Smoke And Mirrors

by Pallavi Aiyar

But the idea that a mysterious disease could be out there, infecting thousands and killing hundreds while a quiescent media were muzzled from reporting on it by a government desperate to avoid bad news even at the expense of putting the lives of its citizens at risk seemed implausible.

The legitimacy of democracy in many ways absolved Indian governments from the necessity of performing. The CCP could afford no such luxury. As a result the Chinese government was more responsive to the socio-economic problems confronting it than it was often given credit for, bringing us back to another of the questions frequently posed to me: where was China headed in the new century?