Another Autocracy Stumbles

We can see the Russian problems. Now Paul Krugman shines the light on China.

there are times when autocratic rule can look more effective than the messiness of democracies bound by rule of law.

Dictatorship, however, starts to look a lot less attractive if it continues for any length of time.

The most important argument against autocracy is, of course, moral: Very few people can hold unrestrained power for years on end without turning into brutal tyrants.

Beyond that, however, in the long run autocracy is less effective than an open society that allows dissent and debate. As I wrote a couple of weeks ago, the advantages of having a strongman who can tell everyone what to do are more than offset by the absence of free discussion and independent thought.

China, which is now experiencing a disastrous failure of its Covid policy.

But China is definitely not over Covid. Hong Kong, which for a long time seemed virtually unscathed, is experiencing hundreds of deaths a day, a catastrophe reminiscent of early 2020 in New York — back when there were no vaccines and we didn’t know much about how to limit transmission. Major Chinese cities like Shenzhen, a crucial world manufacturing hub, are back under lockdown. And it’s not at all clear when or how China’s new health crisis will end.

three things went very, very wrong.

First, as much of the world was turning to mRNA vaccines — a new approach adapted to Covid with miraculous speed — China insisted on using its own vaccines, which rely on older technology and have proved far less effective, especially against the Omicron variant of the coronavirus.

Second, vaccination rates among China’s elderly — the most vulnerable group — have lagged. This may in part be because disinformation about mRNA technology has not only discouraged people from taking the most effective vaccines, but it has bled into distrust of vaccines in general. It may also reflect broader distrust of the government; China’s leaders lie to their people all the time, so why believe them when they say you should take your shots?

Finally, the zero-Covid strategy is extremely disruptive in the face of highly contagious variants like Omicron, especially given the weak protection provided by Chinese vaccines.

The thing is, all of these failures, like Putin’s failures in Ukraine, ultimately stem from the inherent weakness of autocratic government.

On zero Covid, would you want to be an economic official telling Xi that the cost of draconian lockdowns, a policy of which China was so proud, was becoming unsupportable?

And as I said, a government that lies all the time has trouble getting the public to listen even when it’s telling the truth.

Yet China, like Russia, is now giving us an object lesson in the usefulness of having an open society, where strongmen don’t get to invent their own reality.