The COVID-19 pandemic has exposed a global health and political crisis like no other in recent history. As ground zero of the virus outbreak, significant criticism and blame have been directed at China for covering up the outbreak. Yet a systematic assessment of China's responses to international opprobrium of its pandemic measures has been largely lacking in the literature. Drawing on the concept of “blame” from public administration, this article seeks to fill this gap by investigating China's COVID-19 crisis and blame (mis)management practices. We make two key contributions in this article. First, we highlight how Beijing engaged in the politics of blame and outline three modes (defensive, aggressive and proactive benevolence) of its blame management practices. Second, we suggest that China sought to articulate and refine its identity during the COVID-19 pandemic, providing insights into a China that is increasingly assertive yet vulnerable to reputational damage. We contend that China's efforts to counter international opprobrium and shift strategic narratives speak directly to issues of autocratic legitimation and its conceived “responsible great power” identity, with greater success among domestic rather than global audiences.

Governments around the world have crafted new laws to threaten, arrest, prosecute and incarcerate online political activists. While the primary effect of online repression is to silence criticism and forestall collective action, a secondary effect is to induce self-censorship among the masses. Yet scant research examines how self-censorship works, nor discusses its implications for entrenching authoritarianism and encouraging democratic backsliding. This article proposes a simple expected utility model of self-censorship, arguing that citizens will more likely self-censor when the expected costs of online political expression outweigh its benefits. Analysing the fourth wave of the Asian Barometer survey of 10,216 respondents across eight Southeast Asian countries, I find that higher income politically engaged social media users are indeed less likely to express their political opinions. Additionally, this correlation holds in states where online repression is most severe, but is non-existent in countries where online repression is moderate or low.