Amid the virus crisis, Duterte’s defend-China policy is cross-eyed
WHEN the
Pe r m a - n e n t
Court of Arbitration at The Hague handed down its ruling on the dispute between the Philippines and China over their conflicting claims in the South China Sea, the newly installed government of President Rodrigo Duterte immediately sought to mute national celebration over the verdict, lest it hurt Chinese feelings.
Now, with a full-blown global health emergency over another viral outbreak that originated in China, President Duterte is warning the nation against xenophobia toward China and its nationals, and asks to show some sympathy instead during its current travail.
The administration has also asked local media to report the crisis with caution, lest they cause alarm among the people.
The current policy in the face of a health crisis is cross-eyed and naïve, in much the same way that the earlier policy on The Hague ruling was cross-eyed.
At a time when China’s and the world’s attention should be undivided and focused on finding a cure and ensuring stability, our government’s instinct is to divert the people away from the hard realities of the epidemic and the remaining dangers.
Scolding the media for criticism of China and full reporting on the crisis is particularly absurd.
The media’s duty is to bring full information on the crisis to its publics. It should not be distracted by political concerns.
Latest report on the emergency
The latest word on the emergency, as reported by the Associated Press and Agence France-Presse, is troubling. Here is an update.
A Chinese doctor who was punished after raising the alarm about the 2019 novel coronavirus acute respiratory disease (2019-nCoV ARD) died from the pathogen on Friday, sparking an outpouring of grief and anger over a worsening crisis that has now killed more than 630 people.
At least 31,000 people have now been infected by a virus that ophthalmologist Li Wenliang and colleagues had first brought to light in late December.
The disease has since spread across China, prompting the government to lock down cities of tens of millions of people, while global panic has risen as more than 240 cases have emerged in two dozen countries.
A quarantined cruise ship in Japan now has 61 confirmed cases.
The doctor, Li Wenliang, 34, died early Friday. The announcement of the death by the Wuhan Central
Hospital triggered grief on social media — over a doctor who was hailed a hero — and anger over the government’s handling of the crisis.
“He is a hero who warned others with his life,” a fellow Wuhan doctor wrote on Weibo after reports of his death emerged.
His death also highlights the enormous risks that frontline doctors have taken to treat patients in overwhelmed and under-equipped hospitals in Wuhan, the quarantined city of 11 million people where the virus emerged in December. Medical staff are overstretched and lack sufficient protective gear.
Li sent out a message about the 2019nCoV to colleagues on December 30 in Wuhan — the central city at the epicenter of the crisis — but was later among eight whistleblowers summoned by police for “rumor-mongering.”
He later contracted the disease while treating a patient.
Analysts have said local authorities played down the extent of the outbreak in early January because they were holding political meetings at the time and wanted to project an aura of stability.
The first fatality was reported on January 11. The death toll has since soared to 636, with 73 more reported on Friday and an additional 3,000 new infections.
Some 56 million people in Wuhan and surrounding cities have been ordered to stay home, while several countries have banned arrivals from China and advised their citizens to leave. Major airlines have suspended flights to and from the country. Even so, new cases keep emerging. Two cruise ships carrying thousands of holidaymakers in Hong Kong and Japan have been placed under quarantine as authorities test people for infections. On Friday another 41 people tested positive aboard the in Japan, bringing the total of infected cases on the ship to 61.
Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe said Thursday another cruise ship, the was heading to the country with one confirmed case, and no foreigners would be allowed to disembark.
In Hong Kong, 3,600 people spent a second night confined aboard the where eight former passengers have tested positive for the virus.
Hong Kong has been particularly nervous because the crisis has revived memories of severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) that killed nearly 300 people in the city and another 349 on the Chinese mainland in 2002 and 2003.
While the death toll continues to rise, experts have stressed that at 2-percent mortality, 2019-nCoV is far less deadly than SARS, which killed around 10 percent of the people it infected 17 years ago.
'Xenophobia' against Chinese must stop
The outbreak has stoked a wave of anti-China feeling around the globe, from shops barring entry to Chinese tourists, online mocking of the country’s exotic meat trade and surprise health checks on foreign workers.
Manila’s Adamson University has asked all its Chinese students to observe a 14-day self-quarantine as a precaution.
Last Monday, President Duterte urged Filipinos to stop stirring up anti-Chinese xenophobia related to the outbreak of the 2019-nCoV that emerged in China last December.
He said at a news conference: “China has been kind to us, we can only also show the same favor to them. Stop this xenophobia thing.”
Many wonder whether Duterte’s words will be heeded after the coronavirus claimed its first fatality outside China in the Philippines.
“They are blaming the Chinese that [the virus] came from China, but it could always incubate in some other place,” said Duterte. He assured the public there was no reason to panic and that “everything is well” in the country.
“It is not the fault of anybody. Not the Chinese, not the Filipino, no one,” he added.
Hard times for China
That’s not how it looks to the rest of the world.
There’s another perspective on the coronavirus outbreak that appears to have escaped the notice and attention of Philippine policymakers. The crisis is much graver and more costly, especially for China. The finger of blame is being pointed at President Xi Jinping and the Chinese Communist Party.
Philippine executive officials should pay particular to several recent media reports that are especially disturbing.
In magazine’s cover story, Feb 6, 2020: “The coronavirus outbreak could derail Xi Jinping’s dreams of a Chinese century,” the magazine reports that the coronavirus crisis threatens to rattle China’s authoritarian apparatus. “A major test of China’s system and capacity for governance,” senior party chiefs called it on February 3.
In a article, “The economic consequences of the coronovirus outbreak,” (Feb. 3, 2020), Richard W. Rahm writes of the potential negative economic impact on the world economy of a virus outbreak in the world’s second largest economy as each day brings news of more companies shutting down or reducing activities in China.
“Large companies, such as Apple and Walmart, have global supply chains. So, a disruption because of a natural or medical disaster or political instability ripples through the entire chain. This leads to temporary shortages and/or price increases until adjustments can be made…”
In his column of Feb. 3, 2020, “Corononavirus spreads, and the world pays for China’s dictatorship,” Nicholas Kristof writes of the dangers of China’s authoritarian model of governance for China and the world. Instead of acting decisively when the city of Wuhan presented symptoms of the coronavirus inspection on December 1, and signs of alarm in medical circles in Wuhan by the end of December, Chinese officialdom acted not against the virus but against the whistleblowers, Kristof wrote. The doctor who died last Friday, had told his WeChat group about the virus and was disciplined by the Communist Party and forced to admit wrongdoing. Instead of being heeded, seven other doctors were summoned for “rumor-mongering” and given “education” and “criticism” for trying to call attention to the public health threat.
All these timely articles contain vital information and insights that ought to be considered in Philippine policy making.