MAY 21, 2003 WED

HONG KONG - China has paid a heavy price for mishandling the Sars epidemic, but has its leaders learnt the right lesson?

Beijing seems to be moving in the right direction so far, but there also appears to be obstacles preventing it from tackling the root cause of the crisis.

Ten well-known scholars who attended a major symposium on Sars recently came up with at least half a dozen factors leading to the outbreak, including the lack of a crisis-management mechanism and rampant officialdom that blinded the administration to the imminent threat.

But these are only peripheral factors.

What sparked the crisis was, in fact, an official circular issued to all Chinese media last October. This told state media to black out negative news so that the Chinese Communist Party's (CCP) 16th party congress in early November could be convened successfully.

A similar circular was sent out to the media before China's parliament, the National People's Congress, started its annual session in March.

When Sars struck, it was regarded as a flu outbreak and was dismissed as something that happened every year during the winter and spring months. It went unreported.

The news blackout cost the world five precious months, during which the new and deadly virus wreaked havoc not only in China but also around the world.

The stark fact is that the blackout was carried out on orders from the very top for a clearly political purpose.

The two events taking place five months apart saw Mr Jiang Zemin relinquishing, as expected, his post as party general secretary in November and the state presidency in March.

More importantly, they sealed his position as strongman when he was allowed to retain the chairmanship of the powerful Central Military Commission and succeeded in putting his own men in top party posts.

He was accorded the ultimate honour for his 13-year rule when his 'Three Represents' theory was enshrined in the CCP constitution.

It can thus be argued that the root of the Sars crisis lies in a political system which gives the ruling party absolute and unrestrained authority.

In such a system, the one at the very top could pursue his personal interests at the expense of people's lives and health.

Yet none of the discussions in China so far has focused on this point.

Even Premier Wen Jiabao, who is playing a prominent role in the fight against Sars, called the crisis 'a sudden occurrence' at a time 'when there is a government transition'.

He pleaded for international sympathy and understanding.

One might argue that governments throughout the world, regardless of political system, have a tendency to hide undesirable news.

The United States, arguably the world's leading democracy, is guilty when it came to news about the spread of Aids.

This drives home another important lesson, which is that there must be sufficient checks and balances in any political system, especially by a free and responsible press, to prevent an erroneous policy from developing into a major crisis.

The US government's attempt to hide the HIV crisis was eventually foiled by a free press.

In China's case, the government- orchestrated cover-up about the deadly Sars crisis continued until retired army doctor Jiang Yanyong broke his silence.

He sent a letter exposing the cover-up to China's state broadcaster CCTV and to Hong Kong-based Phoenix station, but both failed - or did not dare - to run the story.

Dr Jiang then turned to Time magazine, which ran the story and eventually that led to the Chinese government coming clean.

It is sad that it took an American publication to expose the Chinese government's wrongdoing.

Some reformists within the CCP have long recognised the need for a free and responsible press to exert some restraints on the party, which committed some dreadful mistakes such as the Cultural Revolution in the late 1960s.

With the support of former CCP chief Zhao Ziyang, a draft law on news was prepared more than 15 years ago to give the media the right to report the truth.

Unfortunately, this draft was shelved during Mr Jiang's time.

The Sars episode again underscores the need for a free and responsible media.

If governments throughout the world, regardless of the political system, have a natural tendency to withhold facts from the public, especially when these could cause public panic or put those in power in a bad light, then it is imperative that society can fall back on a free and responsible press to provide the necessary checks and balances.

If these lessons are learnt, then the Sars crisis could indeed be turned into an impetus to improve the Chinese system.

But there are worrying signs that the Chinese have not learnt the right lesson.

[...]If China fails to draw the right lessons from the crisis, and continues to blame others for its troubles, then the heavy price the country and its people have paid would have been in vain.

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