The lesson for Autocracy, Inc., was ominous: even in a state where surveillance seems total, the experience of tyranny and injustice can always radicalize people. Anger at arbitrary power will always lead someone to start thinking about some other system, some better way to run society. The strength of these demonstrations and the broader anger they reflected were enough to spook the Chinese authorities into lifting the quarantines and allowing the virus to spread. The deaths that resulted were preferable to public anger and protest.
