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Benjamin Peng

China is not blameless, but much of the blame is false

If they blame China for delaying the announcement of the pandemic, we should ask why they didn’t do anything effective until March? What were they doing in February, when China had tens of thousands of cases and thousands of fatalities?

As a Chinese citizen based in Shanghai, I have been watching and experiencing this virus situation from the beginning, and I’ve been always trying to find the true explanations for the major controversies within China and abroad. China was certainly not blameless, and I had harshly and publicly criticized the Hubei government two months ago, for their ineptitude and inefficiency to respond the virus, and their initial cover-up of the situation as well as their improper handling of donated medical equipment.

But are these the causes of the tragic outbreak of other countries? Or should China be generally blamed for the global spreading of virus? Absolutely not. Why? The virus outbreak in China was confirmed in late January when there were few cases occurred in other countries, so the world should have been alerted by then. When the confirmed cases soared aggressively in Hubei early February, all the rest of the world were watching the situation in China. But they didn’t take any effective countermeasures except for closing their border to China. They believed that was the most effective way to prevent the spread of the virus, and some were even gloating over Chinese situation. They thought this virus might only infect Chinese or Asians, not the Caucasians or other races, but eventually it was found everywhere in the world.

If they blame China for delaying the announcement of the pandemic, we should ask why they didn’t do anything effective until March? What were they doing in February, when China had tens of thousands of cases and thousands of fatalities?

Some politicians even accused China of inventing this virus to control the world. If so, why would China let itself suffer so much first? How can you control the world with a virus like this? I can’t imagination how the conspiracy fabricates all these false claims, they were hysterical and senseless. In any case it’s still a mystery when and where was the virus originally from.

As of today (April 16, 2020), the vast majority of Chinese cases (67,803 of the 83,797 cases) are in Hubei. There are only 1,019 cases in Hunan province, my hometown, which is not far from Wuhan. There are only 339 local cases (and another 289 cases from abroad) in the city where I live, Shanghai, which is one of most visited cities in China. What does this mean? It means the other governments except Hubei were doing a pretty good job.

Some would say Chinese numbers are not reliable, I can say it’s more or less trustworthy because I have not heard of anyone getting infected in my area until two weeks ago: the wife of an American couple, who was released by a group of doctors. The couple are living in my building and came from Chicago one month ago. The wife tested positive on arriving in Shanghai airport, but recovered after two weeks treatment in hospital, and we know of no other cases in the very populated area (more than 20,000) since the beginning.

If Chinese are blamed for spreading the virus globally, why we don’t see many Chinese patients in other countries? In many countries, the Chinese patients were infected locally but not from China. The reason why Chinese are less infected in the heavily hit countries is that they were more alerted by the situation in China, and they took more precautions than other people. For example, more Chinese wore masks in the beginning and were discriminated in many countries. Masks are a very effective way to prevent the virus, but this was virtually rejected by many societies. They thought Chinese people were overreacting and were wrong.

And over the past weeks, China has had many more imported cases than local cases. Blaming the Chinese for spreading the virus is definitely wrong.

China’s government did try to downplay it in the beginning, but by then no one realized how serious it was going to be, and it was dozens of people infected by then and few were in serious condition, so even the Chinese government didn’t downplay. But if it had published the cases earlier, what do you think the other countries would have done?

Even after China announced the outbreak of virus in January, many countries stopped entry of people who had visited China in the previous 14 days. Israel, a population of 9 million people, was among the first counties to stop entry of China visited people on January 31, but it has close to 13,000 cases now. The Israeli government seemed overprotective in the beginning, but why does Israel still have such a high number of cases?

The US was also one of the first counties to close its doors to China, but the US government didn’t take enough measures until late March. The response was too slow, this resulted in the largest number of American infected cases and fatalities.

China is getting back to normal now , but still very preventive. The calming down of the virus situation in China is because of the absolute quick and massive countermeasures taken by the government. Some politicians, international activists or experts started to criticize China, because they are jealous and found this new weapon to attack. Some lawyers are trying to sue China for huge compensation. I would say it’s senseless, and many of them were just trying to become famous. They were taking advantage of this international public crisis to benefit themselves.

With the coronavirus spreading all over the world, there are also lots of fake news and false claims transmitting around the world, and some politicians are scapegoating others by blaming them for their own inability and tardiness to combat the virus.

I’m not always supportive of my government, I have even criticized them a lot. But I also don’t like those above hypocritical politicians, lawyers and so-called experts. I’m not trying to evoke those artificial sleepers, they are taking this opportunity to push forward their agenda, but my friends, you must be awake, don’t be misled by them and then let yourself and family be harmed.

Again, What would these people do and what would be the difference if China announced the first case earlier in December? What would be the scenario now if the first case were found in the US or Europe?

About the Author
The author is the founder of Israel Plan Organization, the NPO organization supporting and promoting Israel in China. He lived in Israel for two years, and studied MBA at IDC Herzliya.
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