Trick wrote:there are government regulations on such things, but “such things” have a deep root in this culture, not the easiest thing to have “complete” control over a big country as China.
Yes, I understand. It's very tough to stop people who have strange local habits of eating protected animals, as long as they want to do that. But still, this in not something general going on in all of China, but has to do with a very small group of people in small local places.
The central government can’t be blamed, but perhaps local officials can.
I believe they should. Not directly for the outbreak, but they have responsibility for the overall situation in the country. The central government takes a lot of money in taxes but give very little back. They don't care about the rest of China and do very little for Chinese people not not having hukou in Beijing or Shanghai. The result is sometimes quite bad local leadership. (Just look at my "hometown" Kunming, where all of the highest city leaders for the last 30 years, mayor or what's the equivalent is in China, they all sit together in the same jail for corruption and different other crimes. And almost no development of the city has occurred in all of this time.)
Its interesting, “westerners”(not pointing at you) complain how the Chinese regime is too oppressive, but now complain the regime acting too sloppy.
My thought exactly. People here complain about the increasing surveillance in the last five or ten years or so. But in fact, if you look at Hubei and Wuhan, some better surveillance with stationary cameras or camera equipped drones (used here by the police), could help stop things as illegal markets and illegal trade with live animals.