Emma Graham-Harrison, The Guardian; What China’s empty new coronavirus hospitals say about its secretive system
"A propaganda system designed to support the party and state cannot be
relied on for accurate information. That is a problem not just for
families left bereft by the coronavirus and businesses destroyed by the
sudden shutdown, but for a world trying to assess Beijing’s success in
controlling and containing the disease.
“China’s centralised system and lack of freedom of press definitely
delay a necessary aggressive early response when it was still possible
to contain epidemics at the local level,” said Ho-fung Hung, a professor
in political economy at Johns Hopkins University in the US...
“There is no one quick fix to the Chinese system to make it respond
better next time,” said Hung. “But if there is one single factor that
could increase the government’s responsiveness to this kind of crisis,
[it would be] a free press.”"
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