In Coronavirus Fight, China Sidelines an Ally: Its Own People

A follow up story on what happened to Gou Meimei in the intervening 9 years would be interesting. Where is she now?

Stop the fake news and clickbait headlines. The sub-headline reads “The outbreak has exposed the powerlessness of private charities, civic groups and others who could help the effort but whom the Communist Party considers rivals” and in the actual article listed half a dozen volunteer groups that contributed to the effort in person. The same article also bring up Red Cross but failed to mention the scandal involving Hubei Red Cross just a month ago and why people don’t donate through them. Please stop with the agenda driven reporting. It is a huge disservice to the afflicted, volunteers, and readers.

Interesting that this article writes about the Chinese government shunning charities and the assistance they could provide when Democrats today shun charities, the far left wants them gone (especially religious charities) in favor of government controlling who gets help and how much. And, for the same reason - competition.

China was and remains a communist dictatorship. Dictatorships of whatever vintage cannot tolerate a vibrant civil society. All such activities are viewed as a threat to their control of society. People outside China, especially in the USA and Europe, seem to want to delude themselves about the reality that China is a dictatorship and is therefore an enemy to all democratic nations. China does not allow a free press; does not allow minorities any freedom; are hostile to all religions; lies about anything that may cause a threat to their rule; and will do anything to take advantage over all other nations. This is an excellent article showing how draconian China really is.

Sadly, Xi Jinping is a true believer in the past ideology, and worse arrogantly believes he can avoid the systemic problems by arresting dissidents, whistleblowers, and lower level ministers who are following him. The Chinese people deserve better, and have better potential leaders, though some of them are in prison.

Why would you let infected people in to the U.S.? Leave them wherever they are until they are not sick anymore. I can't believe the amount on sick people coming in. Of course we have to show the world how much better (or not) our health system is. If we fail then it is the always worn out phrase that we tried. I didn't travel to China. I didn't go on a cruise and I don't want to catch anything from anyone that has this virus.

Trump lied when he said Xi has done a good job managing the epidemic. China tried to cover it up, still isn't transparent and has refused help from virtually all sources. At a time when Xi is rightly being criticized, Trump supports him - to get a trade deal by understating how serious this epidemic is.

If only our own abundant charities and NGOs can save the life of the 10,000+ deaths during the past flu season, I wouldn't hesitate to criticize China. Besides Coronavirus fight is just underway, let us not judge too soon. We will have plenty of time to address the problems that China has. Although China is the 2nd largest economy, but it is still a developing country simply because 1.4 billion people is tough to deal with. Just like Ohio State or U. of Michigan, which could be the biggest school in US, but it doesn't mean it is the best school. It will take time to nurture and educate Chinese to the level in par with the developed world. Chinese government is doing an incredible job to lock down cities over 33 million people. It essentially traps the Coronavirus patients in Hubei province and not let them going out and spreading the problem. While Japan and US government are dealing with a handful of cruise ship patients that already result in chaos and resentment. Maybe we can learn something from China too during the crisis.

While stamping out corruption in the Chinese system will be of great value if it can be achieved, we must not lose sight of how our system might increase our vulnerability to a similar outbreak in the Western world. In particular, would we be able to to lock down the majority of the population, close transport links and slow the spread of the virus in the presence of corporate groups lobbying to keep the country "open for business"?

Not only should we consider a flawed US performance during the H1N1 epidemic while analyzing the current situation in China, but we must as well take into account the situation of the Chinese Red Cross. These people have thrived from corruption for three decades now, they have bought booze, feasts, and karaoke girls form the the wealth of donations. They have impressed their friends and families with their happy wealthy life. Now this unexpected epidemic causes them a lot of trouble and inconvenience. And once all these masks arrive in their depots, of course they must consider where to direct them: to those doctors and nurses who they may never have to deal with in their future lives, or to the local government, who will show gratitude by protecting and spoiling them in the future. Finally, we must concede that a certain type of parasite is very very hard to get rid of. Very hard.

I had the unfortunate experience of living through a few catastrophic "events" here in the U.S. and in the wake of each incident, chaos ensued with people taking up arms to defend their property and others took up arms to loot stores, steal cars, set fires, etc... I can't even imagine how the U.S. would deal with the corona virus and keep 1.4 BILLION people in check. C'mon, let's at least give the people of China some credit.

None of us, myself included, turned a hair when the CDC waited six months to warn about our home-brewed H1N1 pandemic in 2009. By then, it had killed 48,000 people and went on to put another 150,000 in their graves. For some reason, however, the death of 2,000 Chinese over a three-month period has caused everyone to run around with their hair on fire. Why the disparity?

In nearly every American city we see desperate, often drug-addicted and/or mentally ill people living on the streets in conditions that wouldn't be tolerated in a third world refugee camp. Millions of American children live in poverty and lack reliable access to health care and decent nutrition. Large parts of Puerto Rico still lie in ruins and Flint hasn't had safe drinking water in years. Why do we never see headlines about these crises exposing the weaknesses in the American system? These near-daily attempts to turn a tragic health crisis into anti-Chinese propaganda are nothing short of shameful.

Democracy and transparency is not appropriate for every country especially not for the world's most populated country that became communist after world war II. China has been rising after it became a capitalist country with communist rule and is today the 2nd most strongest economy. China is self sufficient in food production and housing. Are there poor in China today? Yes there are but most have essentials and I never saw more than a few homeless beggars while walking along the great wall and hardly any in the 10 cities, I visited. As Bob Tonnor from Australia has commented, China has lifted millions out of poverty. and has several millionaires. China is not perfect and neither is any other country in the world. The closest to perfection in my humble opinion is Switzerland. It minds its own business, it is an ideal neighbor to 7 surrounding countries and has no enemies. Every citizen serves the country in meaningful way and takes responsibility for keeping their surroundings clean and its air clean. Switzerland is a true democracy where citizens not only elect their representatives but also have a direct referendum on how the budget is divided. Imagine if we the people had an opportunity to have a say in our budget instead of representatives who play dirty politics and Kow tow to lobbyists. You don't have to be a billionaire to run for elected office or to have a fighting chance to be elected. Chinese people need more than our sympathies. They need our understanding.

"Apple Warns That Coronavirus Will Hurt Revenue." Corporations are undermined when they forget to go back to basics -- don't put all your apples in one basket. If the highly paid at Apple are interested in more such life morals, they can contact my grandma.

And yet, Wall Street seems to fly above it all. How is this possible when virtually everything that creates a market here is made in Communist China? If it continues to paralyze manufacturing in Communist China, there will be last container ship.

The pathetic and cruel side that only a totalitarian state such as China could provide. What sort of ethic exists in the minds of China’s ruling party? This grotesque example of human cruelty should remind all of us that despite China’s economic miracle, its government is basically gangsterism, dressed up as a government. Shame. Disgrace.

As in any communist utopia, it can be dangerous to be right in matters where established men are wrong.

It's quite interesting that it took the coronavirus to expose the weaknesses in Chinese healthcare system and it's unsanitary markets. However, what's more interesting is that somehow everyone seems to have forgotten the impact on ordinary people with other health conditions requiring medical attention. What's happening to cancer patients, pregnant women, people with influenza, etc.? Are they slipping through the cracks?

The title “In Coronavirus Fight, China Sidelines an Ally: Its Own People” makes no sense. Since when the government is an ally of the people or vice versa? The government is fearful of the people and the people are fearful of the government. The government tries to do everything to control the people and their thoughts. The article actually accurately reflects my sentiment / the reality. Just the title doesn’t make sense. The government has not been an ally of the people since the 1950’s, 10 years after the popular movement brought the communist into power. Making the title “China Sidelines a potential ally” would be more accurate.

Alright already. Stop the criticism of the Chinese system and efforts to control the virus. It's no longer news. We will know more in a year or two when this difficulty is systematically studied. That is the time we can learn from it.

No doubt, it’s fair to criticize Chinese leadership, but our own authorities allowed passengers on a cruise ship to get off in Cambodia and board planes for the U.S only to discover that one of their fellow passengers had the virus. It is unclear at this point whether or not authorities kept any record of where these travelers were headed or what airlines they were flying or if the authorities simply sent them merrily on their way and are now scrambling to track them down. We will see in the coming weeks how well our government handles this crisis, but given that we’re in the hands of a man who doesn’t trust experts and whose administration already suffers from chaos, it’s easy to imagine things can get out of control quickly in the U.S., too.

Based on press reports, the spread of COVID-19 is a major challenge to control in China. However, the Chinese effort has actually brought the world time to develop plans and hopefully medical treatments to prevent this from becoming a full blown pandemic. In the short term, world governments should invest the resources needed by the Chinese to combat the virus there. Meanwhile, the U.S. government, need to engage in a robust information campaign to ensure that the public is aware of efforts underway to prevent the spread of the virus here; and how the people can protect themseves. At this time, the nation does not need propoganda, misinformation or wishful thinking, but truth about what we are dealing with. We are all able to see, through various information sources, how bad the virus is impacting the population of China;and it is naive to have the allusion that is can not get that bad here. We need to demand that the Trump administration reinstate the funding for the very science, including pandemic response teams, needed keep us safe from viruses expected to emerge in the future. Also, there should a major outcry for our government to expend the resources necessary to address the climate crisis before the world is out of time. The source of COVID-19 appears to be a scientific hypothesis at best. Science can not even make an educated guess regarding yet unknown viruses waiting to be released as a result of melting ice caps.

Why have we not heard that the virus is a US backed biological warfare attack? We have the capability. We have the motive. And it is working. And it would be an excuse to cover the Dictators poor performance. Maybe it is??

Every day more and more of the world is getting its eyes opened to how morally bankrupt the the Chinese government is.

Weakness at the heart of the Chinese system is its stubborn resistance to an open society that it’s caretakers fear and loathe because of the loss of power inherent in it’s augmentation.

Isn't socialism great? Lenin had to depend on Herbert Hoover to feed the starving masses back in the 1920s. And Stalin had to have weapons and supplies through Lend Lease to fight the Germans. And somebody ask Bernie Sanders what he thinks of organized charities. He himself has never been very generous in that regard, and he is someone who has become a multi-millionaire without ever having a job outside of government. I guess he is his own charity.

This article highlights, how China as an oppressive regime stifles and suppresses help for the victims of this terrible epidemic from within. It is really disturbing to hear further reports that brave doctors and nurses are left without the necessary protective equipment. These doctors and nurses cannot just be sacrificed , to this virus.

This could be Communist China's equivalent of the Chernobyl disaster that revealed the inabilities of the USSR. Gorbachev claimed later, that was one of the factors that broke the ordinary Russian's trust of the system. Mao could handle the failures of the Great Leap Forward through sheer violence and Xiaoping could crush the student protests 1989 by running them over tanks. But I believe that Xi Jinpeng -as Gorbachev - both of them of a younger cadre than the old school die hards cadres, will find it difficult to put the genie back in the bottle when the system has exposed it weakness to a younger generation of Chineses. So maybe a good side effect of the disaster could be the collapse of the Communist rule

Let's all just say it straight up and get it out of the way once and for all. No-one anywhere on God's green earth believes anyone else would or could do better than China has and is doing to contain COVID19. Anyone selling anyone else any other story at the very least, is just kidding themselves.

Lack of charitable organizations in China is a mere symptom of their darker inhumanity and greed. The West has to face reality. Both Covid19 and the US2016 elections show us globalization absolutely cannot continue with corrupt, brutal, anti-liberal, authoritarian partners like China and Russia. Those countries must modernize and relinquish their totalitarian governments, lest they destroy tens of thousands of their own people with willful incompetence, or, more ominously, infect the globe via their greed-driven policies which deliberately underfund medical and hygiene infrastructure.

if any country is to beat this virus the china is the one. If it comes to eu we are doomed.

'Beijing has shown the world that it can shut down entire cities, build a hospital in 10 days and keep 1.4 billion people at home for weeks. ' Let us not underestimate this. I strongly doubt that anywhere else something like that would have been possible. Without such measures we would have had extremely serious pandemic. That said, it seems that the current epidemic could take place only there, unlikely anywhere else ...

Oh look, yet another article with self-serving "advice" intended to attack the Chinese government in the guise of "help". Too bad it looks like China has done an excellent job of handling things, huh? “It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.”

Evidently life is still cheap in China, and face exorbitantly expensive.

Get ready for the baby boom in 9 months.

China needs to address the cause of this outbreak - the eating and handling of exotic animals needs to be re evaluated. The cultural reason to eat anything that they can has to change. If they do not there should be class action law suits as it is a changeable behavior that is the cause of so much death, illness and costs!

Laurie Garrett, the former Newsday reporter who covered the SARS and Ebola outbreaks, probably knows as much about emerging virus threats as anyone. I heard a couple of her videos https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5nSlHKcEnIQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2lJvr5UL2pQ Garrett said that the international emergency organizations performed training exercises to see what would happen if they had to deal with a new viral outbreak. The main lesson they learned, and the main problem they discovered, was lack of coordination. In an outbreak like this, you need a panel of experts with an overview of the entire operation, seeing problems come up and figuring out how to solve them. It's like D-Day. Instead, nobody was in control. In the US federal government, different agencies assumed control of different aspects of the problem -- the NSA handled "security" issues, the CDC handled other issues, but in general nobody knew what to do and different organizations worked at cross purposes. Shut down factories and people can't get masks. Who decides whether to shut down schools, workplaces, or transportation? In the training exercises, sometimes federal agencies, local agencies, mayors of towns, police chiefs. People just assumed authority. So the answer to this article is: Yes, there are problems with central control. But there are problems with decentralized control. The Chinese made a reasonable decision. They had problems, but that doesn't mean it wrong.

The basic logic behind the Govt’s response to self-organised relief measures is that, there shouldn’t be more than one Chef in the kitchen. To a certain extent, it makes sense because without a central command to coordinate, there could be chaos and confusion. The only problem is that the Chef insists on doing everything by itself that it is not utilising all the help that is available. The other problem the author identified is that with the centralised command structure, nothing gets done at the local level without approval from higher up. That essentially paralyses the response in the face of a crisis. Xi’s centralization of power has significantly worsened this problem.

extraordinary that the Chinese government, the CCP, seems to handling this as a public relations problem followed by a respond and control drill first, rather than an all hands on deck medical emergency. That they are set up as an authoritarian dictatorship to protect themselves, rather than the Chinese people, has never been plainer.

I'm not sure what to make of this article really. It brings up a lot of points but frames them with a lot more commentary than facts. Maybe the author doesn't have the resources to do any better than list random, partial facts tinged with opinion or just doesn't have to because the American public is conditioned for ideological critique? I can't say but from what I've seen of US emergency organisation I'm not convinced it's in a position to pass judgement.

Surely if we in the US had an executive branch which had maintained alliances and had a strong, compassionate concern for the welfare of our entire planet, that President would be right now calling world leaders and organizing a worldwide response to this virus, based upon scientific information and the best practices of the WHO and CDC. There would be calls for each nation to pledge what it could to fight the virus. Not just on their own shores but across the world. Such a President would ask that the UN hold a special session to deal with this. Such a President would pledge billions to assist other nations, especially poor nations with little healthcare infrastructure. Neglecting to use every tool available to the White House and Congress as well as calling on world leaders, the UN, world organizations to respond to this virus as we have responded to world catastrophes, like earthquakes and tsunamis and famines. We have the tools. We need to use them.

The initial ideological ineffective management by CCP apparatchiks made the Chinese governmental bureaucracy look too political to efficiently manage this crisis. But to be fair, Americans need only look to the incompetence of our own government's mis-management by political appointees. (George W.Bush's "great job Brownie" or Trump's FEMA responses in Texas and Puerto Rico.) Unforeseen natural disasters are always shockers even for reasonably competent administrations. When the ignorant take charge of what they know so little about the problem is usually worsened. How would Trump, this Congress, and our current bureaucracy have reacted if this virus first appeared in Houston or Washington?

I haven't been a fan of using this epidemic as an excuse to throw barbs at Beijing... but Ms. Li's article points out something important. Xi's biggest promise to the Chinese people was to stamp out corruption... but corruption is alive and thriving. Yes, we have plenty of corruption in the US, with our president giving it a new aura of legitimacy, but corruption is endemic on all levels of life in China. People who migrate from China to the US often say that the thing they like most about the US is being free of the petty everyday corruption that pervades life in China. Xi has never made promises about 'freedom', but he has talked a great deal about ending endemic corruption. If corruption is now costing lives in this epidemic, let's see if Xi can make good on his promise. Thanks for your reporting Ms. Li.

I know it's not funny but I have to bitterly laugh at the fecklessness of the Chinese dictatorship. I wouldn't be surprised if this started at the Wuhan pathogen research facility. I certainly don'[t believe a word that comes from the dictatorship.