Commentary: Slander against China's anti-pandemic approach exposes West's arrogance, bias

BEIJING, Jan. 20 (Xinhua) -- The Western media's smear campaigns against China's approach of clearing COVID-19 infections in a timely manner have only exposed their arrogance and bias.

In a recent article, the Frankfurter Rundschau, a German newspaper, claimed that China's epidemiological success has actually only increased fear of the virus.

As COVID-19 infections and deaths are skyrocketing in most Western countries, such remarks are undoubtedly inopportune and preposterous.

In fact, China has proved the feasibility of its anti-pandemic approach with its own success in coordinating disease control efforts with economic and social development. The country's swift control of the virus has been a source of its people's sense of safety.

The virus has so far infected more than 330 million people and taken about 5 million lives globally.

After the outbreak of the pandemic, China immediately mobilized its national resources to save lives and make people's daily lives return to normal as soon as possible. To safeguard its hard-won results, China has adopted the approach of quenching any COVID-19 flare-up before it grows into another large-scale spread.

In sharp contrast to the Western media's slander, China's approach has enjoyed strong, widespread support from the Chinese people, who have actively taken part in volunteer activities against the virus and strictly abided by preventive measures.

"Achieving China's exceptional coverage with and adherence to these containment measures has only been possible due to the deep commitment of the Chinese people to collective action in the face of this common threat. At a community level this is reflected in the remarkable solidarity of provinces and cities in support of the most vulnerable populations and communities," said a report released in 2020 by the China-World Health Organization joint mission on COVID-19.

With the approach of timely eliminating COVID-19 infections, China, home to more than 1.4 billion people, has scored maximum prevention achievements with minimal costs, avoiding an unaffordable burden on the medical system and minimizing the impact of the pandemic on the economy.

If China were to follow the model of those Western countries, it would be reporting "hundreds of thousands" of daily new cases "even in a highly underestimated outbreak scenario and under the most optimistic assumptions," according to an article published in China CDC Weekly, the official platform of the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention for international academic exchanges on public health.

Meanwhile, by putting people first, China has also been improving its anti-pandemic approach in accordance with diverse domestic conditions and the changing circumstances in the world.

However, the Western media have turned a blind eye to all the facts. When reporting China, they seem to be inflicted by "cognitive disorder," allowing their imagination to override the truth.

Such "cognitive disorder" results from the arrogance of those Western media, which have boasted the political systems and governance models in Western countries as superior to those in other countries, as well as from their entrenched bias towards others.

For a world where solidarity is much needed amid the still-ravaging pandemic, it is time the Western media do some soul-searching to make real contributions to the global pandemic fight.