There is a tendency in the West to suggest that China’s draconian measures were a familiar part of the CCP’s repertoire. But that both mistakes Chinese realities and underestimates Beijing’s boldness. The lockdown ordered in Wuhan had no precedent in recent Chinese history. In 2003, 4,000 Beijing residents who had been exposed to SARS had been kept in isolation and 300 college students were detained in a military camp for two weeks.12 That was nothing like the closure of an entire city of 11 million people, let alone a province or a country.13
