In December of 2019, the first cases of COVID-19 were diagnosed in Wuhan, the capital of Hubei Province, and rapidly expanded. For two weeks, the existence of a novel rapidly expanding virus was known to President Xi. Unconscionably, China arrested, jailed, and punished physicians and journalists who defied government attempts to silence the truth of the virus. Moreover, the government ceased to enforce the timely flow of crucial public health information, delaying both critical medical care, its obligations to the WHO, and the sacred paradigm of human interaction with a disease that collectively defines “freedom of speech.”39 Andrew Price-Smith put the same point succinctly post-SARS, stating that “while the SARS epidemic may have generated moderate institutional change at the domestic level, it resulted in only ephemeral change at the level of global governance.”40 In other words, national sovereignty is still of paramount importance for the Chinese leadership. Because of its sensitivity to foreign interference into its internal affairs, the Chinese government has not yet formally or officially endorsed the notion of “human security.”40 While China has embraced multilateral cooperation in a wide array of global health issues, its engagement remains “state-centric.”37,38