China's protesters can do without Dr. Fauci's COVID revisionism

Dr. Fauci blames the Trump administration for Beijing's secretive approach to coronavirus as The New York Times depicts "zero-COVID" as once having value.

Summary: Revisionism on China’s secretive and oppressive approach to the coronavirus when the pandemic emerged serves only to strength Beijing at a time when protesters are challenging the “zero-COVID” policy and need global support.

The people of China have clearly had enough of the "zero-COVID" policy if the footage of protesters risking life and limb, including some calling for Xi Jinping to step down, is any indication.

They should be. The restrictions confining people to their homes against their will — amid reports of China going so far as to weld people inside their residences or having their doors chained physically shut — has not just come at significant economic cost, but are an affront to human rights and basic principles of freedom and liberty.

The firestorm of demonstration ignited when 10 people who were confined to their homes died in an apartment building fire in the Xinjang province, a region of 25 million people that has been under lockdown for more than three months. The Chinese government, which has denied reports of physically barricading people in their homes, appears to have loosened some restrictions in the Xinjiang province as the protests have continued, but the overall policy remains in place, according to the Associated Press.

The world is aghast at the policy and sympathetic to the protesters. At the same time, there's revisionism afoot, and not from state-controlled messaging in China but from The New York Times and the nation's top epidemiologist, Anthony Fauci.

Photo by Jon Tyson on Unsplash

These leading figures, as yet another example of institutions on the decline, are changing the record of China's approach to the coronavirus in inexplicable ways. Their revisionist history makes Beijing seem humane and competent at a time when more scrutiny should be drawn to the autocratic government.

Anthony Fauci, this past Sunday on CBS’s Face the Nation, had more criticism for the Trump administration than the Chinese government when it came to the early stages of the outbreak.

"What happens if you look at the anti-China approach that clearly the Trump administration had right from the very beginning and the accusatory nature, the Chinese are going to flinch back and say, ‘I'm sorry. We're not going to talk to you about it,’ which is not correct. They should be,” Fauci said.

When asked if Fauci believed if the Trump administration's approach contributed to China's refusal to discuss the origins of the coronavirus today, Fauci concurred: "Exactly. I think that horse is out of the barn and they're very suspicious of anybody trying to accuse them."

Did Fauci really blame China's secrecy over coronavirus on Trump's tough talk on China? It's true Trump made China a central focus of American woes as he credited Beijing with beguiling America's leaders and zapping away American jobs. Much of the cover-up in China, however, was internal and meant to conceal the outbreak globally, not just from the United States.

A couple examples: One scientist in China with knowledge of the outbreak, Li Weinglang, was arrested in 2020 after trying to warn the world about the coronavirus, then subsequently died after being infected himself. The World Health Organization, not a U.S. entity or a friend of Trump by any means, had repeatedly sought to get information about the virus when the outbreak started, but was denied access to investigate. (That didn't stop the World Health Organization from repeatedly praising Beijing during the early part of the outbreak.)

To be fair, the Fauci interview aired Sunday morning and his response wasn’t precisely related to the "zero-COVID" restrictions or the protests. Fauci also acknowledged China's long history of secrecy surrounding outbreaks that have emerged there.

But that doesn't change the significance of Fauci's words in the context of the protests that followed, nor his apparent willingness to downplay the responsibility of China at a crucial time in the early stages of the pandemic. The implication is no one should speak negatively about the autocratic regime in the event the global health community needs to investigate a disease that has emerged there. Fauci may as well say, let's not scold a kleptomaniac because one day we might need him to tell us where he's hidden the loot.

The mainstream media has engaged in revisionism, too. Take The New York Times' sympathetic view of China's draconian crackdown in 2020 compared to now: "China’s approach won praise during the beginning of the pandemic, and there is no doubt it has saved lives. But now that approach looks increasingly outdated." Who was doing the praising? Xi Jinping? We're talking about an approach to coronavirus of forcibly shutting people into the homes.

It's not a matter of restrictions being outdated; they were never justified. The older restrictions appear to have the same dehumanizing qualities as the "zero-COVID policy" now inspiring outcry among the people of China. One report in Reuters in 2020, titled "Sealed in: Chinese trapped at home by coronavirus feel the strain describes the COVID," describes the limitations in great detail:

Officials and volunteers have sealed off buildings, erected barricades and stepped up surveillance to ensure compliance with the ban on movement, measures that are taking a toll on many in the community.

....

Li said the family had eaten the same combination of white rice, cabbage and peanuts for three weeks, since gathering to celebrate the Lunar New Year last month, stinting on portions due to limits on the numbers of people from each household allowed out to shop.

Although China under its policy in 2020 reported having negligible cases and deaths to coronavirus in comparison to the rest of the world, those figures carry significant doubt given Beijing's history of a lack of transparency. I wouldn't be the first person to point out the significant uptick in the purchase of urns for the remains of deceased family members as the coronavirus was emerging. If the conclusions the policy was once were effective were based on those numbers, that's a faulty premise on which to base the evaluation.

Other experts, for good reason, say the "zero-COVID policy" is not about containing the coronavirus at all, but more of a way to insulate China's economy against sanctions should it invade Taiwan. As Zongyuan Zoe Liu of the Council on Foreign Relations recently explained:

By sticking with zero-COVID, Xi and his loyalists can control China’s interactions with the rest of the world and prepare the Chinese people and economy for further isolation if the West imposes stricter economic sanctions against China. U.S. financial leaders have promised to exit China if it attacks Taiwan, which would effectively expel China from the U.S.-led global economic and financial system. By focusing on improving China’s self-sufficiency and expanding its dominance in strategic sectors, Xi hopes to raise the cost of sanctioning China to unbearably high levels for the West while developing China’s capacity to absorb the economic shock of sanctions.

What we are seeing on the streets of China is an unprecedented display of resistance against the autocratic regime. It is in the best interest of American institutions to support it, especially if the goal of the lockdown is prepare for an invasion of a neighboring democracy. The revision of COVID history, however, has the effect of making the government seem reasonable and undermines that support. When the opportunity is ripe for political reform, the revisionism could come at a high cost.