Case
Covid Heroic Narratives: Reordering Suffering, Sacrifice, and Responsibility
Heroic narratives can record real labor while moving institutional failure out of public debate.
Contents
On September 8, 2020, the Great Hall of the People hosted a national conference honoring the fight against COVID-19. Zhong Nanshan received the Medal of the Republic. Zhang Boli, Zhang Dingyu, and Chen Wei received national titles of People's Hero. The event also honored individuals, groups, and basic Party organizations. A hall slogan demanded unity around the Party center with Xi Jinping at its core, and Xi's speech credited CCP leadership and China's system for the result. [2]
The honorees and countless medical workers, neighborhood staff, volunteers, and residents performed real labor. Some were infected, disabled, or killed. The CCP used that undeniable sacrifice to edit a public-health disaster marked by suppression, disorder, and grief into a history of regime victory. Heroes occupied the stage, and people asking about responsibility were removed from the frame.
The ceremony rearranged the epidemic timeline
A complete memory would begin with early cases, medical warnings, information release, hospital supplies, lockdown decisions, patient appeals, and family loss. The commendation narrative began with central deployment, national mobilization, and eventual control. Changing the beginning changed the allocation of responsibility.
Early delays, reprimands, and opacity became difficulties already overcome. Fear in Wuhan, people unable to obtain care, households trapped at home, and families losing relatives were folded into collective sacrifice. The consequences of government decisions receded behind stories of public obedience and dedication.
The narrative reverses cause and credit. Costs borne by citizens prove systemic superiority, while bureaucratic failure disappears beneath collective courage. The CCP acts as the power subject to accountability and the sole judge permitted to award and interpret suffering.
Genuine heroism supplies credibility to the regime
Experts such as Zhong and the medical and grassroots workers earned public respect through professional contribution. The CCP concentrated that respect in a state ceremony and converted gratitude toward individuals into gratitude toward the Party. Camera placement, titles, medals, and speeches tied the people who saved lives to the institution claiming leadership over everything.
The Constitution of the Communist Party of China[1] assigns basic Party organizations responsibility for implementing and publicizing Party policy across government, hospitals, schools, media, and neighborhoods. That organizational network could mobilize personnel and supplies rapidly during the outbreak. It could also unify messaging, suppress bad news, and punish disobedience. Propaganda displayed mobilization capacity and barred the public from placing abuse of power on the same ledger.
Hero stories also create a model of obligatory virtue. Medical staff must advance, residents must endure, Party members must charge forward, and families must understand. Risk created by policy becomes a personal mission. A worker demanding protection, a resident questioning lockdown, or a citizen requesting information can be labeled selfish, disruptive, or indifferent to the larger interest.
Recorders of failure were excluded from honor
During the same period, citizen journalist Zhang Zhan traveled to Wuhan to film hospitals, streets, and residents. Authorities detained her and sentenced her in December 2020 to four years for picking quarrels and provoking trouble. [3] Her record disrupted the victory story. The state answered her with a court and prison, instruments very different from the medals and stage reserved for official heroes.
The two treatments form one system of memory management. People who serve the narrative receive visibility, honor, and a place in teaching. People who preserve uncontrolled facts lose liberty, accounts, and public identity. The CCP is doing more than praising heroes. It determines who may exist as a subject of history.
The China Media Project's dictionary of Party-state language documents political terms such as positive energy and the main melody that organize public expression. China Media Project CCP dictionary[5] Pandemic hero stories use the same structure. They emphasize devotion, unity, and leadership while reducing conflict, rights, and responsibility. Audiences are guided toward tears and gratitude instead of questions about suppressed warnings, concealed risk, and accountability for bad decisions.
Patriotic education fixes the official version
The 2023 Patriotic Education Law requires continuing patriotic education in schools, state bodies, companies, publishing, broadcasting, film, and online platforms and includes CCP history and achievements. Patriotic Education Law of the People's Republic of China[4]
Pandemic stories can therefore move from news into textbooks, exhibitions, films, and commemorations. Students learn the great spirit of fighting COVID and the example of vanguard Party members. Early information control and victims' demands lack an equally protected channel of preservation. The state controls curricula, archives, and memorial resources and chooses where the next generation enters the history.
This memory project protects CCP legitimacy. If society remembers Party leadership defeating a disaster, obedience appears lifesaving. If society also remembers reprimanded warnings, blocked information, and coercive harm, unlimited Party power becomes a source of danger. The regime needs the first account to occupy education and media.
Suffering belongs in an account of responsibility
Honoring heroes cannot answer public responsibility. Records that must remain available include initial case reporting, treatment of warnings, government meetings, testing policy, hospital supplies, mortality data, collateral damage during lockdown, media instructions, deletions, and action against whistleblowers and reporters. Each should be open to independent investigation and public dispute.
Love of country does not require erasing government failure. Respect for medical workers and residents requires explaining why they lacked protection, why personal sacrifice had to fill institutional gaps, and how recurrence will be prevented. The CCP refuses this discussion because institutional improvement makes power answerable. Hero propaganda asks only that the public remain moved.
The danger of the heroic narrative lies in using genuine virtue to protect genuine failure. Medals belong to people who contributed. Authority to interpret suffering belongs to victims and the public. The CCP absorbed both into a state ceremony, making the people's sacrifice prove the Party's greatness and allowing Party mistakes to disappear inside that sacrifice.
Sources
Constitution of the Communist Party of Chinaprimary-recordLive
National Conference Honoring the Fight Against COVID-19primary-recordUnchecked
COVID-19 Journalist Zhang Zhan Sentenced to Four Yearsrights-reportUnchecked
Patriotic Education Law of the People's Republic of ChinaUnchecked
China Media Project CCP dictionaryUnchecked