Hoover institution stanford is one of the preeminent Research Centers the nation has been dedicated to policy ideas Economic Prosperity and democratic governance to have a Significant Impact but the Public Policy initiatives here and around the world taking steps to lead us out of this crisis to find value in these discussions as well as look forward to have those effects the coronavirus has had. As a reminder we will take audience questions and encourage you to submit yours using the button at the bottom of the screen. Married im a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution advising usaid world bank un and state department and other governmental and nongovernmental agencies and development chinas influence in americas interest and saving democracy thank you for joining us today. Its a pleasure to be with you and the audience. Youre an expert on china and Democratic Institutions around the world. Several Leaders Within the Chinese Communist party have claimed their government has performed well relative to democracies to control the spread of the virus within china and provide aid in critical supplies to other nations has that been a boon to those authoritarian regimes and their reputation of social problems . Thank you. I dont consider myself an expert on china but i have been trying to understand what it has been doing for inappropriate power around the world to repress the population at home. I dont thank you need to be an expert to know the claims they are making is false and the challenges they are posing to democracy have a lot of holes in them. So lets begin with how this virus started we know it began in wuhan and it went from being and early crisis that needed radical containment to become a Global Pandemic because china was not transparent with its own society about what was happening and those who were trying to ring the alarm bell of the inception of the virus could be very dangerous to human life they were punished and suppressed in one of these chinese doctors lost his life. Many of them fighting the epidemic that more globally you think its important to recognize first of all that we dont know what the death rate in china is because we cannot believe any of the statistics they produce they are all manipulated and second we do know that death rates are in democracies because they are transparent of the data and information. That shows a very wide variation of democracies and how they manage the crisis. In spain you have had over 500 people for a 1 million population dying for the virus over 400 in italy and 300 in britain and 200 in the us. But some have had very little impact on human life. Israel has only 25 deaths per 1 million, south korea five per 1 million and the taiwan under one per 1 million. Its been the greatest Success Story of any country in the world to manage the virus. So democracy is very alive and thats not just to take the chinese propaganda on its face but rather look and see why some democracies have been doing better than others. I want to explain why it explains that variation. What about chinas claims to provide critical aid and supplies for nations around the world . They are sending facemasks and ppe but nothing at the level that they promised of that propaganda initiative but in some cases people open the boxes and they find what is the case of the belgian Road Initiative that what they delivered is a lot less than what they promised. Some of the materials were cheated they felt. Host going back to talk about the across country variation and the democracies of success in the pandemic. I would imagine there are some then also focus on the differences of governance and how that will affect the ability to combat the virus. And we will have a deep dive from land the for institution will host at 9 00 a. M. Pacific and to have a policy discussion of the taiwan experience to manage covid19 the Vice President of taiwan will be a guest and the secretary of state of science and Technology Advisor speaking along with several other panelist what you learn from the time israel for these other countries like germany and scandinavia that Early Warning made a big difference and the countries responded very rapidly and vigorously with Public Health measures and education measures to get ahead of the virus and often contain that to identify isolate and Contact Tracing screening at the airport and someone and to make a big difference as well taiwan was doing testing of people in terms of temperature and movement and korea manufactured quite a lot if i will test they apply very early taiwan korea and israel using big data to track the pattern of the virus so the democracies that have had success that strong Public Health systems that the population tend to be healthier with a long Life Expectancy and lower levels of chronic diseases. And look at industrial democracies to flit wind of Public Health which is obesity how much is 36 percent over twice the level of 50 percent higher than many that they could acquire and widely distribute facemasks, Hand Sanitizer and push the Public Health experts out there in front to be to coordinate a response and then when they started from the beginning with higher levels of public trust and confidence and cooperation and other democracies. I know you are an expert of governance around the world and in particular studied the emergence over contraction and actually that why is this pandemic doing with the constant struggle between the authoritative regimes around the world . It is deepening and accelerating the democratic recession in alarming ways. And with the authoritarian regimes seizing on the public emergency crisis to become even more comprehensively and persistently authoritarian we saw Vladimir Putin was to be expected he would do this. Hes the crisis for term limits to stay in power through his eighties are beyond. Hungary already crossed the line to authoritarianism and then to decree power to suspend parliament and the Prime Minister can now rule by decree countries were banning newspapers and even in india using the emergency to prosecute intellectuals including the brother of one of the esteemed fellows and his brother who edits to the online newspaper is prosecuted for reporting the truth in a critical fashion. Ill liberal democracy and authoritarian seizing on the crisis and that is the challenge to him coming from liberal democracies and then to implement to track the surveillance axon mobile phones. Sachar listening to a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution talking about the effects of covid19 on democracies and authoritarian regimes. A big part of this strategy a lot of countries are using is what we might to be invasive surveillance of the location and the only one so that makes it seem accessible for the Health Challenge but you thought about wise that . Yes. And those that were it with a Different Society its an important problem and from the standpoint of human liberty. But the problem in part is that they have who has it been in contact with . Then you can alert those people. It does is automate and speed up the contact tracer. On the other hand governments can use them to monitor for other reasons and what happens when we surrender our privacy our freedom from state surveillance and that we dont get that back after the crisis we cannot trust governments even very literate liberal governments to surrender these tools after the crisis is over first of all we should have a debate to what extent they want to surrender their freedom even now but in particular after the crisis and said while it is going on we meet independent review boards religious and ethical leaders to monitor what the government is doing and the claims the government is making to get authoritative information from the mobile Home Companies how they are using these to have a full and frank discussion how much freedom we want to surrender and when that should be terminated and returned to the people. Those three marxists to manage south korea and taiwan, taiwan, how long since you navigated the Civil Liberties and this is a matter of debate and korea but at the moment you have strong support and in israel, it is a very independentminded society. And people are concerned that the methods used by Israeli Intelligence organization to track terrorist are now being used to track the virus. So this is ongoing. I think they had such enormous success in containing the virus very early on. And reducing the infection rate pretty close at zero. Its easy to do as an island state that it still required for strong Public Health coordination and vigilance and early action. So the compromise of individual freedom of that temporary emergency has not been such an imposition on people. I know how much you know specifically of those apps or technologies but i had a couple of questions that were interesting that these apps for technologies were built with the selfdestruct system so they would automatically expire have you heard that discuss to balance the civil liberty that the google app around Contact Tracing. I know how they do it but i know that they do it. And wine way to ensure greater privacy is to use and then with those connections to identify who you are in contact with rather than the more centralized cell phone system so limiting the exposure in terms the freedom to rely on the neighborhoods immediate geographic connection of bluetooth. With respect to the selfdestruction i love that and definitely all legal and technological steps to woodcliff celebrity has to have some said clauses and then with the independent review board having the authority to order and those that like to implement the selfdestruction button when the crisis has passed. I went to come back to those challenges that was imposed on democracies and what they are doing to authoritarian regimes. James asked the following question when it due to that totalitarian regime and have that inherent advantage with those economic structures if that exist how do those structures neutralize or mitigate that advantage and those impacts on those authoritarian regimes have there b without costing human freedom. Korea taiwan singapore and so one that have had more success do have the 2003 experience from the sars epidemic and they learned from that. Had the need for the measures that i spoke of. But the claim of the Intrinsic Value does not wash. What was going on in places like cuba . It is very hard to know. With respect to covid19 in countries like cuba we dont have an honest reporting of information and because venezuela but then to know who is dying from what i look at these infection rates and there are actual websites to get that data to inform my earlier points. It is intriguing that countries in the equatorial region that cuba and venezuela are those border countries more in the hot and humid climates and the global south have not yet been hit with anything like the level of epidemic of the europe and us have been. But i will say that iran has been hit pretty hard by this. Again because who would believe the v. A. Radiance date authorities there is. Kids in north korea . Yes. Subnet on. Amazing. I want to get back to democracy to talk about the pandemic threatening those pillars. What kind of pressures are pressed on the media and the important part of democracy. And for the effective and vigorous and one that we will have print media and television and radio on of media and to have those orientations but pluralism is quote one crucial. We dont want and when hungry has passed they so who was during the pandemic . To the one is supposed to determine what is false reporting and inconvenient facts. And again i will say and thats an important friend of the United States and the relationship and thats the president s trip there was a positive but then to give a completely free fat paths while he intimidates critics but its a very dangerous potential trend that could develop in india. One more question about media. Wine of the responsible acts of the media in these circumstances is to moderate the dissemination of scientific enumeration with the policies to mitigate. Are free societies better able to mention that are how do you balance the need for and then to have a discussion about what is going on it or the other direction like the new york times. It so what is in the realm of scientific possibility . We didnt know about some of the drugs but the media reporting and to properly identify it is speculative at best. County hear some antiviral drug side effects and reporting the range that we might have a vaccine to dampen public expectations to allow for the real prospect of a hopeful and early breakthrough. Any reporting inconvenient to cast them in the bad light is suppressed and when you start suppressing reporting you handicap the ability to fight the virus on china you take for granted this is the way they operate and the world pays the price germany will not wind up suing china for damages but in a certain moral respect the whole world has a right to do so. Whether the virus emanated from the on wet market or escaped from a institute of virology lab either way the incompetence and suppression of the truth from the beginning contributes to the spread i will just say this because it is so important as a Success Story of the democracies like taiwan and korea and israel transparency transparency transparency. Truthful and authoritative recording of what is happening and intelligent responsible interpretation they can question if they want that moderation by the media has been very crucial to battle the virus. That brings us to social media is more like the wild west. And here i have some hope that facebook but moving soon to the creation of the independent review board for editorial decisions. That could help to moderate the content. So well be censoring actual information versus legitimate editorial activities. The brain says to the independent review board, that facebook decides to take down a post so we will take him down. I look forward to the question isnt that dangerous . The value of where we are headed now with facebooks voluntary decision to create an independent review board is that for the Facebook User if they have the material taken down could file and appeal to the new independent appeals board and then they would assess that for a noncorporate body of individuals to weigh the evidence and make a decision. Another pillar of democracies i was in the pandemic has with the physical ability and widely subscribed those in elections i have a question is there any best practices during the Public Health emergency . The clear best and then to rapidly develop for state and local Election Administrators to make it more broadly available to the public. Think about it logically. And containing the virus in the next couple months, if we are likely to have a resurgence in the fall this year as we did during the great influenza of the fall of 1918, a lot of people will be afraid to go outside their homes. We will be sure pull workers like we were in wisconsin or milwaukee with a reduce the number of polling to the nfp stamped envelope for free postage and have the mailman pick it up or put it in the po box it will be a lot safer. A lot safer. So a lot of people are going to want to do that but a minimum its very important that we give the states and localities the assistance they want and need to have this up as an option for the voters if they want five states now will vote purely by mail in november of this year three, colorado oregon and washington have been joined by two brothers hawaii and utah. Utah is an interesting case steve red that county by county has been phasing in universal vote by mail. The voters have liked it worked out well they decided to adopt it at the state level and are Political Science colleagues evaluated for the current moment there is no partisan impact at all. And has nothing to do with the turnout republicans versus republicans and democrats are balance between the two parties it seems to be partisan neutral we can all get behind it to improve our safety and security and legitimacy of the election by having more comprehensive mail. How do you know the person that checks the ballot is making the vote so how do you protect against noncitizens voting by mail . They will not get a mail ballot so i dont think anyone has raised that. That greater concern is very subtle there could be households dismissed this where you have that authoritarian figure in the house and a traditional father other strongwilled individual i will tell you how you will vote give me a valid. But you way the downside of every other option its pretty low risk to people feeling they cant vote are exposing themselves to a greater danger and those that voted at least in wisconsin came down with covid19 and the april primary. Why dont we just vote electronically by the internet . I think there will be growing support for internet voting senator kerry offered the oped in favor of that but the technology simply is not they are to ensure against fraud and subversion it is too easy to hack so we have a very clear stand and its in two parts dont ever hold a vote of consequence that cannot be audited or be counted by a paper trail of course internet voting cannot do that you have to sacrifice the secrecy of the ballot
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