China’s rulers see the coronavirus as a chance to tighten their grip
Officials are playing politics with the viral outbreak
ASKED TO CRAFT a metaphor for all that the world admires and fears about modern China, a novelist could hardly improve on the coronavirus hospitals now rising, at fantastic speeds, in disease-stricken cities. Start with admiration. These construction sites are a fine example of decisive Communist Party action. Work had been under way for two days when Chaguan visited the Second People’s Hospital in Changde, a city in the central province of Hunan, 400km from the epidemic’s suspected birthplace in Wuhan. Half a dozen excavators roared and pawed at the rust-red ground. A road-roller flattened a gravel pad on which, by February 15th, a 200-bed fever hospital is due to stand.
Yet if China’s resolve impresses outsiders, the dark side of one-party rule also stands exposed. Changde must prepare for the worst in part because the authorities in Wuhan and the surrounding province of Hubei, Hunan’s neighbour, hid the virus’s impact for weeks. A desire to earn trust and avoid Wuhan’s fate probably explains why city-level propaganda officials in Changde—when this reporter was suddenly handed over to them by jumpy rural officials and police—granted unusual access to the new hospital.
This article appeared in the China section of the print edition under the headline "A people’s war"
More from China
The Chinese scientist who sequenced covid is barred from his lab
The Communist Party is still hounding experts whose work might expose its pandemic missteps
Why China’s companies are recruiting their own militias
Officials want to keep things calm in an era of slowing growth
China mulls a bold test of taxation without representation
With revenue declining, its leaders must figure out how to collect more money