In my opinion openness would have served them better even if the Chinese government was slow to respond. If they had just gone “we made mistakes in the early stages of the outbreak” and then worked with the international community to get data out and help in instead of playing their stupid propaganda game they would have probably emerged with a better international image.

They censored because their response was shit. That’s a stain on Xi’s leadership and he knows it. In most countries the leader owns up and admits their shortcomings while pledging to do better. In china they just covered it all up, which worked until the virus became an international problem and everyone was like “bro could you not have told us more about this a bit sooner?” and got justifiably angry.

I don’t think they intended to actively use the virus to harm other countries but I do think that they opportunistically deceived and mislead in order to restore their public image or gain power.