Since the ruling party/military in China by now claim to have managed to control and halt the spread of the corona virus in contrast to the rest of the world , it use its alleged success to justify a claim that their form of rule is superior to western democracy. They also expect us to forget that the infections started and spread from Wuhan and by controlling all form of information inside the country, by now they even try to claim that the virus originated elsewhere. They are also using their economic power to prevent mentioning that the virus originated in China. Their embassy in Germany must have pressured the publishing house Carlsen to pulp the entire edition of a children's book about the corona virus just because it mentioned that the virus came from China.

The fact that this virus originated in Wuhan is behind doubt , whether an employee at the city's virology Institute that worked on corona viruses accidentally became infected or a person who handled bats in the market place was first to become infected is a secondary question also because it will be impossible to determine. I have been a medical virologist since 1964 and since 1969 in Cambridge and in the process the first in the UK to isolate the adult T-cell leukaemia virus HTLV and the AIDS viruses HIV-1 and HIV-2 [1]. I think it would have been entirely appropriate if the corona virus would have been named Covid-CCP, standing for the Chinese Communist Party not only to remind the ruling party that we know where it started and why it caused the pandemic, but also to make sure they do not try keep claiming that their form of rule which led to the pandemic is superior to democracy,

Being a ruthless dictatorship all decision makers at every level and in every region in China are made by loyal, long time members of the communist party. It must take a certain type of individuals to decide to devote themselves to the party's dogma in order to climb the ladder of an increasing influence and affluence by conforming with the appearance that everything under their control function perfectly. It appears to divest such individuals of the intellectual capacity to understand the implications of transmissible infectious diseases. The world did at least heard of the young Dr Li Wenliang who in early January 2020 tried to raise the alarm about the spreading infection, but was forced to retract his warning, I assume by the communist party officials in Wuhan, before dying himself from the virus infection. He was an ophthalmologist and so probably not the first to notice the spread of this respiratory infection. I would not be surprised if other doctors tried to raise the alarm before him but were probably warned off by party officials. More recently we have heard of the arrest of Zhang Zhan the young lady lawyer/journalist who was sentence to 4 and half years in prison just for reporting the high rate of infections in Wuhan during the second part of 2019. We also heard about other reporters who disappeared...

Had the alarm been raised earlier when it became evident to some doctors probably in mid 2019 about a highly infectious respiratory disease it might have been possible to prevent this pandemic. In fact how the pandemic could have been prevented was provided by the Chinese of Taiwan. As soon as the Taiwanese medics realized that a new and highly transmissible infection arrived they immediately took all the necessary measures to limit the spread so that in the early phase only 7 individuals died of the infection in a population of 23.5 million and managed to stop the spread of the virus. They could do this because they are not ruled by the communist party, namely because Taiwan is a democracy. Hence the Taiwanese provided the evidence that in the 21st century pandemics are not inevitable. I think that if mainland China would have also had a democratically elected government the virus would have been controlled locally and the world would have not suffered from this terrible pandemic with millions of deaths each representing a personal tragedy which keeps affecting an increasing number of people around the globe.

The virus must have been spreading widely in Wuhan during the second half of 2019, to other population centres in China and around the world for several months with increasing rate of morbidity and mortality before the ruling communist party had to admit the presence of a high rate of infections and imposed lockdowns which for a totalitarian state was easy. By now the state controlled media try to claim that the virus originated elsewhere. However Iran's unusually very early high rate of infections in the middle east is most likely due to the Chinese traveling to Iran to exploit the economic and political opportunity resulting from the 2018 USA Trump administration's imposition  of sanctions on the Islamic Republic.

The CCP has revealed its ruthless nature many times over the years leading to millions of deaths due to miss rule. On our television we have seen in June 1989 the crushing of the pro-democracy movement by the CCP army in Tiananmen Square with massive number of deaths. More recently we have seen on TV the so called reeducation concentration camps where hundreds of thousands Muslims are imprisoned and used as slave labour; we have also heard of evidence of massive sterilization of Muslim women.

Not only it saved the North Korean regime from collapsing but it allowed them to developed nuclear weapons and more recently it enabled them to start building a nuclear reactor in Syria for the development of nuclear weapons for the murderous Assad regime which fortunately was blown up by Israel in 2007.

Earlier this year they vetoed a Security Council resolution to condemn the Myanmar generals from ousting the democratically elected government since their army generals crushed the quest for democracy in 1989. After taking over Tibet, the CCP has been doing its utmost to eradicate Tibetan culture, language, religion and history. We do not need to be reminded how well it adheres to the agreement it signed in 1997 regarding Hong Kong. In recent years they have been repeatedly threatening to take over Taiwan by force and replace its democratically elected government, as if it belongs to the communist party which never allowed a free election.

Despite its claim to be a peace loving regime China continuously create artificial   militarized islands throughout the South China Sea.

The virus which originated in Wuhan and allowed to cause this global disaster with millions of deaths, continue to spread. In addition many of those who survived the infection suffer from debilitating side effects (Long Covid) that by now add up to many more millions. It already caused massive unprecedented economic hardship around the globe with daily suffering by hundreds of millions.

We should continue to expose the ruthless nature of the regime and do our best to limit    imports of all the bargains Made in China, for which we already paid a very high price and will continue to suffer.