by Richard Schulman
Single-man dictatorships have a devastating flaw. They paralyze independent action by lower level flunkies. That is the reason why local officials in Wuhan didn’t dare act decisively to contain the coronavirus epidemic before it became a national and international health crisis. Thus, the Chinese Communist Party’s Xi dictatorship is the real party to blame for the delayed Wuhan containment effort.
“A leading Chinese virology expert has warned that the Wuhan coronavirus epidemic could be 10 times as bad as the SARS outbreak that killed almost 800 people around the world in 2002-03,” the South China Morning Post reports. “One of the reasons for the prediction was that authorities in Wuhan had missed their best opportunity to contain the spread of the disease,” Guan Yi said. He is the director of the State Key Laboratory of Emerging Infectious Diseases at Hong Kong University.
As we go to press, ten Chinese cities with 20 mn. people are in lockdown. This would not likely have happened had local officials in Wuhan felt empowered to act early and decisively.
This pattern will repeat itself in future crises. It will also weaken China in long-term. Economic development requires initiative and entrepreneurship at the individual level. These qualities thrive in market economies but are stifled in economies dominated at the national level by state-run companies directed by dictators or central committees.
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