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Nations around the world have "opened their eyes" to the "cover up" of the coronavirus outbreak by the Chinese government, according to an expert in the field. Andreas Fulda is a senior fellow at the University of Nottingham Asia Research Institute and the author of 'The Struggle for Democracy in Mainland China, Taiwan and Hong Kong: Sharp Power and Its Discontents'. Dr Fulda spoke about how the state led by President Xi Jinping was reluctant to report the pandemic because it would reflect badly on the Communist Party.

He told Express.co.uk: "I certainly think that the cover up of this COVID-19 outbreak in Wuhan in China has opened the eyes of the global public to the highly problematic political realities in mainland China. "General Secretary Xi Jinping is a Stalinist who presides over a Leninist party state using Maoist tactics, and that obviously is not a good combination. "We can see this combination of Stalinism, Leninism and Maoism in provinces of China where now more than 1.5 million people are actually held in internment and/or in labour camps against their will. "Sometimes people ask me why we should care about the way China is governed." READ MORE: 'Secretive' Chinese Communists let COVID-19 get 'out of control'

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Dr Fulda continued: "To me, this tells a lot about how politicians and specialists think about China. "They're not really aware how dangerous mainland China under the leadership of the Communist Party has become, not just to its own citizens but also the people living in China's periphery and across the world. "So I think if we talk about the end of the COVID-19 outbreak and it's global impact, I do think one of the impacts that we already see if that people are becoming much more critical towards the Chinese Communist Party and the way it governs mainland China. "A week ago more than 200 Chinese experts and specialists have criticised the Chinese Government in an open letter about the mishandling of the COVID-19 pandemic."

They have referred to the botched response as a 'Chernobyl moment'.

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