A good rule of thumb for the People’s Republic of China is that it’s fake. No matter what, it’s fake.
But this is really the traditional kind of fake practiced by the PRC to pump up fake economic numbers and the kind of Potemkin villages advanced in the USSR to make things seem rosy.
In Wuhan, officials have tried to make it appear that recovery efforts are going smoothly. But when “central leaders” personally survey disinfecting regimens and food delivery, local officials “make a special effort” for them and them alone, one resident told Caixan. And in a video circulating on social media, residents can be seen shouting at visiting leaders from the apartments where they’re being quarantined — “Fake, it’s all fake.”
There’s a lot of the usual “Look busy guys, Beijing is watching” stuff.
Zhejiang, a province east of the epicenter city of Wuhan, claimed as of Feb. 24 it had restored 98.6 percent of its pre-coronavirus work capacity. But civil servants tell Caixan that businesses are actually faking these numbers. Beijing had started checking Zhejiang businesses’ electricity consumption levels, so district officials ordered the companies to start leaving their lights and machinery on all day to drive the numbers up, one civil servant said.
Sure.
This is how the game is played.
We’re talking about a totalitarian system with ghost cities. Ghost workers and ghost businesses propping up a ghost recovery are nothing.
The expulsion of American media marked a turning point in which Xi’s regime has chosen to fake a recovery until it happens while blaming the whole thing on America.
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