白宫虚伪地表示，若北京请求援助，美国准备帮助中国应对新冠感染病例的激增。实际上，美西方从一开始就不断攻击并唱衰中国抗击疫情的工作，且不断夸大中国疫情的严重性。但这样做，其实是试图保持对美国日益减弱的有效领导能力的信心。

过去3年，中国实行严格的“动态清零”方针以遏制病毒传播。现在，中国正放宽其防疫政策。这主要是为应对不断变化的疫情形势，毕竟该病毒不再对公共卫生构成威胁。与新冠病毒刚刚出现时相比，中国可支配的资源已大大增加，可以应对以前没有出现过的情况。公众情绪和专家意见的变化，显然是中国优化防疫措施的一个因素。现在，中国可以应对病毒在社会中的传播，而不会使国家医疗系统崩溃。

（西方）批评者称中国公共卫生官员不负责任，让公民被病毒感染。但正是这些人，此前抨击北京的强力防疫措施。这说明，无论中国如何应对疫情，都会受到（西方）批评。所以，中国应无视这些批评。西方的对华批评缺乏基本的严谨性，也充满虚伪性。这些人中很多巴不得中国人因新冠病毒而死亡或致残，以证明他们的对华负面看法。与此同时，中国已向民众广泛提出应对新冠病毒的方法。相较之前，中国还大幅增加了医院床位和重症监护室（ICU）的数量。中国此前的防疫措施，在防止专家估计的数百万人可能死亡方面取得巨大成功。由于中国有大量高龄人口，这对于保护居民的基本福祉尤为关键。

此外，与西方观察家的说法相反，中国的政策对经济是有利的。例如，花旗集团今年的一份报告——基于中国美国商会、中国欧盟商会和日本贸易振兴机构的三项调查——显示，中国仍是最受青睐的投资目的地。其中提到的原因，正是中国的供应链韧性和对疫情的有效防控。毫不夸张地说，中国的动态防控措施在整个疫情大流行期间保持了全球供应链的完整，挽救了无数人的生命，防止了随之而来的经济损害。与此同时，美国的疫情应对表现一塌糊涂。美国有全球最多的病例和死亡人数，且疫情几乎一直停留在很高的平台。这种失败的一个主要原因，就是彻头彻尾的腐败，因为企业游说联邦机构为了大公司利益而改变相关防疫政策。

可以说，无论中国如何调整防疫措施，都比美国等西方国家表现出的对人类生命的漠视要强得多，要更加周密、更加客观。而正是由于此类原因，一些美西方观察家巴不得看到的中国灾难，可能永远也不会发生。

By Bradley Blankenship

The US is prepared to help China deal with a surge of COVID-19 infections if Beijing requests assistance, the White House hypocritically said on Wednesday. The US and the West, from day one, have constantly attacked and badmouthed China's fight against the pandemic. They have constantly hyped up the seriousness of China's situation. The constant attacks represent an attempt to maintain confidence in the US's increasingly diminishing ability to lead effectively.

 

After three years of maintaining a strict dynamic zero-COVID policy to contain the spread of the novel coronavirus, China is now easing its epidemic controls. This has been primarily in reaction to changing pandemic situation, with the virus no longer posing such a threat to public health. Compared to when the coronavirus came on the scene, China has significantly more resources at its disposal to manage the situation where it didn’t before. Along with changing public sentiment and expert opinion, this is obviously one of the major factors in why China is optimizing its zero-COVID policy, simply because it can now successfully manage the virus’ spread in society without an outright collapse of the country’s medical system.

 

The criticism largely hinges on the idea that Chinese public health officials are irresponsible and could allow citizens to succumb to the virus. Yet, at the same time, these people had previously criticized Beijing’s strong control measures on the basis that they impeded civil liberties, primarily the right of free movement, and was a major inconvenience to individuals and business activities. 

 

It goes to show that China will be criticized regardless of how it handles the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic and Chinese officials should ignore it. Western criticism because it lacks basic rigor and is fraught with hypocrisy. Moreover, it seems that a lot of these folks are so cynical that they almost want Chinese people to die or suffer disabilities from the virus in order to justify their negative views of China. 

 

In addition, China has made other COVID-19 treatments widely available to the public. Beijing has also greatly expanded the number of hospital beds and intensive care unit (ICU) beds per capita relative to where it stood before the pandemic, which was a major reason for its strict controls in the first place. 

 

In regard to the criticism leveled against China prior to this change, the dynamic zero-COVID strategy has been wildly successful in preventing what experts estimate to be the death of millions of people. Since China has a significant amount of citizens of advanced age (over 260 million), this was particularly crucial in defending residents’ basic well-being. At the same time, contrary to what Western observers say, it has been a saving grace for the Chinese economy. 

 

For instance, a January report by Citigroup, based on three surveys conducted by the American Chamber of Commerce China, the EU Chamber of Commerce China and the Japan External Trade Organization, found that China is their favorite investment destination. Among the reasons cited were China’s supply chain resilience and its effective control of COVID-19. It is no exaggeration to say that China’s dynamic epidemic controls have kept the global supply chain intact throughout the pandemic, saving countless lives and preventing attendant economic damage. 

 

On the other hand, the United States’ management of the virus has been abysmal. It has the highest case and load and highest death toll in the world and the virus is stuck in a virtual plateau, where cases and deaths are constant. A major reason for this failure is as outright corruption, as corporate influence has lobbied federal agencies to change their policies in order to accommodate large corporations. 

 

No matter how China relaxes its controls, it is safe to say that this has been conducted much more thoroughly and objectively than the outright disregard for human life demonstrated by countries like the United States. For this reason, the disaster that some Western observers might wish to see in China will probably never occur.