Everything is fake
来自China Digital Space
quánbù shì jiǎde | 全部是假的
Criticism of the government’s mismanagement of initial response efforts during the COVID-19 outbreak, when censorship and propaganda seemed to many to have been given a higher priority than public health.
In March 2020, Vice-Premier Sun Chunlan visited a residential development in Wuhan, the epicenter of the outbreak. In multiple videos captured by quarantined residents, several women can be heard shouting at Sun and her entourage below, “Fake! Fake! Everything is fake!” The indictment reverberated with netizens who felt that the “people’s war” on coronavirus has been a sham from the beginning, when the authorities silenced whistleblowers and insisted that the virus was under control. In a QQ Qzone blogpost, user Hao Lifeng described the scene and explained what it shows about the efficacy of state propaganda:
On March 5, a high-level official visited the community development of Kaiyuan in Qingshan, Wuhan. They [Sun Chunlan] were surrounded by their attendants as they inspected the community square. When it seemed as if they were about to tie things up with the lower-level officials, a woman's voice began to ring out, shouting "Everything here is fake!" She shouted herself hoarse, her voice echoing through the empty square, until that higher-up heard her loud and clear.
[...] That shouting woman thought that the higher-up didn't know that the lower-downs were faking it. This shows her naiveté. The higher-ups aren't faking it? Think back to the hundred thousand jin yield per mu reported by the People's Daily [during the Great Leap Forward], and to the ongoing cover-up of this epidemic. How could they not know! But objectively speaking, she has revealed the coordinated pretense being put on by the highest and lowest levels of government. She's put them all on alert that we, the people of this country, know what they're up to, that it's a sham, that you're ridiculous. Now that is something to think about. [Chinese]
