This piece has appeared in
the Philadelphia Inquirer, Baltimore Sun, Las Vegas Review-Journal,
Korea Herald, Taiwan Straits News, Orlando Sentinel and several
other newspapers in April and May 2003.
Deal with the devil turns
deadly
By Steve Friess
BEIJING -- Just when it looked as if China was
about to emerge as the superpower of choice for a world appalled
and outraged by the U.S. invasion of Iraq, along comes a killer
virus to remind everyone why a superpower ruled by dictatorship
can be hazardous to everyone's health.
Indeed, it's hard not to pity the astoundingly poor luck and
timing for the Communist leaders in Beijing of the outbreak
of the severe acute respiratory syndrome, or SARS, and the subsequent,
predictably bungled cover-up. Instead of stepping out of the
shadow of what appears to be a hated United States, this regime
has magically reminded the planet in just a few weeks that it
is untrustworthy and selfish -- and why that matters.
That's an impressive feat, considering how
successful the Chinese had been in the past decade at earning
global love -- and even a Summer Olympics -- by opening its
burgeoning economy to world trade while studiously avoiding
criticizing most foreign governments.
The deal was that China would keep its opinions
to itself and allow the world to stake claims in the Chinese
gold rush. In turn, other nations would let slide Beijing's
horrifying crackdowns on freedoms of religion, assembly and
speech.
Other governments have rationalized that the
firm Communist control is necessary to maintain social stability,
which, in turn, is necessary to keep profit margins growing.
All that capitalism, the best-intended thinking goes, will naturally
lead to political freedom.
But now, with a perplexing coronavirus that
has spread to more than 3,200 people in 23 countries, the deal
with the devil is paying its miserable dividends.
China sat by idly for four months as SARS cases
accumulated in its southern province, hoping nobody would notice
so as to avoid embarrassment. The lack of a free press to alert
the public to the developing pattern not only cost untold Chinese
lives but put at risk tourists, business managers and other
expatriates. Among them are citizens of nations that didn't
believe that Beijing's oppression affected them.
As SARS spilled over to the rest of the world,
Beijing tried damage control rather than infectious disease
control, and failed at both. Health officials here have announced
such laughably low infection numbers that one irate Chinese
doctor was compelled to take the brave step of telling Time
that he personally knew of more cases in one Beijing hospital
than the total claimed for the entire capital.
At the same time, a ridiculous effort continues
to insist that SARS didn't originate in China. World Health
Organization officials were muttering privately early this month
that the Chinese had been slow to provide samples of the virus
from mainland victims. Those samples, once obtained, showed
the Chinese SARS has almost identical DNA as that found elsewhere.
But a mainland doctor told Hong Kong's South China Morning Post
on Sunday, "I do not share the view that Hong Kong infections
came from Guangdong," the mainland province where the first
cases were reported.
The health panic brought on by SARS is a result
of Beijing's lack of credibility. Even now, the state-run English-language
China Daily keeps up its don't-worry-be-happy tenor by showing
pictures of carefree Western tourists enjoying the sights and
quoting alleged experts predicting little financial fallout
for the overall Chinese economy.
Suddenly, the world's investors recall why
China is still a risky place to open a franchise or build a
factory. If Beijing will lie about something as serious as its
own public health crisis, how trustworthy are the delirious
economic statistics it publishes? And if there's no democratic
way to remove corrupt leaders, isn't corruption also a real
threat to that cherished "stability," too?
Just as suddenly, the United States doesn't
look so bad. President Bush may have flouted world opinion,
but he did it openly and used American might to depose a brutal
megalomaniac.
The United States may be arrogant, but China
is untrustworthy. SARS has only just begun to teach the world
which is worse.
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