The coronavirus revealed China as a country struggling in the grip of one-party control, at once fearful and defiant, ambitious and proud of its rise in the world but also seething with popular resentment at the political calculations that valued the party’s image over human life. The reluctance to disclose the scope of the outbreak and to share the science that was necessary to stop its spread displayed an indifference to life that is the enduring legacy of Maoism.
