| |
Lessons from the bird flu
epidemic
By Eric Teo Chu Cheow
(Used by permission of Pacific Forum CSIS)
In the
month since it was first discovered, avian influenza, or
bird flu, has taken its toll, spreading across 10
countries in Asia, from China to Pakistan, through
Indochina and Indonesia; the number of human deaths has
topped 20. And in many ways, it has also had an impact
on relations in the region.
The regional meeting
called by Thailand in Bangkok on January 28 highlighted
the flu's "regional dimension", as well as the necessity
for both regional cooperation and a regional approach in
eradicating the problem. Further, the avian flu has
driven home to the governments and peoples of Asia four
sets of implications or lessons, which are confirming
monumental changes in Asia politically, economically,
socially and in terms of expanding regionalism.
Politically, the avian flu is creating a renewed
awareness of the need for good governance, especially
government transparency and accountability. In a replay
of China's political debacle during its initial months
of severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) a year ago,
Asians are once again demanding accountability in public
health. Thai Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra is facing
a barrage of criticisms for earlier cover-ups in order
to protect booming Thai exports, domestic consumption
and confidence and tourism dollars. China has tried to
come clean on how rapidly the flu is spreading across
its territory, and political leaders including Prime
Minister Wen Jiabao, have reached out to destitute
farmers from Hubei to Anhui.
Even in Indonesia,
which initially resisted the mass culling of affected
chickens, President Megawati Sukarnoputri finally
succumbed to pressure from the World Health Organization
and international opinion to take more drastic action to
protect public health, despite incurring the wrath of
poultry farmers across the country ahead of crucial
elections this year. Furthermore, there have been
unconfirmed reports that Indonesian authorities could
have been covering up the extent to which the H5N1 virus
spread for the whole of last year, as chickens had
already been reportedly dying en masse in some outlying
provinces and islands. It was probably this political
embarrassment that forced Indonesian leaders to come
clean after the Bangkok meeting.
In all cases,
Asian leaders are acutely aware that public confidence
is of utmost importance, especially this year and next,
when Indonesia, Thailand, the Philippines, Taiwan,
Malaysia and South Korea all face elections. Even in
countries with no elections this year, such as China,
Vietnam and Cambodia, political confidence is also at
stake as they battle the contagion. Government
accountability and transparency appear to be de
rigueur and good public governance is now crucial,
thanks first to the SARS epidemic and now avian flu.
Given the latter's severity (and the number of deaths
there), Vietnam's leaders are critically aware of the
need to safeguard their political legitimacy.
In
economic terms, the avian flu again underscores the
importance of domestic consumption, agricultural exports
and tourism in Asian economies. Domestic consumption has
propped up Asian economies since the 1997-98 financial
crisis; any drastic drop in consumer confidence, as in
the case of Thailand, could lead to a full-blown
consumption and economic crisis (through plunging
poultry and related exports) with severe repercussions
for the booming Thai economy. An economic slowdown has
already been perceptible in Thailand for the past three
weeks as the stock market and the currency slide, an
added danger for Asian economies, including those of
Thailand, China, Vietnam, Cambodia and Indonesia, would
be the impact of the flu on their tourist and travel
industries, especially when these sectors rake in
sizable revenue. For Asian leaders, the avian flu must
not be allowed to wreck the current economic recovery
and cause chaos in the region.
One of the most
important lessons of the avian-flu crisis today is the
importance and urgency of bridging the socio-economic
gap between the richer urban communities and poorer
rural ones. The rapid spread of the flu epidemic has
again revealed the extent of poverty in rural Asia and
the socio-economic cleavages in Asian societies.
For example, a controversy is brewing in
Thailand over the "injustice" of culling chickens on
poorer rural farms (despite modest compensation from the
government), whereas poultry bred by big agricultural
conglomerates and those around the Bangkok periphery
need only to be vaccinated to be spared. This "inequity"
could become a political thorn in the flesh for the
Thaksin administration, if mishandled.
Meanwhile
in Indonesia, there were initial concerns that "unfair"
vested interests had prevented the culling of millions
of poultry (the charge was denied by the authorities),
or worse, had maintained monopolistic control of
vaccines imported from China. But in China, it was
decided that for the sake of equality all affected
poultry within a certain radius of the discovered virus
would be systematically culled, whereas those within a
wider radius would be vaccinated. The government has
also promised that compensation for affected farmers
would be fairly and urgently expedited.
In
agricultural Asia, therefore, there is a crucial need
for a coordinated socio-economic uplift. Like SARS,
which originated in poorer parts of the continent, the
flu underscores the importance of a more aggressive
policy in wiping out poverty and "balancing" society.
Beneath the vertiginous boom of Asia there still lies a
"poor" economy and a marginalized society, which could
not only breed diseases, but could also sow the seeds of
social unrest and political destabilization, especially
if these poverty-stricken areas are left behind. Social
policies need to be urgently designed, redesigned, and
implemented in order to "safeguard" stability across
Asia. This is the most significant political dimension
of the current avian-flu epidemic.
Last, the flu
has highlighted once again, as did SARS, the increasing
interdependence of Asia, its economies and its
societies. With the liberalization of trade and travel
across the continent, Asian regionalism has become a de
facto reality, although Asian governments still harbor
concerns over deepening regionalism. The growing
inter-connectivity of Asian economies and societies
should be strengthened. In fact, thanks to such
epidemics, East Asian cooperation has increased, thus
setting the pace and momentum for a true ASEAN+3 (the
Association of Southeast Asian Nations plus China, Japan
and South Korea) regional framework that goes beyond
trade and investments alone. The avian-flu crisis has
highlighted the necessity of deepening cooperation in
all areas, ranging from health and the environment to
financial and social policy coordination. Only through
effective regional cooperation can such scourges be
eradicated, socio-economic gaps (within the region and
individual countries) bridged and stability guaranteed
for the longer term.
Asian governments and
public opinion are thus assimilating the lessons of the
current avian-flu epidemic politically, economically,
socially and regionally; these lessons should ultimately
benefit Asia in its continuous transformation and
change.
Eric Teo Chu Cheow, a business
consultant and strategist based in Singapore, is also
council secretary of the Singapore Institute of
International Affairs and resource panel member of the
Singapore Parliamentary Committee on Defense and Foreign
Affairs. He can be reached at sldeet@singnet.com.sg.
This article is used by permission of Pacific Forum CSIS.
|
| |
|
|
 |
|
