Recently on Northern Slant, Sam Allen wrote about the Chinese Communist Party and its mishandling of the Covid-19 crisis. While it’s important not to overlook the CCP’s hubris around the initial outbreak of the virus, or to overlook the authoritarian nature of China’s regime, western governments also need to take a long, hard look in the mirror.

Scientists aren’t certain about the origins of Covid-19 in humans, but a working hypothesis is that it was transmitted from an animal to a human at a live market in Wuhan. And this has let to much finger-pointing at China. But it’s very difficult for many of us in the West, with our vast resources, infrastructure and the individualism that we feel is a basic right, to truly understand China. 

There were cover-ups by the CCP, but were they any worse than some of misleading claims made by governments in ‘free’ countries? Even if the official numbers released by China are embellished, say by adding a generous 20% to infections, deaths and recoveries, it has still been more effective in curbing the virus per capita than the US.

As the infection rate in China has virtually come to a standstill, major western democracies face daunting trends. The US now has the fastest growing infection rate per capita and the largest number of deaths. And while its curve has ‘flattened’, sadly daily deaths have yet to fall by a significant margin.

We’ve seen the rise of charismatic populism across the West since 2016, and this virus has shown us what these populist movements produce. 

We criticise China for covert lies, cover-ups and the mishandling of the crisis, while Donald Trump lies to us directly through our television screens. For a country with over a billion more people than the United States, to forge their success rate that well would take a number of lies that would make Donald Trump himself feel uncomfortable. 

We’re being hypocritical if we criticise one but not the other.

This isn’t a new phenomenon. For years, we rightly criticised China for its use of coal and fossils fuels and its adverse effects on the global environment and climate change. This is despite the fact that it was doing basically what most of the West was doing through the 1970s, while continuing fossil fuel emissions thereafter, albeit with tighter restrictions. 

For decades, the West has debated and debated environmental issues, utilising academic and intergovernmental institutions to come up with a plethora of comprehensive and creative ways to address climate change. But, year in and year out, even in the most progressive of countries, the almighty dollar and euro have overshadowed any sort of real, rapid, collective change that science is calling for and that we know is possible to accomplish. 

While the US has rolled back its climate policies and is now emitting CO2 at an increasing level, China is meeting the demands of the 2015 Paris Agreement and on track to curb their emissions to agreed levels by 2030. While this is probably not enough by either country, China is at least doing it. 

We also see rampant critiques of China’s involvement in Africa from the countries that pillaged the continent. At least China (most likely with self-interested motives) gives back to the people it takes from. 

So, what’s worse? Free and open societies with the wealth, discourse and institutional knowledge honed over decades coming together to continue to neglect what ought to be done, or an authoritarian regime actually meeting its targets? 

The answer isn’t so simple and it’s definitely not as black and white as we’re made to believe. 

Certainly the CCP has played a role in this crisis, but it is a small part of a greater picture. And while China has its party, the West has its party lobbyists – both systems can and do produce endemic corruption in different forms.

It is important that we don’t become distracted by divvying up blame along national and ideological lines. If this is how we focus our attention in the midst of crises – whether they are viral, economic or environmental – ultimately the only ones to blame will be us.