The 'atrocity propaganda' game of Western media demonizes China's zero-COVID approach

Over the past two weeks, the historic city of Xi'an in Northwest China has been in a state of lockdown following an outbreak of COVID-19. The outbreak has arguably been the most severe in China since that of Wuhan in early 2020, with hundreds of accumulated cases. By now however, the pandemic has fallen under control with local transmissions declining to dozens daily following comprehensive rounds of mass testing.

Meanwhile, countries in the West have endured record levels of COVID cases daily as their governments have failed to take a serious approach in tackling the virus. The United Statesshocked the world again by recording 1.08 million new cases on Jan 3 in Johns Hopkins University mapping, while the United Kingdom saw more than 200,000 daily cases.

In the US, it is a mathematical certainty that the nation's overall COVID death count will pass the 1 million mark in the coming months, owing to the general refusal of the population to comply with precautions and many even refusing to get vaccinated.

Despite this, in the past few days the Western mainstream media have switched to a tactic of "atrocity propaganda" concerning the situation in Xi'an. Refusing to acknowledge the success of China's longstanding zero-COVID policy, which has saved millions of lives and safeguarded economic stability, the media now advocate the angle that the lockdown in Shaanxi is "brutal, unreasonable"and against the will of the population.

Publications such as The Wall Street Journal, The Guardian, The Washington Post and others have repeatedly used headlines such as "cries for help" or "desperation"in Xi'an —implying that the rest of the world is in a superior position.

From the very beginning of the pandemic, it has become a "political correctness" of sort for the Western media to refuse China any kind of credit or praise in relation to COVID-19, forming part of a broader US-led approach into weaponizing the press to exaggerate any potential negative aspect of China in order to advance Washington's foreign policy goals.

The pandemic was seen as another stick to beat China, with the virus weaponized by the former Donald Trump administration to change the paradigm of Washington's relations — and that of its allies by extension —with China into competition.

The media narrative in turn has sought to attack China at a specific angle from very stage of the pandemic. When the initial outbreak was reported in Wuhan, it was claimed that it demonstrated the failure of China's political system and that the Wuhan lockdown was excessively brutal.

When this turned out not to be the case, the focus switched to blaming Beijing for COVID outbreaks in Western countries, using the propaganda of a "cover-up", despite the fact it has been long established that the virus transmits in often surprising, undetectable and unpredictable ways.

When this angle ran dry, it then switched to the conspiracy of a "lab leak theory" for most of 2021, ignoring that the USA and some European countries had cases dated earlier than Wuhan's initial report. As new variants appeared, the angle also began claiming that China's approach would fail and hurt its economy, which has not happened either.

Now, as Western nations abandon zero-COVID approaches, deal with record outbreaks and angry anti-vaxxer segments of their populations, the narrative appears to have flipped back to criticizing China's successful policy as a form of oppression.

But the narrative is totally false.

The truth is that China's zero-COVID approachhas created a safe, stable and confident society that has allowed GDP growth across two years to run at an average of over 5percent, without requiring trillions in stimulus to move it forward.

On the other hand, if the virus was allowed to simply run riot in China, as it is in the US, it is not unreasonable to assume that cases would accelerate to well over 1 million a day, a daily death count surging into the thousands. Reduced confidence in everyday activities would in the long run harness a far worse economic impact than short-term lockdowns.

WhileWestern COVID critics demand "freedom" in the classical sense of the word, they fail to see how this emphasis on selfish-individualism, the preference of doing what one wants to do over the good of society, has been enormously costly in terms of human life. China is somehow portrayed as inhumane, for a policy which is in practice only humane.

The irony is that if China experienced the death toll of the US, or much greater, that in itself would be portrayed as a failure of China's political system.

No matter what China does regarding COVID, the mediawill keep attacking and emphasizing the negative. But the truth is that China will definitely overcome the outbreak in Xi'an. The Western media is not acting in the best interests of the Chinese people, it relishes only in failure, not in the approach which has saved countless lives.

The author is a British political and international relations analyst. The views do not necessarily reflect those of China Daily.