Top 10 Myths About China in May 2022 - Part 1

What are the myths about China floating around the West?

View from China with an Austrian School of Economics Perspective

This is Part 1 of 2. Part 2 is here.

By far the easiest way to appreciate subtleties is to experience them first hand. Any other approach is infinitely harder, and far more prone to error. This is the challenge facing all of us who attempt to understand other people and other places.

Time is a scarce quantity, and as a result, it’s perfectly logical that humans instinctively prefer simple narratives over complex ones. This leads to the inevitable result that most people tend to hold simplified views of other countries, seeing them in black and white tones which few would associate with their own countries.

The reality: Like all countries, China has lots of grey tones. In that light, here are some of the top myths in May of 2022, and a few hints about the reality:

1) China has a centrally managed economy.

The reality: Approximately 25% of China’s GDP is generated by government-controlled companies. 75% is generated by privately or foreign-owned companies. As in any country, the government does have some influence over privately owned companies, but in terms of its effects such influence is not comparable with actual direct public ownership. We have written more about this here:

Which country has the larger private sector, the USA or China?

2) The “government” in China is interchangeable with the “CCP”.

As in almost all countries, China doesn’t just have one government. It has a national government, it has provincial governments, it has city governments, it has county governments and it has town governments. It also has a ruling party with a huge amount of influence. It’s worth noting that the “CCP” is a term typically found in Western articles about China which struggle with this reality. In these articles the “CCP” is typically presented as a Borg-like entity which decides everything, presumably centrally. In reality, the party, which is properly called the CPC, is intertwined with government, but is not the same thing.

Moreover, even WITHIN the government(s), there are multiple ministries, all of which may have different agendas and be subject to different influences. Just as in most countries, while the top tier officials are typically political appointees who rotate from ministry to ministry, the lower level bureaucrats are far more stable. One in particular worthy of mention is the health ministry, which has been and continues to be heavily influenced by the World Health Organization and the Rockefeller Foundation.

The third section of the following article entitled “Goodbye to regional competition?” talks about the relatively decentralized nature of China’s governmental structures:

Cross-Examining China’s 2021 Cancel Culture

Finally, it should be said that in China, as in many countries, there is a never-ending tug-of-war between the centralizers who favor central government control, and the regionalists, who would prefer to be left alone. Sometimes the centralizers manage to extend their influence, but it seldom lasts, for the simple reason that decentralized approaches tend to produce better results.

3) China has a “social credit system” which tracks citizen behavior and produces some kind of score to reward the tame and punish the disobedient.

Well if so, why has no-one in China ever heard of this outside of Western media?

We did a deep dive on this topic here:

The ‘China Dystopia’ Psyop – Social Credit System in China or in the West?

4) The Chinese response to the Covid-19 outbreak in 2020 provided a role model for the rest of the world.

For example, it is typically claimed that “the Chinese” pioneered the concepts of using lockdowns and ventilators to combat the outbreak and treat the disease.

In reality, with some very limited exceptions at the outset, China’s response was radically different from the approach pursued in the West.

The concept of using lockdowns to combat viral outbreaks was outlined in previous pandemic gaming scenarios sponsored by the Rockefeller Foundation and the World Health Organization, and in particular in the so-called “Lockstep Scenario” described in a 2010 Rockefeller Foundation report. As discussed in our previous article on China’s Covid-19 regime, the Chinese health ministry officials who implemented China’s initial response to Covid-19 almost certainly had a copy of this “action plan” in their drawer. These plans were drawn up in the West, not in China.

It’s true that there was substantial use of ventilators in a very early stage of treating patients in February and March of 2020, but unlike in the West, this approach was soon abandoned when it was discovered to be ineffective.

The same is true of remdesivir. Trials were conducted and it was determined that it was neither effective nor safe. Unlike in the West, its use as a treatment was banned.

At the same time, the sale of hydroxychloroquine and ivermectin was never restricted – again, completely unlike in the West.

5) The Chinese response to the Covid-19 outbreak was more inhumane than anywhere else in the world.

Puxi, Shanghai under lockdown in May 2022 (武康大楼)

The lockdowns imposed on Hubei province in 2020, on Ruili and other border cities in 2021, on Xi’an in December 2021 and on Shanghai in 2022 were all very extreme and likely at least partially illegal according to Chinese law. After over a year of lockdowns, Ruili’s population has been reduced by 80% and the city’s economy has been all but destroyed. Shanghai has now been in lockdown for almost two months and the cost in both human and monetary terms has been staggering. Millions have been coerced into submitting to endless day-in day-out testing regimes. Hundreds of thousands of people have been illegally deported to isolation wards, quarantine hotels and concentration camps in many cases merely for being suspected of having been in contact with an infected person. Elderly aged 90+ were deported in the middle of the night, in some cases leading to death. Some people have committed suicide out of desperation. Ironically countless others have died for lack of medical care.

Though Western reporting about events has often been inaccurate and exaggerated, this is inhumane, no question about it.

While all of the above is true – and we have written about these costs in multiple articles such as this one and this one – there are a few things one should keep in mind:

• While the general ‘zero-Covid’ policy was imposed on all provinces including Hong Kong centrally by Beijing, until March 2022 each province had substantial leeway in deciding how to go about this. The policies pursued in the end did in fact differ significantly. The policies currently being pursued in Shanghai were only imposed in late March of 2022, when the Shanghai government was effectively suspended by the Beijing authorities, as we discussed here. Prior to that time, Shanghai policies were very low-impact.

• For all their faults, at least until December 2021, where outbreaks did take place, the approaches pursued by most provinces led to a quick return to normal life. This is very different from what happened in much of Europe, in Australia, in New Zealand, in Canada and in parts of the United States. Quality of life in most of China was much higher than in those places during most of 2020 and 2021.

• Unlike many Western countries, as discussed here, China never introduced vaccine passports, and specifically declared discrimination based on vaccine status to be illegal. In many Western countries by contrast, it was made almost impossible to work or participate in society without submitting to certain injections. Is this lack of respect for bodily integrity more or less inhumane than what happened in Ruili, Shanghai or Xi’an?

Is what happened in Shanghai in 2022 or Ruili in 2021 where there were extreme lockdowns but no vaccine mandates ‘worse’ than what happened in 2021 in Melbourne, or in Los Angeles, or in Berlin, which had both? Was it worse than what happened in New York, where thousands appear to have died due to improper treatment? In reality, objectively there is no way to compare apples and oranges. Nonetheless, as usual the reality is not black and white.

Five more myths to go. Which ones should we include in Part 2? Please suggest in the comments.