Commentary
Freedom-loving people all over the world are aghast at the strict lockdowns and other actions being taken by Australian states in a misguided effort to achieve “Zero COVID.”
Australian state governments are all in on “zero COVID-19,” mandating masks, social distancing, quarantines, contact tracing, and vaccine passports until around 75 percent of their citizens are fully vaccinated. The latest example of authoritarian control in the name of public health and safety is the state government of South Australia’s requirement to use a new quarantine app that uses geolocation and face recognition technology to enable the authorities to monitor and control the movements of individual citizens, as previously reported by The Epoch Times here.
“Zero COVID” is a policy aimed at totally eliminating the virus that causes COVID-19. This is a political policy, not one based on science, as no virus has ever been totally eradicated through human intervention. Viruses and the associated health risks can only be managed over time through prudent science-based actions. The world is relearning that fact after 20-plus months of policies that have failed to deliver on the many promises made by politicians and others. The total lockdowns associated with a fully-implemented “zero COVID” policy cannot be sustained in a democratic society over the long term without destroying national economies and people’s lives. People all over the world (for example, the United Kingdom, France, Germany, Canada, and the United States) are rebelling against their governments’ pursuit of “Zero COVID,” with the Australian truckers’ strike being but one prominent example that has been in the news.
The ChiComs (Chinese Communists) were the first to implement “Zero COVID” methods in early 2020 and claimed success in “eliminating” the virus in China. Their purported success has been unverified by outside observers, as no one knows the total number of virus-related deaths, and there has been a complete clampdown in reporting virus statistics over the past 18-plus months. For example, the virus-related death statistics for each country maintained by Worldometers shows a total of 4,636 deaths in China—a number virtually unchanged since March 2020. This fixed number has been used to “prove” that China’s “zero COVID” measures were effective in eradicating the virus and has fueled the relentless propagandizing by China’s state-run media recommending that other countries emulate Beijing’s “zero COVID” methods: total lockdowns, strict social distancing, masking in all circumstances, near-total restrictions on movement, and mass vaccinations.
A resident rides a motorbike across an empty track in Wuhan, Hubei Province, China on Feb. 7, 2020. Starting from Jan. 23, 2020, Wuhan was placed under strict lockdown for 76 days. Getty Images
But nothing has been forthcoming from the ChiComs about Vitamin D and other over-the-counter prophylaxis to bolster autoimmune systems, as well as nothing about proven therapeutic treatments like Ivermectin, hydroxychloroquine, and monoclonal antibodies. One would think that a complete set of “zero COVID” methods would include the widespread use of these therapeutics, but then that would conflict with the underlying purpose and intent of “zero COVID,” which is aimed at authoritarian control of health measures and individuals in the name of public safety and security.
Lockdowns, strict social distancing, masking, mass vaccinations, vaccine passports, and movement-monitoring apps are tactics for controlling and monitoring citizen behavior that can be mandated and monitored by centralized authoritarian governments and their police and surveillance apparatuses.
The use of therapeutic treatments for prevention and cure are democratic solutions with associated decisions for their use made by individuals and their doctors, not governments, in a decentralized society. In short, ChiCom-backed totalitarian “zero COVID” methods versus the basic rights and freedoms of individuals to choose their own methods of treatment.
“Zero COVID” is one manifestation of fangkong, a political methodology developed over the decades by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) to manage various crises. Fangkong stands for “prevent and control.” It was originally associated with “public security” in communist China, with emphasis on policing and political work aimed at maintaining internal social stability (a constant concern of the CCP): prevent uprisings and control citizens accordingly.
For the ChiCom virus scenario, fangkong was broadened to provide the ideological justification—always an imperative in communist China—for the draconian measures ostensibly aimed at safeguarding the Chinese public health and security. Surveillance, monitoring, and control processes were interlinked with public health measures for the common good to prevent and control the spread of the virus—as determined and controlled by the Chinese regime. The “pandemic” was made to order as a further justification to implement complete social controls over the Chinese people through an online social credit system, which has long been an objective of the CCP. The ChiComs have been moving quickly toward implementing surveillance and monitoring systems as a means to control their citizens by allowing only state-approved behavior based on a social credit system. Fear of the virus has made it psychologically easier to implement these measures in the interest of public health. Vaccination status has become one more parameter to be used by the authorities to mold the behavior of the citizenry by granting and denying access to businesses and public places. Prevent and control!
Software engineers work on a facial recognition program that identifies people when they wear a face mask at the development lab of the Chinese electronics manufacturer Hanwang (Hanvon) Technology in Beijing as the country is hit by an outbreak of COVID-19, China, March 6, 2020. Thomas Peter/Reuters
Chinese leader Xi Jinping has been lauding fangkong and China’s supposedly successful “zero COVID” results since the beginning of the virus breakout. “[Fangkong] was used by Xi Jinping and other senior leaders to describe China’s approach to COVID-19 as early as the CCP Politburo Standing Committee meeting on January 7, 2020 … [as well as at the] National People’s Congress in May 2020,” according to the report “Surveillance, Security, & Democracy in a Post-COVID World.”
While claiming “victory” in the fight against their own virus, the CCP is simultaneously attempting to export fangkong overseas as a kind of psychological preparation for future authoritarian control by Beijing. Authoritarian virus lockdowns in many countries around the world are good examples of adopting China’s fangkong methods and the conditioning of populations to accept government diktats that adversely affect the lives and well-being of individuals and businesses. That many countries around the world, including the United States, have adopted fangkong methods in attempting to deal with the virus also shows the effectiveness of ChiCom propaganda.
And nowhere is there a better example than Australia. In addition to South Australia state implementing the use of the Orwellian quarantine app, both houses of the central government also passed the Surveillance Legislation Amendment (Identify and Disrupt) Bill 2020, which provides sweeping new powers to police and law enforcement agencies, including “unfettered powers to hack into anyone’s device, collect or delete personal data on anyone’s device, take over one’s social media accounts and such other supplementary actions, all without a judge’s warrant.” So much for civil liberties, as there are no constitutional protections for freedom of speech and individual privacy rights in Australian law other than the weak Privacy Act of 1988 which the new Identify and Disrupt Bill eviscerates.
While the new Identify and Disrupt law wasn’t expressly directed at monitoring and enforcing virus-related infractions committed by Australians, it is inevitable that the same types of authoritarians responsible for mandating the quarantine app will almost certainly use the law to identify and track those who refuse to adhere to the virus-related mandates and travel restrictions. The app and the law are the very definition of implementing fangkong—prevent and control—which is being given a test run in Australia and watched carefully by authoritarians everywhere—just as the ChiComs planned. These and other fangkong methods are coming soon to a country near you unless vigorously fought by freedom-loving citizens.
Views expressed in this article are opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times.
