Due to the spread of infections with a new coronavirus, the decision has been made to postpone the holding of the National People's Congress in China. What has brought about this extraordinary situation is a metaphorical disease that lurks in the administration of Chinese President Xi Jinping.
Senior officials and others within the administration are now afraid of making "political mistakes" that can be considered as disobedience to Xi. Even if such policy mistakes as the creation of a wasteful industrial complex can be overlooked, a political mistake is unpardonable. Political decision-making mistakes by officials will inevitably cause the loss of their position, and at worst can even subject them to investigation for corruption.
Regarding his negligence in the disclosure of the most important information needed in the initial responses, the mayor of the Hubei Province capital of Wuhan, the epicenter of the new coronavirus outbreak, said, "Local governments can announce [such information] publicly only after doing so is authorized [by the central government]."
The mental state of senior government officials can be felt. The city authorities must have attached more importance to the risk posed by sharing information without central government permission and alarming the public, than to the risk posed by concealing information that is based on scientific foresight. It can only mean that they feared political mistakes more than the spread of infections, and Xi more than the coronavirus.
Related organizations in Beijing have likewise muzzled themselves.
According to sources related to the Communist Party of China, as Xi's concentration of power advanced in recent years, senior officials of the party have lost their autonomy and proactiveness. As they are required to obey Xi, they have become more prone to act exactly as instructed to avoid making political mistakes, thus looking to their own safety.
These are symptoms of a high-handed, autocratic system. Those who dared not voice their objections to Xi's policy lines, when dealing with the U.S.-China trade war or the demonstrations in Hong Kong, have opted to remain silent when faced with the spread of the new coronavirus. The roots of the problem run deeper than a simple concealment of information.
During the era of Mao Zedong, the founding leader of the nation, nobody could stop the Great Leap Forward even though it was devoid of scientific basis, utterly destroyed the country's farming and manufacturing industries, and doomed tens of millions of people to death from starvation. Storms of violence and persecution also raged.
But today's China is different from the China of the Mao era, when the country was isolated internationally. As proved by the new coronavirus, the domestic politics of China can now shake the world.
From the viewpoint of pursuing the genuine interests of China and of the international community, the Xi administration must quickly build a crisis control system under which senior officials on each different level can publicly disclose the facts without fear, and take best possible measures. That also means reexamining the present state of the political system, which considers Xi as all-important and shuts out dissenting opinions.
Leaving the systemic disease as it is is a breach of trust against the world, and more than anything else against China's own people, who continue suffering from such a disease. The backlash will probably extend to the administration itself.
Read more from The Japan News at https://japannews.yomiuri.co.jp/
