BEIJING -- The new coronavirus that has shaken China plainly reveals the characteristics of the Communist Party of China as an establishment that "won't apologize."
In the April 7 issue of the People's Daily, an official newspaper of the Central Committee of the CPC, was three pages chronicling the new coronavirus. This coverage detailed the Chinese government's response to COVID-19, the disease caused by the coronavirus, and its joint efforts with the international community, including the World Health Organization, from late last year to the end of March.
Dr. Li Wenliang, who was infected with the new coronavirus in Wuhan and died in February, was also referred to in the coverage. Yet no mention was made of the facts that the doctor, who posted his concerns on social media about the spread of the infections late last year, was punished by authorities for spreading "false rumors" about the virus. The coverage only dealt with the aftermath of the punishment, saying that local authorities in Wuhan decided to revoke the previous letter of reprimand and apologized to Li's family over the mistake.
Criticism has persistently followed the administration of Chinese President Xi Jinping for causing a "man-made disaster" with its information blockade at the initial stage of the outbreak and delay in sounding the alarm, bringing about the spread of the infections at home and abroad. Yet the administration has made clear its stance of making light of even the tragic death of the doctor, as a Chinese government source has put it as "a minor stumble that could occur in any country."
Precisely because of this, China puts forth all its might as a country to oppose the blame thrust by the administration of U.S. President Donald Trump and others and their demands that China apologize for the spread of the coronavirus. There was even such a claim to the effect that "the world should thank China" for its sacrifices made through various measures at an early phase of the outbreak to buy time for the world to react.
Qiu Menghuang, a news anchor at China Central Television, wondered on social media in February whether the Chinese people could "give a bow to the world and say: 'Sorry for the mess'?" He drew copious flak as a result and was forced to close his Chinese Twitter-like Weibo account. The Xi administration, even by using flammable, ethnic feelings as a tailwind, is intensifying its inward-looking logic more than ever.
It is not necessarily traditional for rulers of China not to apologize.
In successive dynasties in the past, there was a custom for an emperor to issue an imperial edict and apologize to his subjects when such calamities as an epidemic broke out. Over 2,000-odd years from the time of the Han dynasty, such edicts were issued, on average, once every eight years. Even if it was a natural disaster, an emperor, as a "son of Heaven," made clear where the responsibility lay.
The CPC establishment has not received even the mandate from the electorate, let alone an oracle that dynasties were said to have received. Supporting its orthodoxy is its "myth of infallibility," namely, an infallible administration. The party leaders are intensely allergic to a possibility, as a senior party official has put it, that admitting fault may lead to the collapse of the system.
The lockdown of Wuhan, which lasted for 76 days, was lifted on April 8. Xi said with emphasis that Chinese people exhibited their great power in the people's war against the virus. But a friend in Wuhan who lived with the constant fear of infection beside him uttered over the phone that he felt something wrong with Xi's remarks.
"We don't have any victory," the friend said. "What we ought to do is draw some lessons from this."
All the same, the Xi administration has no choice but to conclude the latest epidemic, which it considers the deadliest epidemic since the nation's founding, with preestablished harmony. "It has been proven that the CPC Central Committee's judgment on the situation of the epidemic is accurate, all work arrangements are timely, and the measures taken are effective," Xi said.
It is sad for one of those who have looked hard at this country to witness once again that the country is about to fall into its own trap: its myth of infallibility.
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