Should Countries Demand Reparations from China?
BY BEN ORR '21
In April, the Mercatus Center at the George Mason University predicted that “the economic cost of the first two months spent fighting [COVID-19] will be $2.14 trillion.” Nearly a month later, the U.S. government has committed over 2.4 trillion USD to coronavirus relief, an amount close to the GDPs of the UK and France. COVID-19 has damaged both underdeveloped and strong economies, producing lows reminiscent of the 2008 recession. While the novel coronavirus emerged in the Chinese province of Wuhan, the virus’s origin does not make the Chinese government inherently responsible for the outbreak. Thus, it is necessary to examine the People’s Republic of China’s handling of COVID-19 and its previous patterns of disaster response before determining whether they should be held accountable for the current scale of the crisis.
Following SARS and the Avian flu, China has had twenty years and two epidemics to reform and refine their disaster response. In the wake of COVID-19, the Chinese government has acted in a suspiciously similar manner to previous responses. COVID-19 made its first appearance in December of 2019, and shortly after, Wuhan doctor Li Wenliang shared the alarming news with colleagues through a Chinese messaging app. He was promptly silenced by local law enforcement and pressured to “admit to lying” about the suspected disease. Before passing away of COVID-19 in February, he blamed China for a lack of transparency about the virus. According to BBC, the Chinese government also worked to suppress all discussion of coronavirus by censoring keywords in WeChat, a popular Chinese mobile app.
Three months later, coronavirus has ravaged the world. China has taken rapid steps to combat the virus by shutting down markets, restricting meat trade, and quickly erecting hospitals to treat patients. However, this efficient and positive response is only further evidence that the government has not changed—in a 2004 paper following the SARS outbreak, the author outlines China’s response: the government spent the first few months hiding any evidence of the virus, then rapidly worked to contain it once it got out of control. Restricting information and concealing the severity of the virus puts the rest of the world at risk, regardless of China’s initial intentions. More than fifteen years later, China has reused this same method, causing thousands of deaths by downplaying the severity of the disease to other countries.
As of May 31st, COVID-19 has infected over 6.15 million (confirmed) people, and has killed 372 thousand. The United States is in the lead, with the most confirmed cases and deaths. China, a country with an almost identical area but a population density more than four times that of the U.S., has fewer than one-tenth the reported cases. These unrealistic figures have led many to question China’s honesty, and their doubt is only supported by the country’s ongoing censorship and misinformation campaigns. According to a report by the Department of Homeland Security, the Chinese government has been accused of “intentionally concealing the severity of COVID-19 from the International community” to hoard protective equipment. Ultimately, China has approached the virus with dishonesty and evasion, attempting to preserve its reputation at the expense of the rest of the world. The Department of Homeland Security also released an investigation claiming that they are 95% sure that there was an abnormality with China’s PPE import/export patterns in early January, weeks before China had publicly announced that COVID-19 could be transmitted from human to human. This brings up the possibility that the Chinese government had known about the virus being contagious before disclosing the information to the World Health Organization (WHO). This suspicion is not enough to make a complete claim, but on June 3rd, AP News released an article covering dozens of leaked WHO documents and interviews, casting light on WHO complaints about China’s conduct. More importantly, the investigation reveals that China hid news of COVID-19 transmission. By January 5th, three different labs had sequenced the coronavirus genome, yet the Chinese government stayed silent, and even told labs to destroy their samples.
Further investigations into the Chinese government’s handling of coronavirus are increasingly exposing the government’s misconduct. Considering the Department of Homeland Security’s investigation into China’s abnormal PPE trade patterns, the AP News article all but confirms that the Chinese government intentionally withheld information from the rest of the world while they stocked up on supplies and prepared for the virus. These findings suggest that China had many opportunities to lessen the global impact of COVID-19, and had their labs revealed their research, the economic costs and death tolls of COVID-19 could have been astronomically lower.
Because of its deliberately secretive response to the virus, it is reasonable for the rest of the world to expect reparations from the Chinese government. This would appropriately hold the country accountable for its criminal selfishness and secrecy, and help prevent a similarly disastrous chain of events from happening in the future.
Following SARS and the Avian flu, China has had twenty years and two epidemics to reform and refine their disaster response. In the wake of COVID-19, the Chinese government has acted in a suspiciously similar manner to previous responses. COVID-19 made its first appearance in December of 2019, and shortly after, Wuhan doctor Li Wenliang shared the alarming news with colleagues through a Chinese messaging app. He was promptly silenced by local law enforcement and pressured to “admit to lying” about the suspected disease. Before passing away of COVID-19 in February, he blamed China for a lack of transparency about the virus. According to BBC, the Chinese government also worked to suppress all discussion of coronavirus by censoring keywords in WeChat, a popular Chinese mobile app.
Three months later, coronavirus has ravaged the world. China has taken rapid steps to combat the virus by shutting down markets, restricting meat trade, and quickly erecting hospitals to treat patients. However, this efficient and positive response is only further evidence that the government has not changed—in a 2004 paper following the SARS outbreak, the author outlines China’s response: the government spent the first few months hiding any evidence of the virus, then rapidly worked to contain it once it got out of control. Restricting information and concealing the severity of the virus puts the rest of the world at risk, regardless of China’s initial intentions. More than fifteen years later, China has reused this same method, causing thousands of deaths by downplaying the severity of the disease to other countries.
As of May 31st, COVID-19 has infected over 6.15 million (confirmed) people, and has killed 372 thousand. The United States is in the lead, with the most confirmed cases and deaths. China, a country with an almost identical area but a population density more than four times that of the U.S., has fewer than one-tenth the reported cases. These unrealistic figures have led many to question China’s honesty, and their doubt is only supported by the country’s ongoing censorship and misinformation campaigns. According to a report by the Department of Homeland Security, the Chinese government has been accused of “intentionally concealing the severity of COVID-19 from the International community” to hoard protective equipment. Ultimately, China has approached the virus with dishonesty and evasion, attempting to preserve its reputation at the expense of the rest of the world. The Department of Homeland Security also released an investigation claiming that they are 95% sure that there was an abnormality with China’s PPE import/export patterns in early January, weeks before China had publicly announced that COVID-19 could be transmitted from human to human. This brings up the possibility that the Chinese government had known about the virus being contagious before disclosing the information to the World Health Organization (WHO). This suspicion is not enough to make a complete claim, but on June 3rd, AP News released an article covering dozens of leaked WHO documents and interviews, casting light on WHO complaints about China’s conduct. More importantly, the investigation reveals that China hid news of COVID-19 transmission. By January 5th, three different labs had sequenced the coronavirus genome, yet the Chinese government stayed silent, and even told labs to destroy their samples.
Further investigations into the Chinese government’s handling of coronavirus are increasingly exposing the government’s misconduct. Considering the Department of Homeland Security’s investigation into China’s abnormal PPE trade patterns, the AP News article all but confirms that the Chinese government intentionally withheld information from the rest of the world while they stocked up on supplies and prepared for the virus. These findings suggest that China had many opportunities to lessen the global impact of COVID-19, and had their labs revealed their research, the economic costs and death tolls of COVID-19 could have been astronomically lower.
Because of its deliberately secretive response to the virus, it is reasonable for the rest of the world to expect reparations from the Chinese government. This would appropriately hold the country accountable for its criminal selfishness and secrecy, and help prevent a similarly disastrous chain of events from happening in the future.
