Heaven is Withdrawing its Mandate

In the USA vs China confrontation, I am with the USA, but I feel sad for the suffering of the Chinese people (pictogram left). Now it is Hubei as the quarantine has been extended from Wuhan to the entire province.

The population is impatient and angry. The disease is a natural disaster, but in China the legitimacy of the rulers is function of the mandate of Heaven, expressed through good harvests. If the ruler follows the right rituals, Heaven favors him. Natural disasters are caused by the ruler's impiety.

Fuelling the anger was the publication of a new paper in The New England Journal of Medicine by a team of researchers affiliated with the Chinese Centres for Disease Control and Prevention and the Hubei Provincial Centres for Disease Control and Prevention. Drawing on data from the first 425 confirmed cases in Wuhan, the paper states that "there is evidence that human-to-human transmission has occurred among close contacts since the middle of December 2019".

Chinese people online were incensed, asking why the government had waited until Jan 20 to inform the public that the virus was capable of being transmitted from human to human. "I'm about to explode, I need an explanation!!!!" Professor Wang Liming of Zhejiang University wrote in a widely shared social media post that was quickly deleted.

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P.S.: The epidemy is becoming a red hot sensitive issue on the internet. I do not want to be part of it and shall stop commenting on it. For now.