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New piece. Hear me out. What if Xi Jinping didn't even *know* of key details of the coronavirus outbreak until it was too late? What if his authoritarian blindspot was *worsened* by China's use of surveillance and censorship technology? https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2020/02/coronavirus-and-blindness-authoritarianism/606922/
Yes, it's a bold claim. Do convince me otherwise! China's authoritarianism is important, not just because of the billion-plus who live there—look how it's now mishandled its way into what almost certainly looks like a serious pandemic. (And it may well reshape the US, too. Soon).
People often misunderstand what technology does for authoritarianism and that's there is more than one path. The way China handled its digital public sphere *before* Xi made it more responsive and resilient. Xi turned back to the Orwellian lane—repressive but brittle. So we see.
Yep. Surveillance and repression are often an obstacle to acquiring healthy information and addressing problems. Seems paradoxical but surveillance and knowledge are often at odds. https://twitter.com/ketonkakkar/status/1231236670630088704
Speaking of blindness to reality. With so many new cases in South Korea, Iran and Italy, the likelihood of containment is very small. This coronavirus will stress all infrastructure. Are we ready? We may be discussing Medicare for at least all over 50 long before the election. https://twitter.com/BNODesk/status/1231391048221499393
ICYMI, this weekend I wrote that it would have been relatively easy for China to contain COVID-19 early on, but authoritarianism, including their use of tech surveillance, made it harder—and perhaps Xi Jinping didn't know all the details until too late. https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2020/02/coronavirus-and-blindness-authoritarianism/606922/
A new excellent report out of WSJ (whose reporters were expelled from China recently) that reinforces this: China chose to hide and cover-up human-to-human transmission till things got out of hand. That's the reason we have the pandemic in the first place. https://twitter.com/joshchin/status/1235985382644150273
The Chinese government is trying to cover-up how their own initial cover-up led to this pandemic in the first place. Yes, US and others are bungling it in their own way. Please remember Chinese health workers who put everything on the line to warn us before letting that happen.
Thread with timeline. By the end of December, there was ample evidence of human-to-human transmission of a SARS type virus in Wuhan. Chinese authorities lied and *punished* the doctors who were desparately trying to act. IT COULD HAVE BEEN CONTAINED THEN. https://twitter.com/JChengWSJ/status/1236186210533425152
It would be deeply disturbing if media & others erased the profound personal sacrifices of Chinese whistleblower health care workers, some of whom died fighting this virus, by letting the Chinese government off the hook. Do these people not exist? Do they not count? 
See thread. Please don’t erase these brave Chinese doctors and whistleblowers by absolving the Chinese leadership of culpability for the pandemic they unleashed on the world through their early cover-up. https://twitter.com/yiqinfu/status/1237222757940596739
Letting the Chinese government erase its culpability in unleashing this pandemic—as it is clearly trying to do— means erasing the massive sacrifices of whistleblower medical workers in Wuhan. They put everything on line to warn us and were shut down. https://twitter.com/stephendziedzic/status/1237568007884255233
Wow. In February, I wrote a piece outlining that scenario which threaded together a plausible scenario that fit known evidence/authoritarianism. Now China's best investigative outlet on the pandemic says that may be what happened. https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2020/02/coronavirus-and-blindness-authoritarianism/606922/ https://twitter.com/YanzhongHuang/status/1249005171436388352
Wow. AP says Wuhan authorities covered up *up the chain as well* until Jan 14th (clearly spreading human-to-human by then). Then, only after a Thailand case, top leadership was forced to consider the possibility. Still unclear what happened till Jan 20th. https://twitter.com/gerryshih/status/1250318531050131461
Updating my February 22 piece with latest information. Top Chinese scientist Dr. Zhong Nanshan says that Wuhan authorities did cover up information about the epidemic. "The local authorities, they didn't like to tell the truth at that time," Zhong said. https://edition.cnn.com/2020/05/16/asia/zhong-nanshan-coronavirus-intl-hnk/index.html
Updating thread with new details on how Chinese authorities blocked crucial information. But note: once again, Chinese scientists defied the authorities. A professor published the SARS-CoV-2 genomic sequence without authorization. His lab was shuttered. https://apnews.com/3c061794970661042b18d5aeaaed9fae
Well. US intelligence agencies have reportedly concluded the same thing as my February article on top of this thread: that local Wuhan officials kept central Chinese government in the dark, well into mid-January. Authoritarians encourage lying to them. https://www.nytimes.com/2020/08/19/world/asia/china-coronavirus-beijing-trump.html
