China's Propaganda Machine in Overdrive

Medical staff in full suits looking after coronavirus patients in Wuhan

The Chinese government is anxious to show it is doing everything to battle the coronavirus, which means all hands on deck in the propaganda department.

There are video clips of mostly men who are seen dashing into police stations or government offices and dropping off boxes of masks or lots of cash and then running away.

It's meant to show people's selflessness, that they are willing to give away their life savings to the authorities to fight the coronavirus. If they ran away, how would they know all these details? Or maybe these people just robbed a bank beforehand?



The first video seemed shocking but sweet, but now there are about 41 different video clips which makes them even more staged. Why would so many people run into a police station or government office, dump bricks of cash on the counter and then run off again? It boggles the mind.

Then today CCTV has a clip of apparently two nurses decked out in full hazmat gear complete with plastic shields and blue suits yellow shoe covers in a coordinated dance outside of the hospital. Apparently they were trying to make light of the situation and enjoying a fun moment.



Really? From the clips I've seen of nurses having mental breakdowns, them dancing like children is completely off the wall and ridiculous. It's so obvious this clip was begging for sympathy.

But then there are uncomfortable video clips of more than a dozen nurses in Gansu province having their heads shaved, calling them "the most beautiful warriors!" in a bid to show their devotion to fighting the coronavirus. These women are crying, which seems to indicate they were coerced into doing this. Why didn't the men go bald too?



And there are horrific stories of nurses being forced to take birth control pills so they wouldn't menstruate (as going to the bathroom would be too much trouble), and they were chastised for asking for sanitary pads and tampons, saying they "lacked the spirit of devotion".

While the propaganda army was hoping these clips of the nurses would make the public sympathize with them, it actually enraged people that the women were being treated this way and vented their wrath online.

Young people in particular have had enough of the propaganda machine, as they can access a lot of information and clips via WeChat or going over the Great Firewall to see what people outside of China are saying about the coronavirus in their own country.

People are still very angry about Dr Li's Wenliang's death

They were particularly angry following the death of Dr Li Wenliang, who tried to warn his former classmates about the coronavirus, and were angry that the police accused him of spreading rumours.

"In the past month, many young people have been reading a lot of firsthand information and in-depth media reports about the epidemic on the internet," says Stephanie Xia, a 26-year-old in Shanghai in The New York Times. She says they are angry and confused about what they learned.

"There's some gap between what the young people are really like and what the government believes what they're like," Xia adds.

For young people today, this coronavirus and how they experienced it is much like other seminal events, like the Wenchuan earthquake in 2008, the Wenzhou train crash in 2011, the downfall of Bo Xilai in 2013.

How China's next generation is influenced by how they went through this year's coronavirus crisis will forever shape their perceptions of the Communist Party of China and their trust in the government.

One gets the feeling it's not going to be very solid...