> Well, lets not forget that this whole mess started in China.

Yes, China is a patently dysfunctional society. This is what I can say as person whose life and career depends on it, and who actually lived there.

I'd say the "good" performance of Chinese state looks like that only in comparison to catastrophically bad showing from Western nations.

20 year ago, I would've said that what China did after the monumental screw up at the start, would've been an expected level of response from an upstanding Western nation. Now, the West can not do the same what it could've done 20 years ago easily. That's the only message for that particular point.

Is Chinese society a healthy, functioning society? No, but at least critical parts are still coasting on inertia from the time China had half sane political leadership.

Is the West a healthy, functioning society? Some things there work, but the most important, critical parts are failing in broad daylight, and people don't damn care.

The response to this from the western world has indeed been disgraceful. China's was too. They managed to contain due to their authoritarian policies but the real examples of good responses from asian nations are SK, Japan, Singapore, Hong Kong, Taiwan. They've managed to contain it much better than anyone else without the need of massive government overreach.

This crisis was a very good slap to the face to Chinese establishment. It was very much needed for a long time.

I heard even most hardcore communists starting to question Xi's mandate to rule now, and how much such a weak leader is costing them.

What I heard myself was pretty much a question "What if it was a war?"

Were Xi to hide in a bunker when the military can't do anything without his explicit approval, they would've been screwed.