Star Tribune: Human rights and SARS

May 5, 2003

About a week ago I attended one of those plush Hollywood invitation-only book-signing parties. An editor of the Los Angeles Times remarked to a cluster of Hollywood writers and intellectuals that the spread of SARS was a result of the Chinese trait of being irresponsible.

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The media are creating a false impression of the SARS epidemic by focusing just on its medical aspect and the deceit of the Chinese in handling the matter.

The major problem with the SARS epidemic, other than the epidemic itself, is the lack of human rights in China and the effect this lack has domestically and internationally.

The old China hand and journalist, Jonathan Mirsky, has revealed that the main reason for delay in providing the information on SARS was the fear of local government officials. They failed to report the problem because they knew that an epidemic had to be kept totally secret and confidential, and that they would be charged with treason for breaking the news without official permission. Not only has this impeded information on SARS from being released and studied; it has also hampered the spread of information about AIDS in China. One reporter of HIV illnesses in China was sentenced to a long prison term. This lesson was not lost on the Chinese public.

The SARS issue has tainted the Chinese themselves. Rather than concentrating on the political and institutional failures of China, the emphasis has been on Chinese behavior and characteristics.

Consider, though, the example of Taiwan. The Taiwanese have responded excellently to the SARS outbreak. Why? Taiwan is a democracy. The old prejudices about the Chinese lack of respect for human life become a crutch for people who do not want to understand the real nature of the tragedy.

We like to claim that our compassion for the oppressed people in Iraq is one cause for our toppling of Saddam Hussein. But we have not obstructed China from denying Taiwan medical information and treatment. China has not allowed Taiwan to receive direct help from the World Health Organization, nor from the International Red Cross. The Beijing government has used its muscle to prevent Taiwan's membership in the World Health Organization. It has not allowed Taiwanese medical staff to visit China to determine the nature and scope of the SARS epidemic. Taiwan's doctors cannot travel to China to care for visiting Taiwanese who may be victims of SARS.

This embargo of Taiwan has been part of Beijing's consistent policy. In the aftermath of a major earthquake in Taiwan some years ago, China would not allow international aid to go directly to Taiwan, nor would it allow planes equipped with specialized rescue personnel and materials to fly over Chinese air space. Even today, China prevents Taiwan from preparing itself against diseases that originate in China and pass through Hong Kong to Taiwan.

The political and international treatment of SARS should alert us all to the role that the human right to health should play in the future. The failure to place pressure on China to protect its own people and to allow Taiwan to better protect its people should be a subject for scrutiny. And it should be corrected before the next human or natural tragedy occurs in East Asia.

Richard C. Kagan, of St. Paul, is a history professor at Hamline University.