Expelling journalists is no way to fight a pandemic

THE FLOW of information is essential to curbing a pandemic. Yet on March 17th China took a dramatic step towards throttling it. Xi Jinping’s government ordered American journalists for the , the and the to leave the country, in the biggest expulsion of Western correspondents from China since the Communist takeover in 1949. The world sorely needs objective reporting on the place with the longest experience of fighting covid-19. China, too, lacks objective reporting about the virus or any other sensitive topic. At times like this people need masks, not muzzles.The expulsion is part of an ongoing feud between America and China. For a moment in January it seemed as if tempers were cooling, when both sides wisely agreed to suspend their trade war. In recent weeks the temperature has reached boiling-point. In a stunning failure of diplomacy, American and Chinese officials have been trading insinuations, all but blaming each other for covid-19. A few Chinese diplomats and American lawmakers have shared preposterous conspiracy theories about the virus having been cooked up in biowarfare labs. Enough, already.