An editorial by China’s state-run Xinhua news service on Wednesday strove to portray the Chinese Communist Party as a noble victim of unfair criticism, striving to control the Wuhan virus epidemic with measures so draconian they have been unreasonably denounced as human rights violations.
In truth, there has been some speculation that the unprecedented quarantine of Wuhan and the surrounding Hubei province could become a human rights issue, but most of the international community very much wants to contain the disease until the outbreak subsides.
Xinhua’s editorial began by noting that the Wuhan lockdown is “unprecedented” in scope, a judgment most medical historians would agree with. The number of people within the quarantine area is larger than the entire population of Canada.
The political spin began when the Chinese Communist news service blithely absolved officials of the secrecy and misrepresentations that marked the early days of the outbreak and portrayed them as capable and responsible leaders who were caught by surprise when the virus erupted, and must now contend with ankle-biting criticism from smug foreigners:
Suddenly, the virus struck. Key moments emerged, moments in which residents in Wuhan, the center of the outbreak, came to grief after the massive lockdown of the city, moments in which they suffered but still fulfilled their duty as citizens to cooperate with the government, moments in which the whole of China activated the highest level of emergency response and many families were separated but stood united against the virus spread.
Sorrow and remorse quickly translated into confidence and strength to win this unprecedented battle.
Suddenly, accusations that the massive city lockdown in Wuhan is a violation of human rights emerged. But citizens of Wuhan disagree.
Since the lockdown was put in place, they have been staying indoors and practicing quarantine measures with the utmost respect for the government’s guidance and their hallmark perseverance and optimism. No public security incidents have occurred. They have a sober understanding that while inconveniences may emerge, the historic quarantine serves their health, safety and overall interests. Social cohesion binds the people of Wuhan at this critical moment.
In reality, not even the human rights organizations that routinely criticize Communist China’s appalling treatment of political dissidents, journalists, and ethnic or religious minorities have lodged any vigorous complaints about the Wuhan quarantine. Xinhua provided no examples of the “accusations” it complained about.
There has been a good deal of speculation about the ethics of maintaining such a huge lockdown. Some of these musings, as with an Atlantic article from last week, was premised on the Chinese government panicking the public by taking extreme measures against a virus that seemed much less dangerous than the SARS epidemic of the early 2000s. This line of thinking is growing less common as the severity of the outbreak becomes apparent and epidemiologists stress the importance of containing it.
Many discussions of human rights and the quarantine mention that the steps China has taken would be unconstitutional in the United States. The Atlantic and the New York Times went through the history of quarantines, at much greater length in the latter case, and noted how many of the actions taken to control past epidemics would never pass legal muster in America or most of the Western world today.
The Times noted that contrary to Xinhua’s depiction of dutiful Wuhan residents accepting the burden laid on them by Beijing without complaint, the people in the quarantine zone have plenty of complaints, although they could not really be characterized as “human rights” allegations in the sense Xinhua meant:
In Wuhan, a city of 11 million, both patients who believe they have been infected by the coronavirus and people with other medical problems are having difficulty seeing doctors: Shortages are common at such times, and quarantines only compound them. Residents are complaining on social media about inadequate care. Distrust of the health authorities is mounting.
And then, of course, overcrowding at hospitals, which mixes some presumably sick people with the healthy, increases the risks of transmission.
Some people may have tried to escape the stricken cities for less-infected areas. Others may be hiding from public health workers. A woman from Wuhan, apparently eager to stick to her travel plans for Lunar New Year, reportedly cheated a health check by taking fever-reducing drugs to bring her temperature down — and then admitted doing so on social media after she had arrived in France.
An integral failing of most quarantines is that some people, seeing the restrictions as overly strict and an imposition on their rights, will invariably try to bypass them. Their evasion, in turn, can endanger public health.
NPR quoted some health experts who thought China’s lockdown of Wuhan could be counterproductive, because the virus is likely to spread rapidly through the quarantined population, while the lockdown probably cannot be maintained for the months necessary to implement treatment plans and bring the outbreak under control.
One of NPR’s sources, director Lawrence Gostin of the O’Neill Institute for National and Global Health Law at Georgetown University Law Center, mentioned the potential for human rights violations when attempting to lock down cities with millions of residents, but his major concern was that the quarantine could “backfire very badly” by panicking and alienating the population:
People could easily start to see the government as oppressing them, sowing fear and mistrust, [Gostin] says.
“The most important thing in public health is not to drive the population underground and make them fearful,” says Gostin. “You want them to cooperate. You want them to report their symptoms. You want them to believe that the government is there to help them and not to violate their rights. It’s very, very difficult to control an epidemic once you’ve lost the trust of the population.”
Several recent smaller-scale quarantines have produced precisely that result, says Jeremy Konyndyk, a senior fellow at the Washington, D.C., think tank Center for Global Development.
“A very recent example of this is during the Ebola outbreak in West Africa in 2014,” says Konyndyk. In Liberia and Sierra Leone, officials attempted to prevent people from leaving several neighborhoods and small localities. “People tried to flee the quarantine. And that actually then made things worse because it meant that cases were then invisible from view.”
Xinhua’s editorial invoked Communist China’s perennial complaint that human rights allegations are a hypocritical scam intended to embarrass and weaken the rising world power.
“Those who peddle such human rights rhetoric lack basic knowledge of how to stop the spread of a virus in a megacity and in a populous country so connected with the outside world, not to mention the ethics of facing such a challenge,” Xinhua sneered.
The editorial countered by once again citing the World Health Organization’s praise for China’s efforts against the Wuhan virus, which must rank among the most-quoted remarks ever made by foreigners in Chinese state media:
China’s unprecedented efforts are endorsed by the World Health Organization (WHO) which hails China’s political resolve, openness and transparency, effective system, and swift sharing of the genetic sequence of the new virus with the WHO and other countries.
The multilateral health agency has recognized that China’s measures are not only protecting its people, but also protecting the people of the world.
The strength and effectiveness of the Chinese leadership in responding to crises lies in its consistent approach: always listen to people’s needs, always mobilize resources at the earliest possible date, and never shirk responsibilities when meeting challenges.
The Chinese government is making a rather obvious effort to flip the narrative of the Wuhan virus and use the crisis as an opportunity to demand even greater loyalty from a public that has been dangerously critical of how the outbreak was handled.
The real danger of severe human rights violations will begin when Beijing begins arresting people for undermining the all-important battle against the Wuhan virus by “spreading rumors and causing trouble.” Chinese citizens who disagree with the Communist Party had better prepare for all criticism of the party to be classified as reckless subversion that jeopardizes the nation by interfering with the struggle to contain the epidemic.
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