[Opinion] Remains of SARS

The first patient of SARS occurred in Gwangdung, China, in the middle of last November. It was February 11 when the occurrence of 305 patients and 5 deaths due to the rapid spread of mutated pneumonia in Gwangdung was officially reported to the World Health Organization (WHO). The Chinese government hid the occurrence of the new kind of contagious disease for nearly three months and paid an expensive price in return. WHO has withdrawn the tourism restriction advice on Beijing on June 24 but it seems like it will take a fairly long time for China to recover from the aftermaths of SARS after losing its trust in the international society. SARS inflicted an economical loss of 16 billion dollars just in the regions of Asia.

▷China has been experiencing a notable economical development after taking the road of market economy since 1980s, but its politic is a system of communistic one-party rule and freedom of the press is severely restricted. While SARS spread in Gwangdung, the Beijing government blocked the press from sending out any single line of report about the infected disease out of the city. Due to the press restriction, the citizens were cut off from the opportunity to have early prevention management and the cooperation of the international society for the elimination of SARS was delayed as well. The great famine, which caused the loss of 30 million lives during the great advance movement in the 1960s in China, was also due to the restricted communication. As Mao Tsedong concealed the truth about the reduction of the grain yield after introducing the joint farming system along with the widely spread exaggerated reports, they lost the opportunity to prepare for the disaster.

▷There also is a country, which effectively defended its citizens from SARS by forceful means, which is possible only in the dictatorship countries. North Korea isolated its incoming citizens and foreigners regardless of their social status for ten days, in Cheongcheongang Hotel in Anjoo, an hour distance from Pyongyang. A staff from the World Food Program (WFP) testified that he has been locked up at this hotel for 10 days and received a temperature check twice a day. The director of the Department of Commerce and the staffs of North Korea who have returned after participating in the international conference were isolated as well just like the commoners. It looks like North Korea, which lacks basic health facilities, and medical supplies had a national fear of SARS.

▷In China, the statistics of economy and health are manipulated with the political intention and any press personnel or scholar collecting exact data can be punished with severe charges. The Chinese rigid political system which doesn`t operate harmoniously with the internationalize market economy is greatly responsible for the failure of the early management of SARS in China. Mikhail Gorbachyov, the former president of former Soviet Union, started the reformation and open-door policy after realizing the ineffectiveness of the Soviet Union system through an incident at an atomic power plant. “As the Soviet Union learned from its disaster, China must learn a lesson from the SARS incident,” pointed out Ezekiel Immanuel, a life moralist. North Korea, which doesn`t even reach this level, is out of the question.

Editorial Writer, Ho Tak Hwang (hthwang@donga.com)