Today’s Chinese government is not entirely the same as the one run by Mao. But it’s not entirely different, either.
While everyone is justifiably focused on Iran, the world remains a dangerous place for the U.S. and its allies on many fronts. I find myself wanting to know more about China, and so on my Easter vacation, I picked up the “light reading” of Mao: The Unknown Story, by Jung Chang and Jon Halliday, published in 2005.
A passage on pages 553–554 made me think back to the Covid pandemic:
It was for the sake of this world ambition that Mao had embarked on his Superpower Program in 1953, insisting upon breakneck speed, and taking hair-raising risks in the nuclear field. The most scary of these came on October 27, 1966, when a missile armed with an atomic warhead was launched 800 kilometers (about 500 miles) across northwest China, over sizable towns — the only such test ever undertaken by any nation on earth, and with a missile known to be far from accurate, putting the lives of those in its flight path at risk. Three days beforehand, Mao told the man in charge to proceed, saying that he was prepared for the test to fail.
Almost all those involved in the test felt that a catastrophe was likely. The people in the launch control room expected to die. The commander of the target zone was so nervous that he moved his HQ to the top of a mountain, comforting himself and his colleagues with the argument that if the missile went off course, they might be able to shield themselves from the atomic blast by scrambling down the opposite side of the mountain.
As it happened, the test succeeded, an outcome that was attributed to Mao’s “Thought,” summed up in the slogan, “the spiritual atomic bomb detonating the material atomic bomb.” In fact, the success was a fluke. Subsequent tests of the missile failed, as it began gyrating wildly shortly after liftoff.
The whole missile program suffered from insuperable problems. The regime blamed sabotage, and scientists were put through hideous persecutions, including mock executions, to extract “confessions.” Many died violent deaths. In this climate, not surprisingly, Mao never possessed an intercontinental missile in his lifetime. The first successful launch of a Chinese ICBM took place only in 1980, years after his death.
Now, the Chinese government of 2019–2020 is not entirely the same as the Chinese government of 1966. But it’s not entirely different, either. It is still an autocratic regime that demands amazing breakthroughs on timetables and deadlines set by politicians, not scientists. It still prioritizes those breakthroughs well ahead of human life and well-being. Like almost any human organization, the leaders at the top don’t like hearing bad news, and the people under the leader are reluctant to report bad news. If a proposed plan isn’t likely to work, the bosses don’t want to hear it. These are problems of human nature, and are not limited to autocratic regimes, but the authoritarian nature of autocratic regimes worsens the prevalence and consequences of these problems.
And as we see in Chinese scientists’ pursuit of genetically edited babies, the use of artificial intelligence in biological weapons programs including marine toxins, giving AI control of military satellites for brief periods, and the occasional accidental sinking of a nuclear-powered attack submarine, this is still a regime that is willing to take jaw-dropping risks in order to get what it wants.
But back in April 2020, the likes of NPR science desk editor Geoff Brumfiel assured us that Chinese scientists were “super careful,” and thus the lab-leak theory had been “debunked.” It’s amazing what can be deemed unthinkable when you refuse to think about something.