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A month ago, coroanavirus cases around the world were mainly concentrated in China, but today Western countries have become the new epicenters of this global pandemic with the U.S., Italy and Spain having all surpassed China in terms of the number of infections.

This development has transpired despite the West having seen China's earlier struggle trying to bring the unprecedented epidemic under control. When China locked down the whole city of Wuhan on January 23, and later expanded the blockade of traffic to the wider Hubei Province, it should have sent a stark warning to the Western world about the gravity of the situation. 

However, in reality, Western governments' responses since January have been marred by unimaginable sluggishness. For example, Fox News host Britt McHenry on March 31 tweeted that the U.S. government surely knew how deadly the disease was based on China's experience, but it was beyond comprehension why the U.S. "didn't restrict travel, or taken preventative measures" earlier.

So why did Western countries not pay heed to China's lesson and take early actions?

Chinese people still recall when the lockdown measure was first announced in the country and people started to quarantine themselves at home, there was an outcry or even hysteria among some Western people about the human rights implication of these measures.

For example, a New York Times article published on January 22, right before Wuhan went into lockdown, quoted a Western scholar as saying the shutdown "would almost certainly lead to human rights violations."

On February 2, the Guardian also put out an article entitled "China's reaction to the coronavirus outbreak violates human rights" where the author described China's action as nothing short of "terrifying" and rejected China's approach completely on the basis that it does not take into account its people's human rights and that China "is not a democracy."

The way of thinking exemplified by this article typifies how an overwhelming population in the West views China. They expect Chinese people to cherish the same set of values as they do and China to be exactly like the West. Because of this arrogance as well as ignorance, their perception of China is infused with marked bias, and they interpret every action by the Chinese government as being abusive, repressive and authoritarian. 

During the outbreak in China, this deep-seated bias has prevented them from making an effort to understand the severity of the situation on the ground. Instead of paying attention to why China went as far as taking such drastic actions and what it did, they have simply focused on attacking China and treated everything it does with doubt and suspicion, if not flat-out rejection.

As Ian Johnson, a writer on New York Times put it, "When quarantine shelters were set up to host infected people…, the effort was portrayed (in the West) as dystopian or, at best, chaotic" and even the awe over China's ability to build a hospital in ten days was tinged with a sense that "something nefarious must be at work."

However, the simply truth is that China is not the West and Chinese people in general are on board with the actions taken there. Chinese people don't view personal freedom and rights the exact same way Western people do and they appreciate the sacrifice everyone has to make and solidarity they need to have in times of a crisis like this. On concerns about human rights, China acted the way it did to protect its people's health and save lives which are essential dimensions of human rights - China did not do so to violate them by any stretch of imagination.

John Ross, former director of economic and business policy for the mayor of London, also addressed the unjustified Western criticisms. In an opinion article published on Russia Today, he explained that if Wuhan was not locked down, the virus would have spread uncontrollably across China. And as some Westerners are relentlessly attacking China for violating human rights, he was able to tell that in reality, people in Wuhan understood this national strategy.

There is no denying that COVID-19 poses an unprecedented threat to mankind and it takes time to understand the disease, but some argue that the impact on many Western countries could have been mitigated if the mainstream point of view was not so contemptuous or ignorant of what was happening in China or the measures it has taken. Instead of taking note of what they could learn from China's experiences, the West is fixated on why China is not like them, denigrate China by their own political and ideological standards and discredit its containment efforts wholesale.

The reality says that China's measures have worked. Despite being the early epicenter of this horrific global pandemic and having over 95 percent of the global cases in the early stage, domestic transmission of COVID-19 has almost disappeared as of today in China. In contrast, the situation has experienced marked escalation in recent weeks in the West.

The West does not have to copy everything China does, but they could have seen China more objectively, instead of viewing it through an ideological lens at all times. It could have learned from its experience and worked more closely with China - all of these would have and will still help them better cope with the situations in their own countries.

Script writer: Xu Sicong

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