It feels like we have to say this a lot: it is quite likely that China has *manipulated* its coronavirus numbers, and possibly significantly downplayed deaths. But it is almost impossible that they are lying about the overall successful repression of the virus.

We know this for two reasons: even China's highly censored social media can't entirely prevent - as we saw - people putting up images of hospitals, reports of dead, etc. We've seen nothing on that scale.

Secondly, while China is acting with extreme caution about preventing reinfection, the relative degree of reopening and lifting of restrictions would not be done - especially in Beijing - by a government that *in itself* made up of older men highly vulnerable to the virus.

It's quite likely that some smaller outbreaks are being covered up (while being suppressed) by local officials who fear punishment for allowing them to occur in the first place. The leadership seems to be aware of that dynamic. It's possible one of those might get out of hand.

But we've seen in democratic countries like South Korea and Taiwan that this success is possible.

China took extreme measures - too late to stop global disaster after its own cover-up, mind you - and has powerful tools of repression and control to turn to this end. There's little to no reason to think the success is false at this point.