Sars Sackings

CHINA must get to the root of the Sars problem if it hopes to restore international confidence after the country's mishandling of the outbreak.

Its sacking on Sunday of two senior officials - Health Minister Zhang Wenkang and Beijing mayor Meng Xuenong - for the debacle is not good enough. The Sars saga is a classic example of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) making the fatal mistake of putting its image above all else, including the lives of its people.

A well-placed source told The Straits Times that the CCP put out a circular last October, urging the media to help create a favourable political environment for the 'successful convening of the party's 16th National Congress' in November and the 10th National People's Congress (NPC) last month. The media were to avoid 'negative news', including the outbreak of flu, pneumonia and other epidemics.

Therefore, when the Sars epidemic broke out in Guangdong last November and coincided with the party congress, it was covered up.

The former party boss for the province, Mr Li Changchun, had a vested interest in doing so. He was slated to be named to the nine-member Politburo Standing Committee, the top decision-making body. The Sars outbreak, coming at a bad time, could well foil his promotion.

Four months later, when the contagion spread to Beijing, the 10th National People's Congress was under way. According to Ming Pao Daily News, disgraced mayor Mr Meng has admitted that when the epidemic broke out in the capital, he was mindful of the party's stipulation to maintain a 'stable political environment'. Hence his decision to cover up.

Following his sacking, there have been calls for similar action against Mr Li. If officials as senior as Mr Li were indeed sacked for dereliction of duty, it would signal a genuine break from the government's past practice of covering up bad news.

It is noteworthy that President Hu Jintao decided to sacrifice Mr Meng, a loyal follower, in order to bring down Health Minister Zhang.

Mr Zhang had been ex-president Jiang Zemin's personal doctor since the late 1980s when the latter was still Shanghai mayor, and owed his rise to Mr Jiang's support.

Beijing observers said the move showed that Mr Hu did not dare remove only Mr Jiang's man even though Mr Zhang had caused great public indignation by telling blatant lies. To remove a supporter of Mr Jiang, he had to sacrifice one of his own men too.

Yet the observers gave credit to Mr Hu for his resolve in getting rid of mediocre officials.

Many also fault the CCP for resorting habitually to secrecy as the first step in crisis management. This practice is steeped in CCP tradition, believing that 'negative news' should not be published lest it spark panic and stir unrest.

While this might work in a closed society where interaction is limited by the lack of communication tools, it would no longer work in a China of the Internet age.

Furthermore, maintaining secrecy over an issue of grave public concern serves only to highlight the authorities' irresponsibility.

International pressure piled on China not because it was the source of Sars but because the CCP adopted a highly irresponsible attitude towards the issue, resulting in the contagion spreading and threatening lives far beyond Chinese borders.

For now, China is reaping the bitter fruit of a patently anachronistic system and bad crisis management.

Unless it is seen to address this basic issue earnestly, by taking obvious and meaningful political reform, the international community has reason to doubt China's words.