Chinese Communist Party leaders congratulate themselves on their “extremely extraordinary” success in tackling the Covid-19 epidemic, as the World Health Organization prepares to launch an investigation into the origins of the virus .
The Chinese government is widely criticized both in China and abroad for the way it handled the early days of the virus’ appearance in Wuhan at the end of 2019.
The Politburo (governing body) of the Chinese Communist Party welcomed on Friday evening the “decisive role” of the party in the face “of the rare risks and challenges of this year”, by “choosing a long-term view … which allowed a victory glorious extremely extraordinary in this extremely unusual year, ”according to the new China national agency.
China claims to have managed in a few months to get rid of the virus almost completely thanks to an extremely severe containment policy for the affected cities, and it is the only large country in the world to have continued its economic growth this year.
But she is accused of having initially hidden the appearance of the virus, allowing it to spread throughout the world.
In China, at least eight people who criticized government policy in the early days of the crisis have been punished in one way or another.
A Chinese journalist, Zhang Zhan, whose reports from Wuhan earlier this year showed the chaos of the first few weeks, has been arrested and will stand trial on Monday.
This Chinese self-congratulation precedes the arrival in the country of a WHO team, which will go to Wuhan in particular, to investigate the origins of the virus, and in particular to try to understand how it passed from the animal to man.
This investigation, explained one of the experts to AFP this week, is not intended “to find a country or a guilty authority”, but to “understand what happened to prevent it from happening again in the world. ‘to come up “.
Beijing recently tried to cast doubt on the origins of the virus. “All the available evidence shows that the coronavirus did not appear in Wuhan, in central China,” the People’s Daily wrote recently on its Facebook site, without however giving more details.
China has also been practicing “generosity diplomacy” for months, promising to share its vaccine with developing countries and providing masks and other protective materials to countries in need.
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