If their political and ideological character requires controlling narrative, then surely any single instance means nothing.
If I have an espresso every morning, the fact that I have one tomorrow morning means nothing. If I don't have one tomorrow, if I deviate from my usual behaviour, that might mean something significant. But following one's normal routine is just… normal.
The difference is that the ethical implications of you buying your espresso daily don't make you inherently less trustworthy.
The "routine" of burying evidence, silencing dissidents, and constant propaganda does absolutely reduce China's trustworthiness. To the point where we can and probably should always assume the worst of that regime.
What you said (and which I agree with) is that they always want to control the narrative. Not when they've done anything wrong, but always. I agree with that part — it's aregime that wants to control the narrative always, just so the populace won't get used to the existence of anything beyond control of the regime.
However, since the regime always wants to control the narrative, you cannot assume that wanting to control a particular narrative means anything more than "they're acting as usual". You can assume that the regime is untrustworthy in general, but you cannot assume anything particular about this instance.
Your argument is tantamount to "any control freak can and probably be assumed guilty of everything".
> However, since the regime always wants to control the narrative, you cannot assume that wanting to control a particular narrative means anything more than "they're acting as usual".
When dealing with a compulsive liar, you don't approach any situation with "This time maybe they aren't lying". They make up lies constantly about everything in order to obscure
when they are actually lying.
You're right that you cannot make assumptions about what the truth is in any particular instance, but in every instance it is reasonable to assume they are lying and then go about finding the truth.
And frankly I suspect that China lies all the time not just to obscure their real lies, but because they are actually engaged in shitty behavior all the time. It's not even a secret that they are currently involved in genocide. If that's not out of the question for them then I don't think anything is, including engineering a plague.
> I don't think anything is, including engineering a plague.
People seem to forget that China was claiming for a long while that the virus wasn't transmissible (I'm sure people will equivocate that they really claimed there was no evidence of transmission, but it's tantamount), only shortly after for all the videos to surface with people passing out in the streets and the police welding people in their houses, etc.
I read a timeline once, and from what I remember it was a considerable number of days. But not more days than I would expect from any big organisation. It takes time to push data and wording up and down an orgchart until all the necessary people have signed off.
I've waited longer for routine code reviews in supposedly agile teams.
If I have an espresso every morning, the fact that I have one tomorrow morning means nothing. If I don't have one tomorrow, if I deviate from my usual behaviour, that might mean something significant. But following one's normal routine is just… normal.