Over the past couple of days, I’ve been seeing a great deal of news about the feedback on the “laissez-faire” approach taken by various overseas governments in managing the epidemic. Spain and Italy have been the most prominent examples.
This isn’t a denial of other countries’ efforts to save their citizens. Rather, I want to lay out a complete logical framework — so you understand what strategic trade-offs you would make if you were the head of a foreign nation. A president. A prime minister. A chancellor.
Note: you absolutely cannot read this article as a bystander. You must place yourself in the position of a sitting head of state.
In other words: the epidemic has arrived. You are the head of a Western nation. You personally. So what do you do next?
Let me start with a summary:
- Rest assured — history shows that no matter how perfunctory your response, your voter base will not abandon you.
- Congratulations — when the elderly have all perished, your political allies will actually thank you.
- Don’t worry — at the end, you can sigh deeply, admit that you tried your best, and everything will return to calm.
Before answering question one, we need to establish a very basic concept: for these Western heads of state, what is the foundation of your power?
The answer is simple: your voter base. The people who cast votes for you in elections.
This is also the group you have always needed to appease and outwardly respect. They can be the coastal elites on either coast, or the red-neck farmers of the American Rust Belt. Either way, to get into office, you need a core of die-hard supporters.
Interestingly, if you look across all universal-suffrage nations, the age distribution of voters is highly concentrated — fundamentally centered on the 35–65 age group as the core demographic.
The promises you make, the guarantees you offer, the benefits you fight for, the tax cuts you push — all of it is primarily aimed at this group.
Why? Because younger people generally don’t yet have enough career capital, family assets, or financial stake for policies like taxation to concern them much. Older people have generally already retired and settled into their lives — whatever you arrange, they don’t particularly care.
Only the working-age middle group — burdened with career pressures, family obligations, education costs, medical expenses, and the heaviest tax load — cares most deeply about politics.
And in return, politicians care relatively more about them.
So during this epidemic, you’ll notice that all medical resources across the entire Western world were overwhelmingly concentrated on and redirected toward the working-age population.
Why? Because the elderly — who don’t vote and aren’t particularly interested in politics — were never “effective voter base” in your eyes to begin with. Not saving them doesn’t matter. But if you neglect the working-age group, that’s when you have a real problem.
Of course, this kind of behavior will inevitably draw criticism and condemnation. But ultimately it’s just some Western traditional media outlets, public interest groups, and human rights organizations making noise.
All you have to do is say: “My brothers and sisters — I’m sorry. The reason I ordered medical staff to remove ventilators from the elderly was so we could put them on you. I know I didn’t do enough. I feel terrible about it. But I had to think of you — the true future of Italy!”
The other way to read that statement: “You’re the ones who’ll vote for me, so I’ll do my best to keep you safe. As for the elderly who will actually die without ventilators — well, dying is perfectly fine too.”
Tell me — is there anything logically wrong with that? Of course, it’s riddled with flaws. But it’s more than sufficient to deceive and pacify your voter base.
The reasoning: no matter what, I fought for your interests first — what more do you want from me?
And if you were part of that voter base, what would you say? Not much, really. As the primary beneficiaries of attention during this epidemic, the ones with the most cause for complaint — the elderly — are already dead. The young and middle-aged who remain are actually in the least position to point fingers.
Now, onto the second question: Congratulations — when the elderly have all died off, your political allies will actually thank you.
Here we need to introduce another concept: population quality. For many people, this is a fairly unfamiliar idea. Broadly speaking, when most people think about population quality, they immediately equate it with per capita GDP, education levels, and so on.
By conventional reasoning, this logic isn’t wrong — someone with a better education will generally produce far more during their working years than someone without.
But all of that flips completely once retirement happens.
No matter how distinguished a person’s career was before retirement, once they “decline” into a retiree living on pension and insurance payouts — the taxpayers, insurance companies, and the businesses that once employed them no longer genuinely wish for that person to live too long.
I should also say something in praise of our own elderly. As mentioned in a previous article, whether in cities, towns, or villages, China’s elderly people generally maintain a “retired but not inactive” state after reaching retirement age.
This means that after retirement, the “burden” they impose on society is quite small. Yes, they’re still consuming resources, but picking up grandchildren from school, doing the shopping and cleaning, helping out around the house — that invisible contribution is actually quite substantial.
You see — once your understanding of the world expands to a sufficiently broad scope, you’ll find that among all countries on earth, it is only China’s older generation that demonstrates such a profound spirit of dedication.
But in the developed nations of the West, it’s a completely different story. Whether in Europe, America, Japan, or South Korea — once children become independent, parents and children are fairly clearly two separate units. The elderly live their own lives, enjoying their golden years.
And the lifestyle of Western retirees is built primarily on drawing pensions and living a purely expenditure-based existence. You can look at any number of analyses — why does cruise tourism thrive overseas but never quite took off at home? Because the cruise tourism industry is fundamentally a market built around Western retirees. (The dramatic collapse of cruise companies during this epidemic is directly attributable to exactly this dynamic.)
To summarize: in Western countries, no matter how capable you were before retirement, the moment you retire, you immediately fall into the category of “elderly = useless.”
Imagine you’re a Western business owner, oligarch, or tycoon. You suddenly realize you’re required to pull 15% off your annual balance sheet to fund taxes for these elderly people, or to cover their retirement pensions.
How would you feel?
It’s exactly the same as family members waiting in a hospital ICU for their parents to pass so they can inherit the estate. A long illness leaves no filial sons; prolonged taxation leaves no loyalty.
So your allies who donated political contributions are, in essence, supportive and understanding of everything you’ve done. Even your Finance Minister might stroll into the room, wipe his bald head with a handkerchief, and remark: “Oh, my respected Prime Minister — as the number of elderly deaths increases, our treasury grows fuller and the pressure grows lighter.”
Finally, the third part: you can sigh at the end, admit that you tried your best, and everything returns to calm.
Yes — take Italy for example. Because you are a head of state elected by a voter base, you don’t actually bear the “ultimate point of accountability.” You can simply throw up your hands and say: I tried my best! But the Ministry of Health didn’t have the manpower — that’s their fault, the idiots!
The Ministry of Commerce is no better! Always busy setting EU trade standards and wheeling and dealing with the Americans, and when it really mattered, they couldn’t convince the Chinese to sell at all! On top of that, they were helping the Americans buy up supplies! Result: not a single ventilator secured!
As for the public — during a special period like this, they still insisted on gathering for parties every single day. Was I supposed to order a lockdown?
My term is only so long anyway. I’ve had my run as number one — that’s good enough for me. Whatever happens, happens.
Just like the conflict that erupted yesterday between Trump and the New York Governor — everyone understands that “high-density mandatory quarantine” is necessary. But nobody wants to be the one who issues that order, because whoever enforces it will draw public resentment.
So in this epidemic, almost all overseas leaders find themselves in a state of “on high alert, yet completely helpless.”
And the result? All warnings prove ineffective. You cannot expect a group of ten thousand people — where eight thousand voluntarily isolate while two thousand refuse to cooperate — to form an effective anti-epidemic front.
Unless some number-one or number-two figure is willing to step forward and, completely disregarding their own political future, forcefully push through isolation measures.
I’m sorry — not going to happen.
Tell me — can the patients over 70 who’ve already been laid in their coffins climb out and hold you accountable? Or will the middle-aged people who survived by taking the ventilators from their own parents come to argue with you?
Since no one is truly going to hold a head of state responsible, why bother with the effort? It’s a convenient opportunity to clear out Europe’s surplus elderly population.
Two years at most, and everything will return to normal. After all, survival of the fittest has always been the core value of the Western world.
Here’s a particularly unusual example: Thailand. In this epidemic, besides China, there is only one relatively small nation — Thailand — that managed to halt all commercial activity during a special period and directly mobilize its entire population in the fight against the virus.
Why? Think about it — consider this a small homework assignment.