Author: Friends of Socialist China

We are pleased to reproduce this detailed comparison by Rosa Astra and Benjamin Zinevich in Liberation News of the Covid-19 containment measures taken by China and the US. The article describes the decisive steps taken by the Chinese government to suppress the pandemic; debunks the various ‘cover-up’ conspiracy theories; and contrasts the US’s disastrous failure to manage the pandemic with what has been achieved in China – “a system that values human lives over corporate profits”.

As the Omicron variant causes record levels of infection in the United States, the end of the pandemic seems as far away as ever. But far from preparing a robust response to defeat the virus, the Biden administration is preparing to surrender and encourage the public to “learn to live with” COVID indefinitely. 

When the Party for Socialism and Liberation pointed out the fact that China has in fact succeeded at virtually eliminating deaths from the virus, we were attacked by far-right pundits like Ben Shapiro – who took the position that such a feat is essentially impossible and asserted that China’s achievement was just a massive falsification. 

In the United States, which has seen more deaths from the disease than any other country on Earth, there were 476,863 new deaths in 2021, up from 370,777 in 2020.[1] However, it is in fact widely accepted that only two people died of the disease in China in 2021 on the mainland, plus 64 deaths in the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region and 843 in Taiwan (where the central government of China does not exercise control) – according to the Johns Hopkins University Center for Systems Science and Engineering COVID-19 Data Repository.[2] This brings China up to a total of 4,636 deaths in the mainland and 5,699 deaths overall since the beginning of the COVID-19 epidemic, most of which occurred in the first few months of 2020.

This article by Keith Lamb, originally published in CGTN, counters the Western media’s critique of China’s Zero Covid strategy and of the comprehensive virus suppression measures currently being enforced in the city of Xi’an. The author points out that the Covid death rate in the US has been almost a thousand times as high as in China; on that basis it would surely be appropriate to learn from China’s experience and to cooperate with it in tackling the pandemic.

With the total number of new COVID-19 cases since December 9 reaching 1,573 in Xi’an, capital of Shaanxi Province, local and central government, backed by voluntary citizen support, are doing everything in their power to extinguish the epidemic. China’s Vice Premier Sun Chunlan has advocated for decisive and resolute measures to curb the outbreak, and, in response, the local government has backed up her words with concrete action.

With all of Xi’an’s approximately 13 million residents under lockdown, supply chains have been kept efficient to ensure that essential items such as food and medicine are available to all, especially those in need. Ten medical teams and a 24-hour hotline provide treatment to those isolated. Donations of food and supplies are not just pouring in from neighboring local governments but private citizens too.

This insightful article by Radhika Desai, originally published in CGTN, seeks to understand why the advanced capitalist countries – particularly the most neoliberal and financialized ones – have performed so poorly in the face of Covid-19; and why socialist countries have done so much better.

As the world marked the second International Day for Epidemic Preparedness (IDEP) on December 27, 2021, nothing is clearer than the world’s richest and most powerful countries’ un-readiness before the pandemic. The highly transmissible Omicron was causing flight delays and cancellations by infecting flight crews, especially in the U.S.

Why are the richest countries doing so badly against the virus? It is not just that they have hogged available vaccine supply, giving second and third doses, while the virus rages and mutates elsewhere. It is not just that they have left China to donate 600 million vaccine doses to Africa even as the U.S. leads a new Cold War with it, dividing the world, rather than participating in any united world effort against the pandemic.

The fact is that the pandemic has turned out to be a tale of two systems. The world’s richest countries, led by the most neoliberal and financialized ones, the U.S. and the UK, have performed abysmally while socialist countries, led by China, have performed far better.

This article from Danny Haiphong, first published in CGTN, discusses key recent developments in the Covid pandemic, including the emergence of the Omicron variant and the announcement of a lockdown in the Chinese city of Xi’an. Danny notes that China’s strategy of early detection, mass testing, quarantine and properly-supported lockdowns continues to represent a model of a people-first approach to managing the pandemic.

The Omicron variant represents another troubling chapter in the COVID-19 pandemic. Countless travel plans have been canceled as scientists and infectious disease experts attempt to gain a greater understanding of the latest variant. In the United States, shortages in tests and healthcare workers have placed immediate strains on society. Forecasts for global economic growth have become less optimistic.

Bloomberg magazine, a U.S. media outlet known for its anti-China bias, recently admitted that China’s “dynamic zero-COVID” policy has been an effective measure against the pandemic. The report stated that China’s average daily COVID-19 cases would rise to 637,155 if the country adopted a U.S.-style approach to the pandemic. Bloomberg quickly changed the subject to more anti-China talking points and avoided any elaboration on the factors for China’s success against COVID-19.

Bloomberg repeated a trend in U.S. media which either ignores the success of the “dynamic zero-COVID” policy or calls it “authoritarian.” This has come at a great cost to the people of the United States and Western countries, who have suffered the worst consequences of the pandemic. Yet the U.S. and Western media have taken part in endless speculation about China’s policy to deflect from the failed COVID-19 responses of their own nations.

The truth is that China has by far been the most successful in protecting human life over the course of the pandemic. China has experienced three deaths per million in the population from COVID-19. The United States, which leads the world in the total number of COVID-19 cases and deaths to the pandemic, averages more than 2,400 deaths per million in the population.

U.S. and Western media have claimed China’s policy cannot be emulated in so-called free and democratic societies. China is accused of irrationally attempting to prevent transmission entirely, the costs of which are too high for Western societies that prioritize the economy over the health of the public.

This is problematic for several reasons. First, China’s strategy does not seek to eliminate transmission entirely but rather to reduce the human and economic costs of the pandemic as quickly and effectively as possible.

Second, the depiction of China’s “dynamic zero-COVID” policy as “irrational” and detrimental to the economy ignores the fact that Western economies have experienced the harshest economic fallout from the pandemic. U.S. economic growth had only begun to catch up to a 2 percent GDP year-on-year average growth in recent months before Omicron reignited economic uncertainty. China was the fastest major economy to achieve growth amid the pandemic and, according to World Bank estimates, is set to grow at two to three times the rate of the United States in 2022. Clearly, China’s “dynamic zero-COVID” policy has taken economic development into account from the very beginning.

Perhaps the most troubling aspect of the U.S. and Western rejection of China’s “dynamic zero-COVID” policy is that it reflects how effectively misinformation has spread within societies that have adopted a wrongheaded, anti-China political agenda. The United States, for example, was wracked with such high levels of distrust in both the government and healthcare system that an “infodemic” took hold very early on in the pandemic. Former President Donald Trump only aided in spreading misinformation about the pandemic by blaming China for the U.S.’s woes and frequently employing the term “China virus” during his briefs to the country. Current President Joe Biden has done little to increase confidence in the U.S.’s capacity to protect human life beyond a change in rhetoric.

Misinformation has only worsened social fractures in the U.S. and West and weakened already threadbare public health systems. Under such circumstances, China’s “dynamic zero-COVID” policy remains an important model for the world. China’s policy focuses on rapidly addressing outbreaks and establishing long-term strategies for pandemic control and containment. The policy is currently being employed in the city Xi’an, which was placed under lockdown as of December 23 following an outbreak of the Delta variant. Residents have undergone several rounds of mass testing, schools have closed, and local authorities have coordinated with all sectors of society to ensure people have their basic needs met.

China’s “dynamic zero-COVID” policy has been a consistent example of a people-first approach to the pandemic amid a period of global uncertainty. According to chief epidemiologist at China’s Center for Disease Control and Prevention Wu Zunyou, the policy has protected 950,000 Chinese lives over the course of the pandemic. This is nothing short of a miracle. U.S. and Western observers would thus benefit from taking an unbiased view of China’s “dynamic zero-COVID” approach rather than the politicized orientation that has been adopted by the media and political establishment.

We reproduce below a valuable article from Workers World contrasting the response of the socialist and capitalist countries to the coronavirus pandemic. The author observes that the success of China, Cuba and others in suppressing the virus can be attributed to a political and economic system based on the interests of the people rather than the protection of private profit.

The ominous toll of 800,000 deaths from COVID-19, reached in the U.S. Dec. 14, confirms that health care for profit is more deadly than the virus itself. The U.S. has consistently had the most COVID-19 deaths of any country. (tinyurl.com/3nunmuv7) 

Since the omicron variant surfaced here Dec. 1, infection rates have jumped off the charts with 193,305 new cases on Dec. 17. The CDC (U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) forecasts more than 1 million new COVID-19 cases during Christmas week. (tinyurl.com/sjy4ch2k) 

Yet China, where COVID-19 was first identified and brought under control, has had no deaths from COVID-19 in 2021. This fact alone confirms that a scientific approach with fully accessible health infrastructure, universal vaccination and national coordination at every level is decisive.