Amnesia nation: Why China has forgotten its coronavirus outbreak

China is a country of bad memories

How quickly can a whole nation forget about a catastrophe?
 
In Chan Koonchung’s 2009 dystopian novel  The Fat Years, China endures a huge, fictional crisis. Two years later, nobody seems to remember it. In reality, Chan realised, it took less than two months for many people in China to leave behind their anger and despair over the coronavirus crisis and the government’s bungled response. Today, they believe China triumphed over the outbreak.
 
“It’s like nothing had happened,” Chan said in an interview. “I’m dumbfounded. How could they make a U-turn so fast?”
 
Chan wrote The Fat Years