China’s Xinhua news agency reprimanded the Wall Street Journal yesterday for its May 10 attack on Beijing’s zero-COVID policy, and upheld as central the principle that stopping preventable loss of life to COVID is primary. (https://english.news.cn/northamerica/20220514/eb4458dc59344ebeb4c8dc0a8af97e27/c.html)
The Journal sent two reporters to Shanghai, where part of the city had been under anti-COVID quarantine, where they interviewed 12 residents, a few identified as young Chinese of high net worth—out a city of more than 26 million—and published its conclusion under the May 10 article title, “China’s COVID Lockdowns Drive Middle Class Citizens To Go Abroad.” The Journal’s authors, speaking for Wall Street, excoriated China: stating that “though cases have come down dramatically since late March, authorities in recent days have tightened restrictions in Shanghai, vowing to fully eradicate the virus.” How authoritarian!
The Journal states, after one interviewee referred to 1949, as “this is the year of the exodus of more than 2 million Chinese people to Taiwan and Hong Kong as the Communist Party won control of the mainland.”
Xinhua’s editors wrote, “When several Chinese cities, including the financial hub of Shanghai, were wrestling with the Omicron resurgence, the dynamic zero-COVID policy, though bringing some instant impacts, will help reinforce China’s economic fundamentals in the long run instead.”
Xinhua then got to the heart of the matter, “First and foremost, any loss of life is irretrievable—that’s why China has stuck to the dynamic zero-COVID policy; whereas the downward pressure and fluctuation facing the economy are temporary, which, at least till now, present no real threat to China’s economic development built over the past decades.” He reminded: “As one of America’s most-read print newspapers, the Journal is advised to first keep a watchful eye on what is going on in its own country, in particular after President Joe Biden commemorated the 1 million American lives lost to COVID-19.”
Indeed, records show that China has experienced 4 deaths from COVID per 1 million people, whereas the U.S. has experienced 3,068 such deaths per 1 million people. Put another way, the United States’ COVID death rate is 767 times that of China’s. Where would you, especially if you are over 65 years old, prefer to live to be protected from COVID?
The reason that American and especially British publications repeatedly attack China’s successful anti-COVID policy, is the principle of the value of life. The West’s oligarchy, led by the City of London and Wall Street are shifting to implement Schachtian fascist economic policies; China’s unflinchingly upholding the principle of the preservation and development of life, stands in their way.
