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Beijing's battle with SARS
Shanghaied
By Christopher Horton and
ATol staff
Ever since Sunday's acknowledgment by
Beijing of its deliberate domestic and international
deception regarding the true nature of China's SARS
epidemic, the central government has been in
damage-control mode. Now as the Chinese leadership is
becoming increasingly open, but still less open than
most other countries battling severe acute respiratory
syndrome, it is becoming apparent that Beijing may have
to lose big if it wants to survive.
In the
meantime, according to statistics provided by the World
Health Organization, China has had 2,035 SARS infections
with 106 fatalities - the highest number of infections
and fatalities in the world.
The leadership
moves to protect Shanghai ...
The Standing
Committee of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) Politburo
has adopted resolutions to put every resource available
in the country into protecting Shanghai from SARS. This
policy up had yet to be made public at this writing, but
was possibly the most important item on the agenda in
the meeting of the most powerful members of the CCP on
April 16.
That day's meeting was the first time
since Hu Jintao had assumed the position of CCP
secretary general that he had called a such a meeting.
Also among the unanimously approved resolutions of the
meeting was the decision to reveal to the Chinese people
the status of the SARS epidemic in most of the country's
regions, and agreement on the necessity to punish
responsible cadres in the Health Ministry and Beijing's
municipal government.
The Standing Committee
admitted the severity of the epidemic in Beijing and
Guangdong, going on to acknowledge the extent of the
damage China's international image has suffered as a
result of the government's concealment of the true
extent of the epidemic from the public. It also
dedicated itself to vigorously protecting Shanghai on
two fronts.
On the first front, transportation,
the plan is to limit the approach of the population,
especially from the hardest-hit areas to the north and
south, to Greater Shanghai. The area that is now
restricted has a radius of a four-hour car ride from the
city of 16 million, and includes most of the surrounding
provinces of Jiangsu and Zhejiang. The committee also
authorized Shanghai's municipal government to
investigate and or inspect any plane, train or motorized
vehicle entering Shanghai. Furthermore, it conferred
upon the city's government the authority to close off
all traffic entering the city if necessary.
At
Guangzhou Baiyun Airport, numerous travelers have been
notified that they cannot board planes flying to
Shanghai. This has generally been done without any clear
reason being given.
Jiangsu and Zhejiang
provinces have adopted measures promising assiduous
inspection and even isolation of locals who have been to
Guangzhou or Beijing from the rest of the two provinces'
residents. Their current focus is local participants in
Guangzhou's spring trade fair.
The other front
addressed by the committee's resolutions is that of
information. The committee decided to authorize cities
within the designated area surrounding greater Shanghai
to take clear dissemination of epidemic information as
requested by the Central Committee of CCP into their own
hands in light of situations that may emerge, with the
goal to be preservation of social order.
The
committee's intention is quite obvious: if its
double-barreled strategy works, then no matter how bad
the situation in the rest of the country could be,
Shanghai can still avoid the misfortune of being
isolated from the outside world. However, there are no
barriers, natural or man-made, between greater Shanghai
and the rest of the country, so it is difficult to say
whether the virus can be blocked in every direction.
Only heaven knows whether these resolutions will be
effective.
... as the rest of the country
must fend for itself ...
A public notice posted
on Tuesday on the People's Daily Chinese website gives a
grim glimpse into the government's helplessness
vis-a-vis SARS:
"The Qinghai Health Department
on Monday issued an emergency notice to combat SARS. It
said that according to relevant departments, on April 17
and 18, during the T151 train from Beijing to Xining,
Qinghai province, passengers with SARS were confirmed to
have gotten off in Gansu province.
"In the
interest of finding out the status of the epidemic and
resolutely cutting off the source of the spread, every
passenger who entered Qinghai via the aforementioned
trains and everybody who has had any contact with these
passengers should immediately seek medical consultation
at an official hospital.
"The emergency notice
said that anybody who exhibits unexplained symptoms or
signs of fever, cough, body aches, etc please
immediately seek medical advice at the nearest official
hospital."
Qinghai province is in the heart of
China's vast west, nestled between Xinjiang to the north
and Tibet to the south. As in virtually everywhere else
in western China, Qinghai residents are by and large
very poor and have extremely limited access to health
care.
... and potential SARS infections fan
out from the capital
Concerns about trains
spreading SARS inland, where most of China's 900 million
peasants live, do not seem to have affected Beijing's
decision to suspend classes for its 1.7 million
students, who hail from every corner of the vast
country. The municipal government's announcement to
close schools temporarily was like the waving of a green
flag, initiating SARS' race to every inhabited part of
the country. As students and migrant workers flee the
highly infected capital, there is a very strong
likelihood that this wave of people taking trains and
buses from Beijing to their familial homes throughout
China will constitute a massive increase in SARS
infections in every part of the country.
Beijing
has by no means abandoned its efforts to contain SARS in
the economically flourishing coastal cities. It has,
however, sent a clear message that about 70 percent of
China's population ultimately has to take SARS
prevention into its own hands. This is a big gamble, as
these Chinese had already been falling increasingly
behind their urban counterparts.
Considering
that throughout China's millennia of history most
periods of violent social upheaval have been catalyzed
by peasant discontent, this is no doubt a gamble that Hu
Jintao and his comrades were loath to take.
Unfortunately for Hu and company, they left neither
themselves nor their country much choice.
(©2003
Asia Times Online Co, Ltd. All rights reserved. Please
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