1
Thank you for this piece, Mr. Kristof - highlighting the crisis in China, and our president's role in our nation's lack of help in it.
America is so utterly easy to blame, as our basic freedoms are under attack in so many ways. Even as China is in the ascendancy - whatever that may be - they are still locking up way more people than we are.
The solution is to vote - as if your life depended on it - because it literally might. And remember all the things that we take for granted that sort of look like "socialism" - roads, post offices, public schools, libraries. These are things we all pay for, and things that are mighty important to a funcioning society.
46
@EB
We saw how McCarthy employed the label of Communism to damage political opponents. It was a dark period in American history. Something to keep in mind when we see Trump use "socialism" as a dirty word to attack a political opponent. In fact Trump is working to take away those 'social' benefits that are part of the many government programs that benefit all of us. We must not get caught up in the labels used to denigrate society. Simply re-read The Preamble to The Constitution and you will understand how it is that we are a social society, a social democracy.
9
@EB totally agree...but one of my favorite institutions in USA is the post office and it’s privately run which folks often don’t know
@EB :"America is so utterly easy to blame,"
Easy sure. Accurate? No.
Despite all of the fear of Trump’s attacks on Democracy, reading this article makes one appreciate all of the freedoms we enjoy and take for granted and, despite all of the wrinkles, how much better off we are in so many ways as a free society.
6
Excellent article. Let's hope Chinese society becomes more open. China has much to offer to the world if only the leaders would look to what is good for the country and the world, rather than just its leaders.
14
This could be said about many countries, including this one
The real question is what China can do to minimize the outbreak of the virus both in China and abroad. Helpful evidence-based suggestions are welcome. We have no idea whether the U.S. with its fraying democracy would respond better than China.
32
@Michael Cohen - We already know the answer to that. Ask anyone who has had to go to the emergency room how long it took to get seen. Now, imagine that same hospital with 500 people coming in at the same time with a deadly virus.
And while that is going on, our president will simply say, "they have headaches".
123
@tom harrison
He'll say nothing because he will be on a golf course or busy tweeting about those who are "out to get him."
2
@Michael Cohen Well, Mr. Cohen, as I read this article, like you, I couldn't help but wonder what the U.S. political system's response would be. We do know what its response to climate change has been even though those who have the knowledge and the courage cannot remain silent; like the Chinese, we are suffering from a 19th Century system that continues to limp along and it is killing us. We know that there will be hell to pay the result of the U.S. political system's delay with respect to developing a public policy to address climate change just like there was hell to pay for that systems failure to address slavery, and this can only be explained, in the present instance, to be the result of a systemic denial contrary to a revelation provided to us by modern science. The truth is that we are not so very different from people the world over.
Whether it is China or our own country the politics too often expresses our "negative" emotions rather than our "better angels." I'm not familiar with 19th century Chinese politics. But, here in America we killed 600K of our brothers and sisters, treated harshly blacks before and after the Civil War and almost annihilated Native Americans and almost exterminated a host of animals and underpaid laborers as we rapidly expanded the nation exploring the land and developing a host of businesses. Yes, the technology outpaces our willingness to accept its assessments and developments. We have political leaders who not only discourage certain technology related to climate change, for example, but mock the concern and predictions (assessments) of our scientists. And so, the Chinese leaders have shown us they too attempt to discount the warnings of science. Rather than affirming and listening and accepting the extraordinary knowledge we often have a pejorative response mixed with fear of the unknown.
29
So very brave. The Chinese government is not the Chinese people. The government is absolutely awful, while the people are suffering and many, like people everywhere (including here in America in 2020, though by a different standard), yearn for freedom, for decency, for justice.
24
@Moosh
Have you been to China? I was there in 1987 and again in 2013. The improvements were phenomenal. People were happier, outgoing and obviously better off. During that period in this country, many things have actually deteriorated, including the well-being of the middle class.
23
@Susan in NH
We are still a democracy and people do not disappear. There are stark differences.
10
@Moosh - While you are correct, I think Susan's point is that America's trajectory is going down and China's trajectory is (or shall I say was) going up.
The truth is, people don't yearn for freedom, decency and justice. Not even here in America. If we did, Trump would not be as embedded as he is and he would not be at a 49% approval rating after his farcical impeachment trial.
If people cared one whit about decency and justice, we would not have the most lawless and indecent president ever in power and seemingly likely headed towards a 2nd term.
No. People are very basic. They feel better economically so they are OK with the status quo. Nevermind the fact that we are running a trillion dollar a year deficit to fund this economic boom. Can you imagine what the Democrats could have accomplished if allowed to run a trillion/yr deficit? We would have universal healthcare, major infrastructure rebuild, major improvements to climate change. List can go on and on.
81
Yes, there is 21st century, but also a great deal of credence is given to Chinese folk medicine. Hasn't it been mentioned that the corona virus might have come from pangolin, whose scales are used in folk remedies?
12
These are exactly the types of situations that show that China is not ready for prime time as a world power.
11
@cl
You are mistaken. There is plenty of money and power in the hands of the communist oligarchs to make China a world power. As there is in Russia despite its tiny economy, one fifth that of the US.
14
@ebmem
And the growing class of oligarchs in this country.
1
A totalitarian government has every incentive to silence whomever they perceive as either outliers or agitators and little reason to acknowledge their truth. China was in a position to keep the virus from spreading as much as it has, through early action, but punishing the doctor who brought attention to the virus was considered more important than working to contain the virus. It's time for China to loosen up and value its citizens.
21
Great column summarizing the frustrations between science and the pace of government.
Now that we know the glacial pace occurring in Chinese politics frustrating the science, what is the excuse in the United States for a president who believes the problem is seasonal and will naturally pass?
98
@JT FLORIDA
Which of the US policies do you disagree? Quarantining Americans who have potentially been exposed in US military bases? Refusing admission to the US of foreign nationals who have travelled to pandemic areas?
What difference does it make that Trump believes the epidemic will abate in the spring? If the pandemic is over later in the year, US government actions will change. If not, they will continue.
It's not as if the CDC acted appropriately during the Ebola outbreak. Their official instructions to medical providers did not even suggest medical professionals treating Ebola infected patients should be wearing protective clothing. Scientists make mistakes. Scientists make recommendations. Politicians make policy.
China is a totalitarian country. The people do not have the option of voting in candidates who appear to reflect better policy, or of impeaching those with poor policy or voting them out of office.
When Democrats crammed down Obamacare and attempted to impose environmental regulations that put all of the costs on red states while giving blue states a waiver on their policies, Americans voted them out of office.
Scientists do not have the expertise necessary to provide policy solutions. That is a matter for the elected politicians, tuned by desires of the electorate.
1
@ebmem : Trump has no belief in utilizing science and a consensus of experts to determine the best policy options for climate change, which he said is a Chinese hoax, causes of forest fires( rake the forests) and the Coronavirus.
No doubt, China as a command economy can get some things done but Trump as a policymaker is clueless.
25
So you think we’d be better off with more uninsured people that can’t afford to see a doctor if this thing gets here?
An epidemic like this is yet another reason EVERY SINGLE PERSON needs affordable healthcare.
6
China has come a long way since the year 1959. It was then and for an estimated three years that anywhere between 7 million and 27 million Chinese people died; of what, starvation or disease or both?
The scientists who accompanied the then US President, Richard Nixon, to China, in the early 1970 (1973), reported that even with gross errors, their new population estimates for China were way off, and that it was without doubt that huge numbers of the previously estimated number of Chinese people were missing.
From that perspective, even the somewhat narcissistic President/Premiere Xi, is more humane that those in power generations many decades ago.
If it were not for the internet, how might the Chinese in mainland China would exist with some control over their lives.
It is only a matter of time, when the now Chinese government decentralizes and becomes more democratic.
6
@RR That inevitable democratization was the rationale for Nixon's fabled "opening to China" in 1970. After 50 years, that still has not happened.
11
@RR
In 1989, before the prevalence of the internet, it was fax machines that got the word out to the world about Tiananmen. It took a while before the totalitarian Chinese government figured out how the insurgents kept the world informed.
It's been 30 years and, although it's difficult to get the genie back into the bottle, human rights have not advanced in China. China is not going to evolve into a democracy. It is going to take revolution.
Similarly, the US is not going to devolve into a progressive totalitarian state, despite the wishes of the moneyed plutocrats.
No, we are not going to allow Bloomberg to make Big Gulps illegal. Even if it would be good for the obese.
2
@RR November 2000, a Chinese friend, in China, told us the story of disappearing wild animals eaten during the Great Famine and being given sticks of salt in school to decrease hunger by drinking water.
It is always hugely important for our journalists to give a far-reaching voice to those who say, "I cannot remain silent"—especially when their voices might not otherwise be heard.
But we must always keep in mind that it's always far easier for these journalists to give this voice to those in another country, especially one whose government (handily called a "regime" here) and foundational institutions happen to be the targets of other strong and wide-ranging criticisms.
We only need to recall the many decades that passed before our journalists here finally gave a voice to children within the Catholic Church (remember the Oscar-winning Spotlight, anyone?) and finally gave a voice to women in "industries" whose power structure created a working environment where sexual abuse was openly known as just part of their "cultures." (We have many more thanks to give to Rose McGowen than we do to our journalists who dismissed women with stories just like hers for far too long.)
Of course, this doesn't detract from the importance of Kristof's piece here, which is vital to us all.
But we must also know that there are vital voices here saying "I cannot remain silent."
Yet Nicholas Kristof and other journalists simply cannot hear them because these voices threaten to reveal the abuses of power happening within our own foundational institutions—institutions that also happen to directly (or indirectly) sign the paychecks of Kristof and other journalists working for "our free press."
10
Ah, the business of spinning events to protect those in power and make them look good while disaster has actually occurred. Wasn't that what courtiers were great at during the era of the Divine Right of Kings? Isn't that what Mr. Trump and the GOP are trying to institute here in the USA? Thank you and Ms. Wudunn for speaking out about things our institutions are ignoring or trying to cover up. Thank you for drawing parallels to what is happening in China now. Are we having the birth pangs of an evolution out of that old way to an open Earth society envigored by critical thinking, compassion, and science? How can we make sure we move forward and don't fail this evolutionary test?
15
Chinese economy has completely stalled. Anyone that feels there won't be serious consequences in the supply chain from this is fooling themselves. If the disease was completely irradiated today and everyone went back to work tomorrow, there'd be a big impact. Discovery is just beginning on the effects this will have on the global economy and markets will adjust to the "new normal" when this happens. Stay safe out there.
12
@BabaBooey
The coronavirus has impacted China's economic growth but completely stalled? Far from it.
China is mulling a cut to its 2020 annual economic growth target as the coronavirus outbreak. Officials may lower China's gross domestic product estimate as part of a larger review of how the virus is affecting government plans.
The government is now eyeing additional actions to boost growth, including a special government bond sale, or raising the cap for its budget deficit-to-GDP ratio.
The People's Bank of China already stepped in to calm money markets after a massive Monday sell-off, injecting 1.2 trillion yuan ($174 billion) into the economy and lowering the lending rate for banks.
2
@Wang An Shih My son who's lived in Taipei for twenty years and mostly works in China, told me yesterday that the city has stalled to a halt. The streets are deserted and businesses are shuttered. The ramifications in mainland China are magnitudes of worse.
We'll quickly discover how short sighted the vision of our corporations was in moving most production of goods halfway around the planet.
4
“ The One himself is clueless “. Sir, WE absolutely feel your pain, in that regard.
Best wishes. And my sincere gratitude to the absolutely heroic Healthcare Workers, fighting for their Patients lives. Your sacrifice will inspire others and does honor to your Families. And NO ONE can take that away.
137
Mr. Kristof:
Thank you for writing this. Yes. We owe to scientists--our longer lifespans, our standard of living, and almost every measure of our way of life vs that of the 1700's. It's probably time that the citizenship think about electing (may be on a part time basis scientists to political office--society , no doubt,---would be in a much better shape.
I say part time because its my understanding that scientists --in general--love what they do.
I am the relative of 3 doctors---and a former biology student who could not finish--because I could not study at night and had to have a full time job to support myself. And also didn'twant to ask for financial help. But I would not change for anything my knowledge of science that has helped in numerous ways to improve my daily existential needs enormously.
52
@a rational European
Americans owe their longer lifespans, our standard of living, and almost every measure of our way of life vs that of the 1700's to the cheap energy provided by the fossil fuel industry. The scientific advancement you tout was paid for with the proceeds of the industry and taxes derived from industrial, commercial and individual taxes collected from a prosperous nation.
The economic malaise of the 1970's was caused by the tripling of oil prices by OPEC and was reversed when the OPEC cartel lost its ability to maintain pricing during the 1980's and oil prices declined to their pre crisis levels.
Although the financial crisis of 2008 was precipitated by the bursting of the real estate bubble and the failed financial computer modelling of the financial technocrats, the recovery was fueled by the massive drop in energy costs created by the fossil fuel industry in exploiting horizontal drilling and fracking technology [practical science in action.]
The state of California owes its existence and prosperity to fossil fuels. Although immigration was initially motivated by the gold rush, it was the black gold of crude oil that sustained the state and made it the prosperous state that exists today. It is roughly tied with Alaska, of all places, for the state in third place in crude oil production, after Texas and North Dakota.
Your daily existential needs require cheap energy.
4
@ebmem The oil industry would not exist without scientists either.
6
@a rational European:
"It's probably time that the citizenship think about electing (may be on a part time basis scientists to political office--society , no doubt,---would be in a much better shape."
If you want to help elect scientist-types to political office, donate money to 314 Action PAC.
They've been working very hard, with significant success, to recruit research scientists, medical practitioners, mathematicians, and all sorts of engineers who wish to enter the political arena (at all levels, from the US Senate down to local school boards) and give them training to succeed in retail politics. Candidates are typically in the late 30s or older (I think): men & women who have already had substantial success in their STEM professions. Some are entrepreneurs who have created tech-based businesses.
The "blue wave" of the 2018 mid-term elections brought an historic number of such people into the US Congress. As they say, go look it up.
(FWIW, I first learned about 314 Action PAC in a NYT article that appeared in January 2017. In the interest of disclosure, I am NOT an employee of the organization but I donate to it and to some of the candidates it promotes.)
3
Why should anyone be surprised that Trump congratulates his fellow despot over the latter's (failed) efforts to control the coronavirus epidemic? Didn't he just recently inform us that the "headaches" experienced by American troops stationed at that Iraqi base that came under attack from Tehran were nothing serious? When it comes to sacrificing honesty in exchange for maintaining political authority Trump and Xi are two of a kind. On the other hand, only one of them can be defeated in a legitimate election. Let's just pray that the next one held in this country turn out to be legitimate.
440
@stu freeman
"On the other hand, only one of them can be defeated in a legitimate election."
Well, we hope and pray that the man in the Oval Office who has been determined by GOP voters to be "greater than Abe Lincoln" will vacate it voluntarily if and when he is defeated in an election. I am not so sure he will. He strikes me as someone who would rather start a new civil war than concede defeat, don't you think?
27
What makes you think we are going to get a legitimate election. Nothing happened to Trump the last time he tried to interfere, so he will do it again. He doesn’t learn.
14
@Alfred Yul Yep, and I'm guessing that he would have attempted to overturn manumission had he succeeded Mr. Lincoln in the Oval Office.
9
We don’t need freedom of speech.
Why?
Because it’s not prerequisite to solving our problems.
Actually, freedom of speech as it is currently is counterproductive. We use it to criticize somebody else for the social problems and pile up the entire responsibility and guilt on the others.
Actually, probably 95% percent of the world problems could have been solved internally because those are self-made.
In the most cases we have created our own difficulties, including the global warming.
We could eliminate them and improve ourselves if we wanted to.
We don’t need the freedom of speech to analyze own behavior, recognize our personal mistakes and make us better individuals.
There is only one thing in the world that enables us to act in such a way. It’s not freedom of speech but the faith.
But please, don’t mix up the faith with the religion.
The faith empowers each of us individually and make us responsible for solving own problems.
In contrast to the pure faith, the religions teach the folks that God would take care of everything...
2
@Kenan Porobic
"Truth" as spoken by a progressive Democrat. The masses don't need to know what is going on as long as a benevolent unaccountable technocrat bureaucrat makes the right policy decisions. The unelected technocrat takes the place of a divine god and is presumed infallible.
The progressive faith: technocrats will take care of everything.
@Kenan Porobic History is not replete with examples of altruism by humans organized in large groups.
Man has always acted with empathy on a personal level, and like a paranoid, narcissistic, sociopath at the national level.
We allow the worst of us, to rule the rest of us. Why? Because they are willing to break the rules to gain power, and the rest of us don't make them stop. We are either too apathetic, or have our own place at the trough so they get away with it.
Until the enough of the comfortably apathetic majority, are no longer comfortable or apathetic, nothing will change. If they wait too long to notice the reality outside their bubbles, it may not even be there to be found.
The only thing you can have faith in today is that humanity will look after it's own selfish interest on an individual level, even if it means completely destroying the biosphere of our only habitable mothership.
Makes it hard to have faith in mankind, don't you know?
@Kenan Porobic
Apparently you don't know what freedom of speech means. It's not about criticizing somebody or blaming someone. It's not about freedom to say racist things. On it's most basic level, freedom of speech is about speaking against the government without fear of retribution. That's what China doesn't have. That's what our Constitution guarantees and Trumps wants to eliminate.
2
It is not a Chinese failure, it is a human failure and it is unrelated to any political party. It can happen here or some other place. To politicize it is uncalled for. It could have happened here too. People tend to foul up, some times with more harm than other times. Accepting responsibility is not easy either.
9
@ARL It could, and it will happen here because now we have a government that is only concerned with staying in power. The Trump Admin denigrates science and any factual information that doesn't support Trump's alternative reality. This is not a "foul up" it is was a purposeful cover up, and better get used to it because this is how Trump and Barr function.
43
@ARL Last I heard the Chinese people are human, as are their leaders but it is the leader(s) of the Communist party of China who failed here as they did with SARS and AIDS, in every case by putting party over country and its citizens. It has happened here but our responses were quite different. The polio epidemic of the 1950s was met with the fairly swift development of a vaccine which since has almost eradicated the virus world wide. Though good old Ronnie delayed the response to AIDS and portrayed it as the just desserts of being homosexual, we developed drugs that make it into a chronic manageable disease rather than a death sentence. In sum, crises like this may happen here or in some other place but the response to them is crucial to limiting harm, and it does depend on who hold political power at the time.
5
@sleepdoc
Still, decisions are made by the individuals in power and they make plenty of wrong decisions. It can be health care failures or natural disasters like Hurricane Katrina and the officials will do all they can to cover up their mistakes. One could question why the polio vaccine was not developed earlier, the illness was well known for a long time.
1
The threat of deadly pandemic is one of the world's greatest disorganizers. I doubt that the mal-adaptive Chinese response is much worse than what we might have seen in the U.S. The initial impulse among politicians everywhere is always to play down threats of catastrophe, because the unhappy social consequences of such threats are themselves so hard to control.
Which raises the question, what makes anyone think the U.S. is adequately prepared, should a wildly contagious, and truly deadly, epidemic get a foothold here. I have seen news accounts of pre-planned counter-measures, and caches of medical supplies, vaccines, etc. Nothing described strikes me as remotely sufficient to reassure a public panicked in the initial stages of a spreading, deadly contagion.
So far, we have been lucky. That is about all we know.
44
@S.P. Did you know that the U.S. military is already preparing for the pandemic to hit the U.S.? But the U.S. government under Trump will be as impulsively self-protective as it is about our justice system, our environment, our taxes. People who are worried about socialism better start getting worried about Trump's authoritarian rule because it ain't just about 'shared wealth,' it's about limitless executive power.
42
And counting on being lucky is a terrible plan.
1
@S.P.
In California, they (drs, clinics, state gov., commercial pharmacies) truly vigorously campaign for people to get vaccinated.
I think we are more socialist here, and we have many more residents that don't speak English, and they want to reach those people.
As someone once more or less said (Matthew 7:5): take the log out of your eye, and you will be able to see to take the speck out of your neighbor's. The death toll of this virus in China is about half the number of deaths per year in the US, with a population less than one fourth of China's, from foodborne illness, roughly 3000 per year. While the Chinese leadership may be excessively secretive, it is hardly more "corrupt, thuggish and narcissistic" than much of ours, where the cash nexus decides where medical research goes and where the regulated polluters and poisoners have become their own regulators. The steady drumbeat from the Times berating the Chinese leadership is becoming tiresome, particularly when what is ignored is the culture of the Chinese people, most of whom are either in a basically traditional peasant culture or only one or maybe two generations removed. The agricultural systems there are the source of almost all of these outbreaks, and these are the agricultural systems the Chinese people prefer or at least accept. Maybe the Chinese leadership needs to be more "authoritarian" in order to clean up this mess.
13
@stuart It isn't over yet Stuart--the CDC says it has only just begun--so the "3,000" will climb--China is desperately trying to "contain" the disease but there is still a lot that scientists do not know, and China wants to be the country that comes up with the vaccine, in order to recoup its economic losses that will inevitably cost billions of dollars. That is why they are not allowing the CDC to circumvent.
2
@stuart
More than half of American food borne illnesses in the US are the result of household mishandling of food, which are difficult for the government to do anything about.
The Chinese deaths from coronavirus have occurred during one and a half months, not a full calendar year, and that s=assumes that the Chinese have accurately collected statistics and are accurately reporting same.
Do you have any data on how many deaths there are in China in a typical year from food borne illnesses?
How would it be possible for the totalitarian Chinese government to be more authoritarian?
2
@stuart My RN daughter says that the coronavirus isn't as deadly on a per capita infected level as the regular flu, but it seems to be way more highly contageous and spreadable. However, we need to take notice because we are increasingly less prepared to deal with this or another highly infectious disease, which might make this one seem benign in comparison.
2
China can brag all that it wants about its citizens’ longevity, but so long as it engages in the suppression of free speech and squelches important information related to the well-being of its people, it is nothing more than a 21st century nation with leaders whose mindset is stuck in the Dark Ages...
12
@J. Grant And so is Trump -- welcome to the Dark Ages.
1
Are we any different? Our leader seems stuck on a 5th century solution to our border woes.
1
The freedom of speech has transformed into travesty.
It is being used to blame somebody else for our personal mistakes and sins.
Whatever happens we causally blame the government and the others for it.
We should always be critical toward ourselves first.
What have WE done to prevent and preempt the tragic conditions and the chronic problems?
By the way, the key problem with democracy is that we are personally responsible for the kind of government we have…
I said it because I cannot remain silent.
7
@Kenan Porobic You are so right about that. And why in the world the U.S. citizens are giving Trump a path to authoritarian rule is beyond me. I donate time and money to responsible politicians in my state and in the presidential race, but people are more interested in their 401k than in freedom. If Trump is re-elected we are in dangerous territory. But as you said, it's our own fault.
20
@Kenan Porobic "By the way, the key problem with democracy is that we are personally responsible for the kind of government we have…" However, as Churchill pointed out: "Democracy is the worst form of government---except for all the others."
1
Unfortunately, nature has its own laws and these may be contradictory with the rules of politicians. Responding to an epidemic and looming pandemic required that the politicians listen to those who study and understand natural sciences. The Chinese are realizing that their leaders are not up to the task of leading the world out of an infectious disease disaster. Sadly, I fear that our current administration, with its disdain for science and expertise, is also ill equipped if this epidemic takes hold in North America.
154
@Rob Daniel The same is unfortunately true when it come to climate change and the approaching calamities it will cause.
It hit nearly 70 degrees in Antarctica last week.
35
"...and they’re working very, very hard..."
President Xi worked very, very hard to silence the truth, and those who work very, very hard to save lives can only do so much with limited supplies, need to sleep, overwhelming number of seriously ill people, and hope that they themselves do not get infected and possibly die.
"and I think it’s going to all work out fine." Right now, it has not worked out for maybe 100,000 ill, more than 10 million locked down, and while not likely, certainly possible that a billion will be infected.
I'm amazed at how much we know about this virus so soon, despite the politics of silencing whistleblowers, throwing video bloggers into quarantine, and on this side of the dateline, all the anti-science actions which fortunately haven't yet had time to destroy our public health system too much. That will go should there be a second term.
Amazing how vaccines become a good word during these times.
79
@Mike S. It will take at least 18 months for a vaccine--it isn't over yet.
1
The single greatest thing we can do to control disease outbreaks is for countries to share data and resources quickly and honestly. W. Ian Lipkin, professor of epidemiology at Columbia University’s Mailman School of Public Health, is trying to create an international exchange of information to facilitate this process. But countries must be honest and cooperative which, given the authoritarian regimes in places like China, is highly unlikely. Substituting Trump's name for Xi's is appropriate, given how Trump seems to see Xi and Putin as role models.
Substituting President Trump’s name for Xi’s is a just replacement.
94
@AGoldstein Trump is making deep cuts in the budgets of the agencies that monitor, research and fight diseases like the coronavirus. The program that investigated animal to human spread was cancelled due to inadequate funding. http://thenationshealth.aphapublications.org/content/49/3/1.2
3
@AGoldstein A just replacement and a smart strategy.
Mr. Kristoff,
How effective was your freedom of speech in ending up the endless state of war the US government has been engaged in ever since the end of the WWII?
Since the Pearl Harbor attack in 1941, no foreign government has first declared the war on the USA.
So, why have we wasted many trillion dollars on waging them, got close to 100,000 US soldiers killed, hundreds of thousand maimed and millions of them living with the PTSD?
Can you imagine the world we would live in if all those monetary and human sacrifices were invested in educational, scientific and technological innovation and breakthrough?
334
@Kenan Porobic
A critic of China's political system isn't a justification of our sins. It isn't saying, we are so much better. It is saying that when politicians promote themselves above all else, its disastrous for all else.
We do have a more robust media than China; though it is not as rigorous as we'd like to believe with millions in thrall to a media giant that engages regularly in misinformation.
I find this a warning of what is to come if we do not start demanding a return to checks and balances, and rule of law.
253
@Kenan Porobic
Great point. If we ratchet down our interventions, wars, and meddlings around the world - even by a third - we'll have tax dollars to spend for such underfunded things as public schools, crumbling roads, people with no homes.
We need to keep an eye on candidates' foreign policy proposals, for sure.
34
@Kenan Porobic I agree with your general thesis that we have overinvested in war and underinvested in education. But I disagree to some extent with your framing.
First, I think some military action is justifiable. In the 1950s, the Seventh Fleet protected Taiwan -- and, with no shots fired, that prevented a Chinese invasion to overtake Taiwan. I'd also say that the Korean War was worth it, for otherwise South Korea would today be a part of North Korea. The Kosovo intervention of 1999 helped prevent a genocide. Same with Mount Sinjar. Same with the no-fly zone over northern Iraq. The first Gulf War was worthwhile (and was paid for by allies). But I completely agree with you about Vietnam, Iraq etc.
I'd also say that while all this happened under a democracy, in general democracies tend to be less aggressive than dictatorships. There's a large social science literature on this. So democracy is certainly imperfect, but I've also lived in dictatorships (including China) and I'll take democracy any time.
150
To a hammer, everything is a nail. The Chinese government has one way of operating, and that is heavy-handedly. No matter what the problem is, the solution is to grab the people and all means of communication by the reins. For their leadership, at least maintaining the appearance of control is an end in itself. But of course illness is in no way comparable to citizens’ political dissent, the former being far more unresponsive than the latter to humans’ ideas about any social order.
11
Unfortunately the U.S. cannot exactly provide a beacon of hope for the Chinese people with Trump is doing exactly what Putiin hoped- tarnishing the reputation of western democracy.
Meanwhile, Xi, for all his faults, at least steers many features of the Chinese economy with a shrewd long view, sending out webs of influence through loans to create access to world resources for years to come without squandering blood or treasure on futile wars or excessive military spending.
He achieves access to resources much more efficiently than the the U.S with our endless military interventions that sap our resources.
The question to me is whether his stifling of free speech and democratic ideals will be equally damaging to the Chinese economy as are our senseless wars are to ours?
Free minds are the most creative, or at least one hopes. If he manages to succeed and shows his model is more efficient than our contentious and messy democracy, human beings all over the globe will have their own freedoms threatened.
Is it more productive and efficient to have political organization that is like a free-range jail?
We need to show the world a better alternative.
29
"“Faced with this virus, the Leader has flailed about,” Xu wrote. “Although everyone looks to The One for the nod of approval, The One himself is clueless.”"
Although it's not an original observation, the same can be said about our own government. When there's a vast disconnect between what a dear leader says and what a captive public observes, something has got to give.
A few nights ago, I heard historian Timothy Synder observe that when a people wants to revolt, it's far better to revolt in great numbers, rather then a few at a time--hard to punish a hoard.
As Nicholas Kristof observes, if the Chinese public has come to realize how tough it is to quell a resistance of millions, maybe we too will soon see the light about the power of a majority over the whimpers of a minority.
567
@ChristineMcM
The best way to bring down the Beijing regime is through a general strike. The coronavirus epidemic would provide cover for those participating. So I would not be surprised to see Xi's government fall before the end of 2020.
2
@ChristineMcM. Add to this the fact that Chinese critics have evaded censors by substituting ‘Trump’ for ‘Xi’. Very perceptive. More than a lot of Americans.
34
@ChristineMcM , excellent perspective as usual. Our day of national protest should be declared as November 3rd. Wouldn't it be phenomenal to have 100% voter turnout and thoroughly repudiate the falsehoods and ineptitude of our government?
45
I don't understand who exactly is dictating the containment of spread measures in China. Either it someone with no expertise, or China has some serious deficits, such as rubbing alcohol or soap. More masks won't do it.
Several readers on previous articles have commented on the importance of hand hygiene in controlling spread of viral infections. As I vaguely recall, Toronto aborted its SARS outbreak by putting hand disinfection stations all over the city. But there has not been the first word in any reports that China is aware of this important control measure.
14
@Linda However, medical personnel who wore respirator masks, gowns, gloves etc. still became infected in Toronto and 1 died.
3
@Linda. There’s a much more serious problem in China than lack of soap. There’s a lack of potable water everywhere. Even small towns have signs on taps saying don’t drink this. The country runs on bottled water. I wonder how those people who have had their apartment doors welded shut are getting food and water, let alone soap. Or is sealing them up to die part of the Chinese government’s solution to the virus?
Linda, don't worry. People in China and around the world are aware of measures like hand hygiene. That's not the problem.
2
Thank you for this article, Mr. Kristof. Your articles are so enlightening and open up our eyes to the world.
238
@gailscout He cannot remain silent.