OREANDA-NEWS. Time magazine wrote that the crisis caused by the spread of the new coronavirus infection revealed the fragility of Chinese society and the country’s governance system, which can be explained by excessive centralization of political power.

“The question now is what it will endure before it begins to crack,” Charlie Campbell wrote in an article entitled The Coronavirus Outbreak Could Derail Xi Jinping’s Dreams of a Chinese Century. The publication notes that the power of Chinese President Xi Jinping now surpasses the power of any other leader of the country since the time of Mao Zedong, and he is ready to do anything to “make China great again” on the basis of fidelity to the people of his party. However, Campbell emphasizes that the coronavirus epidemic showed the vulnerability of the system, since the fight against the disease requires not only the ability to build new hospitals in a few days, but also trust and flexibility of the governance system. “If you believe China’s official figures, 2019-nCoV has a fatality rate of just 2 %… Why then… has China placed entire cities in lockdown, quarantined tens of millions and mobilized troops?” the author asks.