China is doing what it does best: oppressing its population. For an excellent and sarcastic take on what is happening in China and our response to it, check lead UNN correspondent David Clews’ Telegram of 28 November. On the same day a BBC correspondent reporting on the uprising of the Chinese people against the zero-Covid crackdown, now approaching its third year, in Mainland China was beaten and arrested. The zero-Covid policy has seen vast cities like Wuhan and Shanghai locked down repeatedly for hundreds of days at a time with reports of people being welded into blocks of flats, starving to death, throwing themselves out of windows and having their pets clubbed to death in front of them. The latest outrage was the deaths of over 200 people in a fire in an apartment block which was not attended due to Covid restrictions and the fact that the residents were unable to escape.
It should not really surprise anyone with any knowledge or experience of China that this is happening. What should really surprise us is that we know about it and that it is being reported with relish by our mainstream media. Can you recall similar reports of the massive rallies in London and other cities against lockdown in the UK in 2020 and 2021? Can you find links on Google reporting these accurately and what about the beatings meted out to elderly protesters by our own police force and the arrests of people protesting peacefully and within the law? The links are few and far between and, where they exist, downplay the numbers at the rallies, extol the virtues of lockdown and ignore the police violence against innocent protesters.
But what is happening in China is being reported as a protest against oppression and the people are being portrayed as heroes ‘defying the authorities’ akin to the students of the Tiananmen Square massacre of 1989. There are even reports that President Xi is trying to eliminate evidence that the protests took place. Of course, the implication is that such a thing could never happen in the UK. But it did. The fact is that the whole of the mainstream media in the west has displayed breathtaking hypocrisy over the situation in China.
The regular Daily Sceptic columnist and blogger by the name of Eugyppius (in homage to a 5th century monk) explains: ‘Three years ago, Zero Covid was the aspiration of public health bureaucrats and politicians across the West.’ He points out how people appeared on national TV ‘to demand nationwide house-arrest’ and how political leaders ‘surrounded themselves with virus-eradicationist modellers who imposed months-long closures upon their countries.’ And ‘When protests broke out, they were violently suppressed; the protesters were slandered as conspiracy theorists and fascists.’ Eugyppius, with special reference to the New York Times, points out how the mainstream media ‘played a leading role in this long and excruciating charade.’
But at least one person is consistent in all this, and I am referring to Professor Devi—the ‘diva’—Sridhar of The University of Edinburgh (did someone mention that she had written a book…about herself?). I am glad to see that she has the courage to speak out in support of President Xi and his draconian zero-Covid policies. Sure, the policy is damaging ‘but to reverse it risks loss of life, economic damage and the emergence of new variants.’ Outlining all the measures that China took: lockdowns; widespread testing; isolation; building special hospitals; surveillance and mask mandates and describing these as ‘draconian’ (Devi—where were you when all this was happening here?) she says that ‘despite the cost to civil liberties’ it worked, initially. In my book, the phrase ‘cost to civil liberties’ should never be qualified and that statement alone by Professor Sridhar tells you all you need to know about people like her. She does see a way forward for China, however. Naively she hopes that China will see sense over its current zero-Covid policies and follow other beacons of freedom and democracy such as New Zealand, Japan and South Korea and move to mass vaccination. If they are worried about death rates now; they ain’t seen nothin’ yet.
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