Posted on: Friday, January 9, 2004
EDITORIAL
China fails to grasp need for openness
Old ways die hard.
Early last year, the Chinese government suppressed public knowledge of an emerging, distressing new disease — severe acute respiratory syndrome, or SARS.
It was secrecy that prevented public health authorities from dealing effectively with the outbreak and preventing its rapid spread. It killed some 800 people in China and elsewhere before it petered out last summer.
Humiliated by the harm its old, repressive ways had caused, Beijing dismissed its minister of health and the mayor of Beijing and dramatically opened its healthcare system to international scrutiny.
Journalists cautiously welcomed a wave of relative openness, as top officials acknowledged that the cover-up had abetted the rapid spread of the disease.
Now the appearance of a single confirmed case of SARS in the south of China has brought hope that this time will be different.
The World Health Organization, which was informed two days after the patient requested medical assistance, has since praised the cooperation of the Chinese health authorities.
The praise is premature.
Soon after the Southern Metropolis Daily, a feisty newspaper in Guangzhou, reported the new SARS case, police stormed its offices and detained the top editor and six others.
It was the paper's investigation that prompted authorities to confirm the case. It was only after the paper's editors made clear that they intended to publish the report, reporters at the Daily said, that the authorities announced that they had a suspected SARS case. They have now confirmed a second suspected case.
Last year's major outbreak would have spread even further if it hadn't been for the spunky Hong Kong press, which broached the story against the wishes of authorities.
China, which has eagerly allowed the pursuit of wealth while resisting most political reforms, is smack up against a serious contradiction: Modern economies can't function effectively without information transparency.
As the suppression of SARS cases illustrates, it appears China is bent on learning this lesson the hard way.
