Introduction: Since the outbreak of Nanjing Lukou International Airport on July 20, by August 22, China has achieved zero new local confirmed cases for the first time in 5 weeks. Even CNN has to sigh: "If we continue to develop according to this trend, China may become the first country in the world to control the outbreak caused by the Delta mutant virus strain." Faced with Delta strain , Western-style "liberal" anti-epidemic once again exposed huge problems, and many countries and places have reappeared tensions, and the West's previous packaging of the "model student" in the fight against the epidemic in Taiwan was also completely torn apart.
[Text/Kavibo]
The global coronavirus pandemic that began in 2020 will inevitably be a major event in world history. In the future, historians and political scientists will also summarize the key factors in the success or failure of the fight against the epidemic in various places. This article starts with popular discourse and sorts out four macro factors to explain the gains and losses of epidemic prevention in various places.
Of course, the success or failure of epidemic prevention takes a long time to observe and cannot be concluded suddenly. For example, in Taiwan, China, there has been a long time when it seems that epidemic prevention has been quite successful, but this success may sometimes be based on non-epidemic prevention reasons.
For example, the Taiwan authorities have always claimed that its success in epidemic prevention is because of "advanced deployment", but the so-called "advanced deployment" is essentially just due to anti-China motives and measures. When the Wuhan epidemic began to sprout and the situation was unclear, it adopted a more extreme isolation and prohibition method to prevent people from coming to the mainland and Taiwanese compatriots.
July 12, 2021, citizens wear masks to travel in Taipei City. Image source: Visual China
The fundamental reason is that Taiwan did not make scientific judgments based on the information obtained at that time, but was a political consideration. It was just that this political action happened to conform to strict and effective epidemic prevention measures. If the virus started in the United States or Japan, it would be impossible for Taiwan to have such "advanced deployment".
Therefore, Taiwan’s advanced deployment is not based on scientific or effective organizational planning and execution capabilities, but an anti-China emotional politics, an attempt to stigmatize China. Afterwards, the effect was just a mistake, but Taiwan mistakenly believed that it had super capable of defending against the epidemic. I will sort out and discuss four popular assumptions that may affect the success or failure of the fight against the epidemic in various places. They may be rough, but they are preliminary preparations for more detailed exploration in the future.
1. Political system theory
The first type is political system theory. Simply put, the factors that influencing the differences between electoral democracy and non-election centralized system are the key to the success or failure of epidemic prevention. Western media and public opinion held this argument when the epidemic broke out in Wuhan. The more representative one is Mario Vargas Llosa, the winner of Nobel Prize . On March 17, 2020, he said in a Spanish newspaper that only dictatorial and undemocratic countries will have things like COVID-19 , and democratic countries will not allow the epidemic to spread. There are many similar views. An article titled on the New York Times Chinese website is "China needs constitutional democracy when preventing and controlling viruses."
But soon, the facts proved that Luosha and others were wrong. Moreover, because of the successful fight against the epidemic in mainland China, the United States and other Western countries made mistakes or failed in anti-epidemic efforts, the political system theory has gradually come to its opposite. Many people began to discuss: it is actually difficult for the electoral democratic system to successfully fight the epidemic quickly and effectively, and the centralized system is not constrained by various conflicting public opinion, but is prone to successful fight against the epidemic.
Especially under the influence of the two parties and their support for the fierce fighting between the people and their unforgettable elections in the fight against the epidemic, countries that elect democratic systems often take election sentiment as a priority. For example, Trump and his supporters have always tended to downplay the dangers of the new crown and the necessity of strict epidemic prevention. In addition to considering the impact of strict epidemic prevention on the economy, they also have the intention to excuse Trump's failure in fighting the epidemic.
On October 2, 2020, Trump was transferred to Walter Reed National Military Medical Center for treatment.
However, there was a problem with the theory that "election democratic political system is not conducive to fighting the epidemic" - Taiwan was an exception at that time, and its excellent data on fighting the epidemic was difficult to excuse the West's failure in fighting the epidemic.However, during that period, Taiwan did not know how to hide its strength and kept a low profile, and continued to vigorously publicize its own success in the fight against the epidemic and democratic system ("Taiwan can help") to the outside world, and repeatedly scattered the main points, unconsciously that it was a thorn in the eyes of Western media.
This is very likely the reason why Western media are generally sorry for Taiwan after the epidemic spread in Taiwan in May 2021. The West is eager to prove that Taiwan is simply a lucky and bragging, and does not have real ability to fight the epidemic. The political system theory obviously cannot tolerate the existence of exceptions. Taiwan's short-term success is just an accident and a lucky one.
So, what about the future of political system theory? Recently, when reporting on the amazing speed and quantity of vaccinations in China, Western countries like CNN still ignores the facts and attributes it to the Chinese government's coercion. It seems that political system theory will still be the main explanation of the success or failure of the fight against the epidemic in the future by mainstream Western discourse. This explanation is also more in line with the situation where the West continues to confront China in international geopolitical .
2. The theory of people's quality
The second popular discourse on the success or failure of epidemic prevention is the "the theory of people's quality". In Taiwan, China, people like to say: Taiwanese people are very qualified (such as high education level and per capita income, complying with epidemic prevention orders and rules, etc.), so they did a good job in epidemic prevention before.
In fact, the main representative of the theory of people's quality should be Swedish . Sweden's epidemic prevention basically appeals to the importance of the quality of the people or the people. The term used is "personal responsibility", and other Western countries have also followed up on this discourse. Until recently, British Prime Minister Johnson and Johnson resorted to "personal responsibility" to replace legal mandatory enforcement when he was recklessly lifted the lockdown under the threat of the Delta virus.
The quality of the people or the people is of course important in epidemic prevention. For example, the people’s automatic and spontaneous epidemic prevention is of course a good thing, but without government laws and grassroots supervision, it is actually difficult to say that the quality of the people’s education alone is. After all, many people with high qualities pay too much attention to self-freedom rather than group responsibilities. In the end, Sweden's epidemic prevention cannot be said to be successful.
quality theory is sometimes difficult to define. For example, some Taiwanese people say: We have high quality, so we cannot establish square hospital , because Taiwanese people pay attention to privacy and must have one ward for each person. However, the people of mainland China are willing to live with hundreds of people in temporary hospitals. Isn’t this collective spirit, cultivation and ability a rare quality?
In addition, the national quality theory often blames foreign immigrants for the failure of epidemic prevention, including black households, migrant workers, secret prostitutes, pornography, etc. However, we all know that when a person with high quality continues to maintain his high-quality lifestyle in a cafe, it is very likely that he will spread the virus.
People's quality theory may also attribute the difficulties of poor countries in fighting the epidemic to their national quality, while ignoring the shortcomings of the country in basic construction and mobilization and organization. Sometimes, the quality of the people is actually affected by the quality of the regime. Former U.S. President Trump has constantly said that the new coronavirus is the "Chinese virus" in racial discrimination, which has affected his support for the masses.
In early 2021, after Biden came to power to condemn the racial discrimination title, Taiwan officials are still unwilling to correct past discriminatory titles in Chinese on official occasions, and only refer to it in English as covid-19, completely unintentionally correcting the "Wuhan virus" name of some Taiwanese people, because this is the Chinese name that Taiwan officials insisted on from beginning to end. This example shows that a racially discriminatory regime directly affects the quality of the people.
3. Cultural Theory
The third popular discourse on the success or failure of epidemic prevention is cultural theory. After the Cold War Civilization Conflict Theory and multiple modern theories emphasize the differences and role of civilization and culture, which gives cultural theory a certain market. The most ready-made one is to appeal to the differences between Asian culture and Western culture.
However, the epidemic prevention performance of Asian countries is different, with ups and downs. Even the mask culture was initially limited to Japan and Taiwan. In the past, mainland China did not have the cultural habit of wearing masks regardless of cold or allergies.
Before the COVID-19 pandemic, some Europeans were disgusted with Asian tourists wearing masks. If this disgust was not only because masks were a symbol of disease, but also regarded racial health as a manifestation of racial pros and cons, then this may make masks more closely linked to the identity of some Western whites and xenophobic politics.
Dr. Zhang Wenhong from Shanghai Huashan Hospital recently had an argument about cultural theory. He said that the important phenomenon in China's fight against the epidemic is zero tolerance for the epidemic, that is, it must be cleared, which is "life first". If
is not cleared, someone will die of illness there intermittently. "Life first" is an official program requirement, but Zhang Wenhong believes that the implementation of the program must be combined with everyone's common beliefs, so that the whole society will agree to the adoption of excessively strict measures to preserve life.
On July 7, 2021, Zhang Wenhong gave a lecture on "Infectious Diseases and Humans: The Challenge of the Younger Generation" at the Jiannan Hall of Xiamen University. Image source: Visual China
Zhang Wenhong explained that the characteristic of this epidemic is that the mortality rate of the elderly is very high, so young people need to sacrifice their freedom in exchange for the life and freedom of survival of the elderly. Such exchanges are based on the Chinese family concept, and we must be filial to the elderly in our family and take care of our daily life.
In the final analysis, strict epidemic prevention measures to clear zero and life-first epidemic prevention program, coupled with China's family concept, to protect the lives of the elderly, making China's fight against the epidemic successful. This is a cultural theory view.
Zhang Wenhong's cultural theory of "emphasizing family and the elderly" can indeed be compared with the remarks of British Prime Minister Johnson in March 2020. At that time, Johnson rejected stricter epidemic prevention measures, and obviously preferred that some people at that time advocated to achieve herd immunity to through large-scale infections (including possible deaths).
British Prime Minister Johnson was unfortunately diagnosed with new coronary pneumonia at the end of March 2020. Data picture
Johnson said bluntly: "The virus will spread further, and I must tell the truth to the British public that there will be more and more families who will lose their dear people and they will not be able to live a lifetime."
Johnson mentioned family in his speech, saying that family is still a basic interpersonal relationship in the minds of the British, but the elderly may inevitably be sacrificed. When the medical resources were run, Italy also made the decision to give up the treatment of the elderly and save the younger ones. These do not mean that they do not value family or elderly lives, but that they do not have the highest priority in terms of value choices and weights.
In other popular cultural discourses, some people believe that Chinese people on both sides of the Taiwan Strait attach great importance to life and cherish life, and the value of life is very high. Out of cherishing one's life, everyone is very disciplined and obeys the requirements of fighting the epidemic.
This makes China not as many resistance as Western countries in terms of resistance to wearing masks or anti-isolation, and the very few occasional anti-masks and anti-isolation are not theorized, conspiracy theories, and even more unorganized. This also demonstrates that China has a pragmatic cultural spirit, focusing on practicality, and seeking truth from facts.
But there are also other cultures that are pragmatic, respecting life and family concepts, etc. However, it is difficult to show when social and economic conditions are not conducive to respecting the concept of life or family. For example, American philosophy once popularized pragmatism. Its culture should have a pragmatic side, but under its current ideological and extreme conditions, it hinders the pragmatic spirit.
In any case, I think cultural theory still has some explanatory power, but culture needs to adapt to social and economic development. For example, when life is like grass in troubled times, the culture of cherishing life is difficult to exist. Cultural theory needs to be coordinated with other explanatory models to have explanatory power.
4. Social System Theory
The fourth model that explains the success or failure of the fight against the epidemic is social system theory. Here, we take the successful experience of mainland China as an example. After all, a country like China has a large population and geographical power, complex regional climate and urban-rural composition, and a different level of national education, but so far, it has been able to perform well in fighting the epidemic, which is of course worth summarizing its experience and lessons. Even if such Chinese model cannot be copied all, it is always a reference system.
China's experience is relatively complex: from the central government to the local government, even grassroots organizations and communities can be mobilized to become a quasi-wartime system, so some people say that fighting the epidemic is a people's war; and it also combines both local and foreign countries, with both local and local methods and sufficient scientific modern weapons.
like Huoshenshan Hospital is a rapid construction, which is not only an industrial capacity, but also a manifestation of human resource initiative. From a general perspective, it can be said that this is the practice of China's socialist system: the "China" part shows that there are still some historical and cultural factors (such as pragmatic cultural spirit) and are also down-to-earth, in line with the considerations of China's people's sentiment and social status. As for the "socialism" part, it is abstractly opposed to market liberalism, that is, it emphasizes group-organization-unity, rather than individual-sponsive-market.
January 31, 2020, Wuhan Huoshenshan Hospital rushed to build a panoramic view. Image source: Visual China
However, we should not separate "China" from "socialism": after all, the "socialism" manifestation of group-organization-unity is always formed through cultural factors such as "China" family concept, pragmatic spirit, cherishing life, etc., so that it can absorb rather than completely exclude the motivation from the individual-sponsive-market.
Therefore, from the perspective of social system, the Chinese model is not just socialism, public medical system, collectivism, cooperation between the central and local governments (one side has difficulties, all parties support it), etc.; human factors are still very important, and people still need to be able to exert this initiative.
Like the "personal command and personal deployment" of national leaders, it shows that political responsibility is the determination to live and die together without a way out. This is unlike other countries who have to wait and see the next election. Or like Taiwan, Chen Shi-chung from the command center is always on the front line, while Tsai Ing-wen is always behind the scenes and can hardly be responsible for the success or failure of epidemic prevention.
Image source: Global Times
Attributing the success or failure of epidemic prevention to the social system does not mean that there is no human factor: the quality of the people or the efforts of individuals are still important, but now it is not that isolated free individuals gather under the market and are promoted by invisible hands, but that under the call of organizational mobilization and collective fight against the epidemic, everyone can move, and these individuals must also become the bearers of the system. In the early fight against the epidemic in Wuhan, various types of individual initiative and progress appeared, all of which were inspired by a collective goal.
It can be said that because the anti-epidemic matter itself involves the mobilization of individuals to cooperate with the mobilization of groups and organizations, and market liberalism cannot be easily mobilized and coordinated spontaneously. Therefore, I think that in the anti-epidemic matter, the socialist system that can give the country more room for implementation must be better than liberalism.
In addition, traditional individual liberalism attaches great importance to restrictions on individual actions such as isolation, general screening, epidemic regulation, (soft) compulsory vaccination, infringement of privacy, as well as the expansion of government power and control of personal information. Even if the virus poses a threat to life, there is still the idea that "it is better to die than not freedom." This is a factor of "innate disadvantage" in liberalism in fighting the epidemic.
Taiwan does not have a true Western liberal tradition, and the fight against the epidemic should not have been a waste of time. However, due to the extreme anti-China policy, China's traditional pragmatic cultural spirit has gradually lost, and even entangled in the absurd restrictions on the packaging of imported BNT vaccines, which will delay the import of vaccines.
It is true that any regime will have political considerations in fighting the epidemic, but it is mainly necessary to follow the provisions of scientific cause and effect. Behind the scientific profession are many trade-offs and guidelines for value, including life, health, freedom, privacy, unity, equality, fairness, economy and livelihood, etc. universal value . However, the weight of these value goals is affected by the political and social systems and cultures where they are located. Different systems and cultures will sort many values. For example, the emphasis on life, in the cultural and socialist system that attaches importance to family and the elderly, will be different from the cultural and capitalist system that attaches importance to personal freedom.
5. Why do you think about success or failure? How to judge success or failure?
The above arguments in this article may face two basic questions related to each other.
First, why discuss the success or failure of epidemic prevention? Why not take the human rights protection of freedom and privacy as the highest value and use it as the focus of discussion on the epidemic? Discussing the success or failure of epidemic prevention is itself a setting of problem awareness and is not conducive to personal liberalism.
Second, what are the criteria for success or failure of epidemic prevention? If we follow "common sense", such as reducing the number of deaths and confirmed cases (the best is to clear zero), maintaining medical and screening capacity, and returning to normal economy as soon as possible... These indicators are equivalent to presetting the success of China's anti-epidemic model, which is unfair to the "failed countries" in the West.
To put it bluntly, the West is extremely unwilling to accept that China is the most successful country in fighting the epidemic. So, what if we do not judge the success or failure of common sense in terms of epidemic prevention, regardless of the number of confirmed cases and deaths, but use the successful maintenance of not interfering with personal life, or future economic reconstruction after the epidemic, etc. as an indicator?
In July 2021, Bloomberg made a statistics called "Resilience against the epidemic", titled "When the world finally restarts, the best and worst place of residence", and found that the United States' fight against the epidemic is the number one.
Bloomberg believes that the criterion for measuring the success of the fight against the epidemic is the degree of "normalization" after the unblocking, that is, everything can be restored to normal life after the epidemic is over. If large-scale gatherings, quarantine entry, wearing masks, etc. are still prohibited, it means that life has not returned to normal and the fight against the epidemic has not been successful, which means that there is a lack of resilience in the fight against the epidemic.
Bloomberg article shifts the time point to assessing the success or failure of the fight against the epidemic to "restarting and unblocking", that is, regardless of the anti-epidemic process, "the best laugh is to laugh to the end." The first hypothesis behind it is that technology (vaccines) is the decisive weapon in the fight against the epidemic, thus forming herd immunity, ensuring that the new crown will not be pandemic, and ultimately becoming a "large-scale influenza" that coexists with mankind.
Technology (vaccine) determinism is the (fifth) epidemic prevention model that is not discussed in this article. Western developed countries believe that once the efficient Western vaccine forms herd immunity, it can abandon the "pre-modern" (Chinese-style) lockdown and isolation, and can't wait to take off the mask and live a normal life. Whether the variant virus will make the above-mentioned assumptions become overly optimistic remains to be seen.
Nanning : 15-17-year-old teenagers receive the new crown vaccine. Image source: Visual China
As for the new coronavirus to become a "large flu", it comes from Trump's mouth. It is suspected of downplaying the epidemic, and it is because it has to accept the actual compromise of the virus permanently. However, the sequelae of new coronavirus infection and treatment, the proportion of severe illness and death in the future, the political attitude, behavior and psychological reactions of the elderly in the face of flu, etc., are actually uncertain, and may also confront the "slaying strategies" implicitly influenza. The influenza strategy that hopes for long-term symbiosis with the virus has many variables involved, and its success remains to be tested in the future.
Are humans currently in the middle and late stages of the new crown epidemic? Or just in the early stage? Perhaps it is too early to talk about the success or failure of epidemic prevention, and no one should be complacent.
In addition, evaluating epidemic prevention based on states is a risk of ignoring the community with a shared future for mankind. Western political theory once imagined the confrontation between everyone and everyone in the natural state, and thus inferred the ideal principle of establishing a national government. Today's natural state is actually a confrontation between the virus and everyone around the world. Can we deduce the ideal global cooperation principle from this?
(This article was originally a speech at the forum on "New Coronavirus Development: Taiwan under the Epidemic" on June 11, 2021)
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