(Minghui.org) As the coronavirus rages through more than 200 countries, more and more people have come to realize that the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) must be held accountable for causing the global crisis.
“Coronavirus crisis proves communism is still a grave threat to the entire world. If Beijing had just been honest, the pandemic could be preventable,” wrote Marion Smith, executive director of the Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation, on April 5 in a USA Today article titled “Blame the Chinese Communist Party for the coronavirus crisis.”
“When it comes to the global coronavirus pandemic, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) is acting as both the arsonist and the firefighter,” Michael Sobolik, Fellow for Indo-Pacific Studies at the American Foreign Policy Council, wrote in his March 27 article for National Review titled “Don’t Let the Chinese Communist Party Use the Coronavirus to Its Advantage.”
“From the moment the coronavirus emerged in central China, Beijing has acted in a way that made a pandemic possible and then inevitable. It covered up what was happening in Wuhan,” Marion Smith wrote. He said that Beijing silenced whistleblowers who sounded the alarm on the outbreak and stole medical supplies from other countries while claiming the disease was no big deal.
Smith wrote that the Chinese system, known as “socialism with Chinese characteristics,” led to Beijing's cover-up of the coronavirus information.
Censorship in China is everywhere: doctors were forced to write “self-criticism” for sharing the outbreak information with others, journalists were stopped from publishing their articles, and netizens saw their social media posts removed or banned. “Beijing did everything in its power to prevent the outside world from figuring out what was really going on,” Smith wrote.
Beijing's cover-up gave other countries “a false sense of security,” which resulted in their lack of preparation in battling the pandemic. “In doing so, Beijing violated international treaty obligations to which China is a signatory, including the International Health Regulations (2005),” the article continued.
Now the world has come to a halt, with countries shut down, borders closed, and the economy shattered. “But all of this was preventable, if the Chinese Communist Party had just been honest,” Smith added.
All of the economic losses and the lives lost to the pandemic are caused by the CCP. “If the coronavirus crisis proves anything, it’s that communism — its logic, its brutality, its incompetence — is still a grave threat to the entire world,” the article concluded. “The sooner communism is swept into the dustbin of history, the safer we’ll all be.”
After the coronavirus broke out, “the first response of China’s authoritarian government was intimidation,” Sobolik wrote in a National Review article. The CCP's tactic ranged from silencing whistleblower physicians to prohibiting information flow. After the epidemic was known to the world, the CCP downplayed its seriousness and failed to take action.
Even after acknowledging the epidemic on January 20, CCP Foreign Minister Wang Yi pressured neighboring countries to keep travel with China open. “Now, however, China is seeking to whitewash its failings — and blame the virus on other nations, such as the United States,” explained the article.
Citing a study from the University of Southampton in the U.K., Sobolik said the infection cases in China could have been reduced by 95% had action been taken in time. Now, tens of thousands of people have lost their lives and the economic loss may even surpass that of the Great Recession of 2008. Due to the cover-ups by the CCP, the actual numbers of both infection cases and deaths in China could be much higher than those reported.
While the pandemic has created huge pressure for the healthcare and other systems for many countries, the CCP is shirking responsibility by blaming the U.S. and casting itself as a hero shipping masks and test kits to other countries.
Numerous sources indicate this is part of the CCP's strategic plan to grow its influence. “According to China’s State Administration of Science, Technology, and Industry for National Defense, China must jumpstart its economy to ‘pave the way for international market expansion after the epidemic is over,’” the article wrote.
Sobolik called on the U.S. government to recognize this and take action accordingly. In addition, it is important to differentiate the CCP from the Chinese people. He wrote, “The citizens of China are not the instigators of this crisis, but rather the first victims of the party’s self-interested response to it.”