China’s COVID-19 narrative has been offset by the exemplary performance of Taiwan, which has employed neither an authoritarian system nor draconian controls, something that makes Beijing unhappy. Taiwan, despite having few diplomatic allies and no WHO membership because of the Chinese government, is doing better than its powerful rival across the Taiwan Strait.
China finds it difficult to digest that the neighboring democracy, which Beijing often sneers at and harasses, has outperformed it in the face of this challenge.
