In the wake of the global pandemic of the new coronavirus (pandemic), distrust of China, the outbreak country, is growing even more. The death toll in Italy has surpassed that of China, and the Xi Jinping regime has asserted that "the domestic infection in our country is coming to an end," but this is not to be trusted. U.S. President Donald Trump has also been criticizing China's cover-up and information manipulation on a daily basis. Against this backdrop, the president of Peking University's Institute for National Development Studies and doctors in Wuhan City began whistleblowing and criticizing the regime. Is the "speech control" that has supported the one-party dictatorship of the Chinese Communist Party beginning to fall apart?

　I hope (the Chinese government's announcement) is true. (Who's to say whether that's true or not?) We could have contained the infection to just the location of the outbreak. The world is paying a very heavy price for China's information cover-up.

　At a press conference on March 19, Trump expressed disbelief that the Chinese government had announced that no new cases had been identified in the past 24 hours in the city of Wuhan in Hubei province, which was the source of the new coronavirus.

　According to the Kyodo news agency, the death toll has exceeded 10,000 worldwide, and the number of people infected has also exceeded 250,000 worldwide, according to a report by Johns Hopkins University.

　The Chinese government announced on the 20th that the death toll in mainland China has risen to 3,248. A total of 80,967 people were reportedly infected. Meanwhile, the death toll in Italy reached 3,405 on Monday, surpassing for the first time the death toll in mainland China, the country with the highest number of cases, and the highest in the world in terms of published figures.

　In his first visit to Wuhan since the spread of the new coronavirus, Mr. Zhang stressed that "there has been a positive change (in the infection situation) and important results have been achieved," and asserted that the infection was coming to an end. According to the Chinese government, nearly 58,000 people have been discharged from the hospital after completing treatment in Hubei province so far. In Wuhan City, the number of new cases per day has remained below 10 since the middle of this month.

　However, I don't trust this "Chinese government announcement".

　A doctor at a quarantine facility in Wuhan City told Kyodo News that the improvement of the situation in Wuhan City was a deception.

　According to this doctor, the quarantine was lifted at the discretion of an "expert team" of authorities in charge of combating infectious diseases, despite the fact that his own patients were found to have pneumonia after Mr. Li's inspection. It was around this time that the decision to lift the quarantine was lax, and "the large-scale lifting of the quarantine of infected people began. He pointed out that the number of patients undergoing treatment was intentionally reduced in order to "appeal the success of the measures" out of consideration for Mr. Hui.

　The Chinese government announced that there were zero new cases of infection in the city of Wuhan on Jan. 18, but doctors affirmed that the government's tally was "unreliable.

　An "objection" was also raised by Peking University, a leading Chinese university.

　By the 20th, Yao Yang, Director of Peking University's Graduate School of National Development Studies, published an "unusual paper" criticizing that local officials who felt pressured under the strong centralized rule of government were cowering, saying that they should not produce a single new case of infection.

　In response to the central stance of "not tolerating mistakes," Yao pointed out that local officials are unable to work on economic recovery for fear of being punished or losing their jobs when new infections emerge. He appealed for local governments to be given autonomy and real power.

　In China, where the Communist Party is a one-party dictatorship, it is extremely rare to see a spate of statements that go against the wishes of the Chinese government.

　On the 12th, Zhao Lijian, deputy press secretary of China's Ministry of Foreign Affairs, posted on his Twitter that "the U.S. military may have brought an infectious disease to Wuhan City".

　Shi Ping, an expert on Chinese affairs, said, "Until now, the Chinese Communist Party has suppressed speech. However, because the new coronavirus is an infectious disease, if the truth is not conveyed, it could become a matter of life threatening. This is a major change that has led to a growing momentum among intellectuals to tell the truth, unable to stand the lies of the authorities, and a growing awareness of the importance of freedom of speech. It is unlikely that this situation will lead directly to the collapse of the regime, but the "speech control" that is essential for maintaining the dictatorship of the Communist Party is beginning to crumble. In the long run, we may be starting to see signs of the regime's collapse," he analyzed.

Translated with www.DeepL.com/Translator (free version)