Financial Times: Chinese Press Rebuts SARS Claims

June 10, 2003, Tuesday London Edition

Beijing-- The Chinese press has rebutted official claims that the authorities did not conceal the spread of Sars and criticised the treatment of the doctor who exposed the cover-up.

The daring opposition to Gao Qiang, deputy head of China's anti-Sars taskforce, offers a test of the seriousness of the government's new commitment to openness and transparency.

Mr Gao appeared to undermine that commitment last month when he insisted that Beijing's earlier under-reporting of Sars cases was the innocent result of jurisdictional problems.

Mr Gao also defended Zhang Wenkang, the former health minister who was sacked when the government was forced to admit Beijing had nine times as many Sars cases as it had acknowledged.

In a rejection of the claim that there had been no cover-up, this week's edition of the Economic Observer said the decision to hold Mr Zhang responsible was an important move by China's new generation of leaders.

"It did not just display the daring and resolution of the new government, but even more it was the start of the construction of a modern political culture," the newspaper said.

The Economic Observer also hit back at Mr Gao's treatment of Jiang Yanyong, the military surgeon who first denounced authorities for under-reporting Sars.

Such open media opposition to the public statements of a senior central government official is extraordinary in China, where Communist party organs keep close tabs on even the most independent-minded media.

Mr Gao dismissed Dr Jiang as just one of China's 6m health workers, saying he did not know "why everybody is so interested in him". In response, the Economic Observer ran a column of commentaries praising the semi-retired surgeon for his courage and honesty.

The Sanlian Shenghuo Zhoukan magazine put Dr Jiang on its front cover, saying that while Dr Gao was just one of 6m medical workers "more and more people will remember his name".

Such articles will fuel speculation of divisions within the government on the lessons to be drawn from the Sars outbreak, although there are no indications they were published at the behest of any leader or faction.

A senior World Health Organisation official is to hold meetings with health authorities in Beijing on Wednesday.

David Heymann, WHO executive director for communicable diseases, has expressed doubt about the sharp fall in the number of Sars cases reported in China, although his colleagues in Beijing have said they are confident that the spread of the disease has been "dramatically" slowed.

www.ft.com/sars