 SARS shadows China's image
UNITED NATIONS — Old habits die slowly. So when Beijing’s leadership was confronted by the brewing SARS health crisis in parts of mainland China, the ingrained reaction was, “What crisis?” When emerging information concerning the severe acute respiratory syndrome virus turned from a trickle to a flood, the Chinese communist rulers grudgingly conceded that the glaringly obvious epidemic may actually be a “grave” problem after all.
Now under pressure from the its Asian neighbors, the World Health Organization (WHO), and uneasy domestic business leaders, the People’s Republic of China has admitted the severity of SARS and has even offered up a few sacrificial lambs, among them the country’s Health Minister and the Mayor of Beijing.
Quite unexpectedly, communist Politburo Member Lui Qi then went so far as to offer a rare official apology for the government’s mishandling of the killer epidemic and conceding that he failed to keep people informed on infections. Liu, who is in charge of Beijing, told domestic media that “There has been obvious deficiencies in our work. I take the responsibility of leadership and make a sincere self-criticism.” While stating the obvious, this is a major concession given the source.
According to the Financial Times, “The acknowledgement by Liu that he provided late and inaccurate data on the SARS epidemic and failed to contain its spread was an act of contrition not seen at this level since the 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre…some Chinese commentators said the new found transparency was likely to have been prompted by concern about loosing international kudos as much as a desire to communicate more openly.” Perhaps.
In the meantime information about SARS cases in China has prompted fears that the crisis is larger than first imagined — official statistics cite 2,000 cases on the Mainland with more than 220 fatalities, half of them in Hong Kong.This remains likely understated.
China’s characteristic secretiveness concerning SARS, comes not so much for the shame or the embarrassment of an epidemic but rather from the ingrained political mindset of the Beijing’s Marxist mandarins. The new and heralded current “Fourth Generation” leadership of Hu Jintao who assumed office as China’s political supremo quite ironically on the ides of March, still thinks inside the proverbial Politburo box.
As Taiwan’s respected China Post advised editorially, “It took five years for the previous third generation leadership under Jiang Zemin to acknowledge to the outside world the HIV/AIDS crisis in Henan after it broke out in the mid 1990’s . However the fourth generation leadership, led by Hu Jintao pondered only five months, and decided to cooperate with the World Health Organization to fight against the SARS virus.”
Air travel to East Asia, the hotel industry, and overall tourism and trade fairs throughout China and from Hong Kong to Singapore has been devastated.
Quite improbably, this mystery virus has done more to undercut China’s new image than any PRC actions in Tibet or threats towards Taiwan. Business investment has soured too, as the shadow of the mystery epidemic haunts parts of China including the capital Beijing and Hong Kong.
Tragically the killer virus which likely started in southern China, has spread regionally in East Asia, prompting health alerts as far as Toronto and encouraging less than subtle fears and perceptions about Chinese communities worldwide.
More frighteningly, the crisis calls to question the political judgment of the Beijing rulers who act in a classic pedigree of cover-up and obfuscation with seemingly little regard for their citizens. Such secretiveness prompts old suspicions both inside China and throughout Asia.
John J. Metzler is a U.N. correspondent covering diplomatic and defense
issues. He writes weekly for World Tribune.com.
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