I guess it is not worth comparing China and Italy or Spain. The first ever COVID-19 case was in China. Where specifically in Wuhan it actually originated, I know not, but that type of corona virus was novel. It was not recorded in any book yet. Therefore, China was facing something new. It didn't have any clue at first. It had to familiarize itself with the enemy while already facing it. They started from scratch. When the spread of the virus reached Italy and Spain, it was not a completely strange virus anymore. Somehow, the cases in China have already taught them a lot.
China had one of the worst responses, but it's way ahead of everybody at propaganda.
I tend to agree with the latter but not the former, to be fair.
~snip~
How about this: if the government wouldn't have lied nothing would have happened?
is an extreme possibility, especially because while the virus was infecting people while remaining unknown at the same time, the whole world was business as usual.
But it was certainly China's fault not heeding the very early warning raised by one of its doctors. It was even utter stupidity dismissing the legitimate warning as a mere case of rumour-mongering and worse even detaining him instead.