#IWantFreedomofSpeech and The Chinese Police State
The Coronavirus has China at its throat. The national government continued sanctioning of its citizens to "address" (control) the ongoing coronavirus outbreaks and it's invasive policing is now utilizing monitoring tactics via tracking the movements of potentially infected citizens.
The short wave of sharp memes about the Western world's racist "yellow-fever" reaction to the coronavirus outbreak has come and gone in your daily social media intake. Chinese officials have gained access to movements of civilians that may have recently visited Hubei Province. Due to the limited number of firms which, as of February 13th, the New York Times further writes, "[...] this week introduced a feature for subscribers to send text messages to a hotline that generates a list of provinces they have recently visited."
The government's delayed response to the initial cases was intentional. Concealing of what should have been public information to maintain integrity has backfired horribly indeed. As early as December 1st of last year, a report was made of the first known infection. Despite being advised by eight medical professionals to publicly issue this case of a new SARS-like virus, Wuhan authorities dismissed these concerns and warned them "to not spread rumors". It would not be until December 31st would the government finally inform the World Health Organization about the coronavirus, and by January 2nd of this year, 41 cases were confirmed, with 55%, or about 27 of them, be linked to the market. But identifying the source of the virus is not the end of this crisis. President and Communist Party of China (CPC) leader Xi Jinping's "anti-corruption campaign" against social media and journalism outlets, in turn, left officials to continue dismissing concerned medical experts. The death of 33-year-old ophthalmologist Li Wenliang, known as the WeChat whistleblower, was a dire consequence and issued a public outcry.
People took to social media using the hashtag "#iwantfreedomofspeech. This ignition of civil unrest against Jinping's authoritarian regime is not an isolated event spurred by the wrongful concealment of public information. Rather, this is a continuation of the recent unrest in Hong Kong. This is a growing anti-authoritarian movement, both organized and emotionally reactive. However long this outbreak will continue to physically stall this unrest, this de-emphasis of information that should be public knowledge should sound familiar.
Still, what this escalated to is nothing short of, nor less real than, what a Black Mirror plot has to entice our own distrust. And yet, this is exactly the level of fear and invasion of privacy which handling of what may have been an effectively contained phenomenon could have avoided but has now grown into a major situation with no foreseeable end. But we'll never know for sure of what could have been. Cue Kenney making the predictably left-of-center statement that it is still safe to dine in C-town, like his predecessor and familiar. But let's dive into some background on the origin of this new strain of coronavirus, and why this (the virus and news) has spread in the way that it has.
Hubei, a land-locked province in central China. With a population of over 58 million, its capital, Wuhan, is the seventh major city in the nation. Since the 7th century AD, Wuhan has served a major trading center and is currently home to one of four important railway hubs for the country, as well as direct international flights connecting the city to the U.S. and Europe.
The virus, which was once known to be spread between animals, now has leveled up on the proverbial evolution scale to infect humans. A zoonotic virus, then, which began as several cases with a clear link to the Huanan Seafood Wholesale Market, health officials have now confirmed it to be an extremely infectious strain of bird flu found in chickens, known as H5N1. There are four identified coronaviruses, including SARS (severe acute respiratory syndrome) and Middle East respiratory syndrome (MERS). The current strain of concern, COVID-19, like all other human-transmitted coronaviruses, is spread through coughing and sneezing from an infected person.
As media continues to sensationalize what is indisputably a major health epidemic, it has not been transparent about the number of people infected with the number of those who have become its casualties. Citizens above the age of 60, and individuals with pre-existing health conditions, like heart disease and diabetes, overwhelmingly make up the number of confirmed cases. While one 44-year old man in China contracted and died from COVID-19, that is just one confirmed case of an individual below the most susceptible age group. While the number of reported deaths has reached 1,400, there have been over 6,720 recoveries, in proportion to the total number of reported cases, which as of today, February 14th, the figure stands at 63,862.
The Chinese people have been effectively living under a rigid contract with its government: sacrifice your freedom of speech for protection and stability. Now, that contract seems to have been undermined, and petering out and recovery periods have yet to be seen on the horizon, I wonder if and how the integrity of that relationship, under no duress, will even be up for consideration by the everyday people of China.
The short wave of sharp memes about the Western world's racist "yellow-fever" reaction to the coronavirus outbreak has come and gone in your daily social media intake. Chinese officials have gained access to movements of civilians that may have recently visited Hubei Province. Due to the limited number of firms which, as of February 13th, the New York Times further writes, "[...] this week introduced a feature for subscribers to send text messages to a hotline that generates a list of provinces they have recently visited."
The government's delayed response to the initial cases was intentional. Concealing of what should have been public information to maintain integrity has backfired horribly indeed. As early as December 1st of last year, a report was made of the first known infection. Despite being advised by eight medical professionals to publicly issue this case of a new SARS-like virus, Wuhan authorities dismissed these concerns and warned them "to not spread rumors". It would not be until December 31st would the government finally inform the World Health Organization about the coronavirus, and by January 2nd of this year, 41 cases were confirmed, with 55%, or about 27 of them, be linked to the market. But identifying the source of the virus is not the end of this crisis. President and Communist Party of China (CPC) leader Xi Jinping's "anti-corruption campaign" against social media and journalism outlets, in turn, left officials to continue dismissing concerned medical experts. The death of 33-year-old ophthalmologist Li Wenliang, known as the WeChat whistleblower, was a dire consequence and issued a public outcry.
People took to social media using the hashtag "#iwantfreedomofspeech. This ignition of civil unrest against Jinping's authoritarian regime is not an isolated event spurred by the wrongful concealment of public information. Rather, this is a continuation of the recent unrest in Hong Kong. This is a growing anti-authoritarian movement, both organized and emotionally reactive. However long this outbreak will continue to physically stall this unrest, this de-emphasis of information that should be public knowledge should sound familiar.
Still, what this escalated to is nothing short of, nor less real than, what a Black Mirror plot has to entice our own distrust. And yet, this is exactly the level of fear and invasion of privacy which handling of what may have been an effectively contained phenomenon could have avoided but has now grown into a major situation with no foreseeable end. But we'll never know for sure of what could have been. Cue Kenney making the predictably left-of-center statement that it is still safe to dine in C-town, like his predecessor and familiar. But let's dive into some background on the origin of this new strain of coronavirus, and why this (the virus and news) has spread in the way that it has.
Hubei, a land-locked province in central China. With a population of over 58 million, its capital, Wuhan, is the seventh major city in the nation. Since the 7th century AD, Wuhan has served a major trading center and is currently home to one of four important railway hubs for the country, as well as direct international flights connecting the city to the U.S. and Europe.
The virus, which was once known to be spread between animals, now has leveled up on the proverbial evolution scale to infect humans. A zoonotic virus, then, which began as several cases with a clear link to the Huanan Seafood Wholesale Market, health officials have now confirmed it to be an extremely infectious strain of bird flu found in chickens, known as H5N1. There are four identified coronaviruses, including SARS (severe acute respiratory syndrome) and Middle East respiratory syndrome (MERS). The current strain of concern, COVID-19, like all other human-transmitted coronaviruses, is spread through coughing and sneezing from an infected person.
As media continues to sensationalize what is indisputably a major health epidemic, it has not been transparent about the number of people infected with the number of those who have become its casualties. Citizens above the age of 60, and individuals with pre-existing health conditions, like heart disease and diabetes, overwhelmingly make up the number of confirmed cases. While one 44-year old man in China contracted and died from COVID-19, that is just one confirmed case of an individual below the most susceptible age group. While the number of reported deaths has reached 1,400, there have been over 6,720 recoveries, in proportion to the total number of reported cases, which as of today, February 14th, the figure stands at 63,862.
The Chinese people have been effectively living under a rigid contract with its government: sacrifice your freedom of speech for protection and stability. Now, that contract seems to have been undermined, and petering out and recovery periods have yet to be seen on the horizon, I wonder if and how the integrity of that relationship, under no duress, will even be up for consideration by the everyday people of China.
Comments
Post a Comment