Only when we ensure the free flow of information in a democracy can we construct a healthy society.

From The Coronavirus Outbreak: How Democratic Taiwan Outperformed Authoritarian China by Victor (Lin) Pu.

Armed with transparent and sufficient information on the coronavirus epidemic, Taiwanese people actively follow the government’s policies and take actions to curb the spread of virus individually by washing hands and wearing masks. Therefore, even though the self-ruled island is very close to China, the number of infection cases in Taiwan is still low (32 cases, as of February 26) compared to neighboring countries like South Korea (1,261 cases) and Japan (885 cases). Even though the community spread of the virus in Taiwan is looming and seems inevitable, the Taiwanese government and people have shown that they are determined to work together to fight against COVID-19.

However, these contrasting situations between China and Taiwan have not only resulted from their different governance methods. Most importantly, the disparity is because of the totally contrary political logic found in a democracy versus an authoritarian state.

To authoritarian ruler, the first and primary goal of governance is maintaining regime stability and survival to ensure their predominance. When social protest or rebellion happens, the common reaction is to surveil and suppress the dissidents. However, when it comes to natural disasters like earthquakes or floods, the authoritarian government also provides disaster relief, similar to a democratic government. Autocratic leaders can rapidly mobilize national resources into disaster relief works, as seen in the Chinese government’s immediate response to the 2008 Sichuan earthquake, with massive medical teams and troops gathered within one day. But this type of mobilization might not work for curbing an epidemic.

The critical factors for tracking and controlling the spread of a virus are time and information. To collect information about the infectious patients’ location and their TOCC (travel, occupation, contact, and cluster) requires rapid reports from individuals, hospitals, and local governments to the central command center. This helps the government control the epidemic and take responsive policies as quickly as possible. In other words, controlling the spread of a virus requires the free flow of information and public information sharing, which runs contrary to an authoritarian regime’s specialty of resource mobilization. Instead, what happens in authoritarian countries tends to follow this pattern: the local government hides the truth from the central government to avoid blame, and the central government also lies to its people to deflect public criticism at the beginning of an outbreak. As a result, measures to control the disease are delayed and eventually in vain.

Some might argue that China, as the digital authoritarian powerhouse, has the cutting-edge AI technology and surveillance system to track all its people, not to mention infectious patients. Indeed, these high-tech tools are used to monitor and surveil people in the cities under lockdown. But that does not translate to public knowledge. As the number of infectious cases climbs, China’s government ramped up propaganda, covering pro-government and pro-Chinese Communist Party stories, rather than communicating with the public. Due to the lack of transparency and accountability, the authoritarian regime’s propaganda and regulatory departments tend to take actions to censor and control information. And the results prove that this is definitely not the best public health strategy.

To counter and control a viral epidemic, both government and civil society need sufficient information. The characteristics of a democratic society are openness and transparency, which promise the public access to information. On the other hand, a democratic government also has to take responsibility for communicating with people because leaders are accountable to the public. Only when we ensure the free flow of information in a democracy can we construct a healthy society. Besides its strong public health infrastructure, Taiwan proves that the democratic strategy is successful in curbing the spread of the new coronavirus – which is why Taiwan is outperforming its authoritarian neighbor, China.