[OneTimePetes]

Can we please give this China hard lockdown success story up?

There are no hard lock-downs in a face-dictatorship. There is a hard lockd-down show. Some doors are welded shut for tv-cameras. Covid Quotas are handed out to doctors and the rest becomes pneumonia.

Similar: Before the iron-curtain fell, sovjet propaganda claimed they were economically the more successful side. This did not hold up - at all.

State propaganda produces the illusion of working measures, while the normal citizen just bribes or work otherwise around the restrictions. What you see publicized by the state media to youtube or face-book is not real or reality.

Its a "strong" government fantasia, produced by the people who run it. There are no "free" opinions by mainland citizens on the web.

[brnt]

I wasn't clear. I meant to exclude China from the discussion for precisely the reason you mention.