Coronvirus: Europe 'wary of confronting China over deaths'

"In China you always have the problem of what the localities are reporting up to the centre," said Charles Parton, a former UK diplomat in China and now a senior associate fellow at the Rusi think-tank. Beijing was also likely to be calibrating the figures for audiences inside and outside the country, Mr Parton said. "The Chinese government is making a decision of what is the lowest number we can get away with to prop up the line that we have been far more successful in dealing with this than the West."