Taiwan intensively screened passengers flying in from China, produced and distributed record numbers of facial masks, and strictly enforced quarantines. South Korea had an intensive testing and contact-tracing program. Hong Kong reduced land border crossings to and from mainland China from an average of 300,000 daily to 750 and had strict quarantines. Singapore had mandatory quarantines for arriving airline passengers and stringent contact tracing.

All four have had relatively low numbers of deaths and seem to be on track to stop the spread of the virus. And all have done so with a transparency that’s a vivid contrast to the concealment and lies that are standard practice in the People’s Republic of China.

Just as in Rumsfeld’s photo, it’s clear that regime character makes an enormous difference. Taiwan, South Korea, Singapore and Hong Kong have shown how people raised in Chinese or Chinese-influenced cultures of social cohesion and observation of rules can behave in a situation of unanticipated stress.

It’s hard to avoid reflecting how much better off East Asia and the world would be if the billion-plus people of mainland China were to live in such a regime. But that was foreclosed when the Red Army led by Mao Zedong declared victory in the Chinese civil war and took power 71 years ago, in September 1949.