Based on Akio Yaita’s “China Sketches” column in the Sankei Shimbun in February 2020, this article examines how the Chinese Communist Party claimed that COVID-19 was “coming under control” while forcing migrant workers back to coastal factories. Prison outbreaks, the postponement of the National People’s Congress, and the self-preservation of Xi Jinping’s leadership expose the lie of China’s state media.

February 26, 2020
It is difficult to imagine that inmates in several prisons far apart from one another became infected at the same time, and it is said that there is a strong possibility that the number of infected people had grown too large to conceal, and that the authorities finally announced it.
The following is from Akio Yaita’s serial column, China Sketches, published in today’s Sankei Shimbun under the title, The Lie of State Media’s “Coronavirus Control.”
Akio Yaita is one of the finest reporters of our time and, together with his background, one of the world’s leading experts on China.
Shortly after 9 a.m. on February 23, a special train departed from Guiyang, the capital of Guizhou Province in southwestern China, bound for Wenzhou in Zhejiang Province on the southeastern coast.
A total of 853 migrant workers from Guizhou Province, all wearing masks, boarded the train.
Tickets that would normally cost just under 700 yuan, about 11,000 yen, were free, but movement inside the train was restricted, and playing cards or other games among companions was also prohibited.
In addition, medical staff were required to take their temperature when they boarded and when they got off.
This was said to be in order to prevent infection with the novel coronavirus.
From mid- to late February, many airplanes and large buses carrying only migrant workers, just like this train, departed from various places.
It is said that, by then, at least several million people had been transported from inland areas to coastal areas.
In China, the Lunar New Year, or Spring Festival, arrived on January 25.
Migrant workers who had returned to their hometowns should normally have returned to the factories in early February, but Chinese media reported that, because of the spread of the novel coronavirus in various areas, many of them did not return, and many factories could not resume production.
In recent years, China’s manufacturing industry has already suffered a major blow from the U.S.-China trade war, and it is said to be inevitable that, if the suspension of production caused by the coronavirus continues, small and medium-sized enterprises will go bankrupt one after another.
Furthermore, foreign-affiliated companies that have entered China may take this opportunity to flee overseas.
Xi Jinping’s leadership, eager to maintain economic growth somehow for the sake of regime stability, became impatient and began a “campaign calling for the resumption of production” in mid-February.
Using state media, it propagated claims such as “the coronavirus is already being brought under control” and “the spread of infection is improving,” and it also introduced support measures such as subsidies for transportation costs in order to return migrant workers to factories.
It is said that among local leaders pressured by the central government, some threatened reluctant workers by saying they would “detain” them, and half-forcibly put them on trains.
Since mid-February, the number of new infections announced daily by the Chinese government has been gradually declining, and the number of provinces and cities with “zero new infections” has been increasing.
While infections are spreading overseas in Japan, South Korea, Italy, and elsewhere, many voices are questioning whether the figures are false, because infection appears to be suppressed in various parts of China.
For example, on the 21st, China’s Ministry of Justice announced that a total of 505 inmates and others had been infected in four prisons in Shandong, Zhejiang, and Hubei Provinces.
It is difficult to imagine that inmates in several prisons far apart from one another became infected at the same time, and it is said that there is a strong possibility that the number of infected people had grown too large to conceal, and that the authorities finally announced it.
Similarly, it is said that there are many infected people being concealed throughout the country.
On the 24th, the day after the special train carrying migrant workers from Guizhou Province departed, it was announced that this spring’s National People’s Congress, equivalent to a parliament, which Xi Jinping and other leaders were scheduled to attend, would be postponed.
The reason seems to be that having about 3,000 representatives gather in one place to hold meetings carries “a high risk of infection.”
Communist Party leaders disregard the safety of migrant workers, but value their own physical safety above all else.
This appears to have confirmed that the state media propaganda claiming that “the coronavirus is already being brought under control” is a lie.
(Deputy Foreign News Editor)