China's approach to fighting SARS now differs starkly from last

BEIJING -- Last year, when what would become SARS first appeared, you couldn't pry information loose from China's secretive government. Now, as the virus edges back into the spotlight, the country's leadership has a different message: Operators are standing by.

A Health Ministry hotline that opened this week is one extraordinary indication of a usually unresponsive government's starkly different public approach as it marshals forces for Round Two of the fight against severe acute respiratory syndrome.

This time, the government has worked hard to appear swift and decisive -- and make frequent statements that sound open and informative.

The response reflects an evolution in the way China, long accustomed to burying bad news, is dealing with the press and the public -- a change quite probably driven by the blistering overseas reaction to the way it handled things last time.

"During the first SARS outbreak last year, the lesson was quite grave. During that struggle, we improved our system and structures," Kong Quan, a spokesman for China's Foreign Ministry, said Thursday.

Few things are more important to the Chinese government than maintaining a good reputation abroad. Anything less threatens foreign investment, tourism dollars and the country's deep hunger for international respect.

After damage was done

For weeks last year, leaders simply denied the problem, accusing the international media of alarmism and suppressing reports in the state-controlled press.

Only in late April, after one American newspaper called for a quarantine on China and rumors about the disease were reaching a crescendo, did China fire its health minister and promise a new openness and aggressiveness. But the damage was done.

Some officials now acknowledge privately that the government's first response to SARS last year was wanting -- an unusual admission for members of a leadership that rarely admits missteps. And those speaking publicly say it too, though less directly.

"The government's reaction to SARS this time is much better than the last time. It has made real progress in its crisis management," said Wu Aiming, a professor of public administration at People's University in Beijing.

In the latest anti-SARS effort, authorities in the southern province of Guangdong threatened fines of up to $12,000 for merchants who try to hide civet cats ahead of today's deadline to slaughter thousands of the animals. Many believe civets are responsible for the virus' jump to humans, though that remains unproven.

The World Health Organization suggested further tests and requested more information about the outbreak's second suspected case, a 20-year-old waitress in Guangdong.

The government's new openness isn't limited to SARS, though it may have been the impetus. The new leadership under President Hu Jintao has promised at various junctures to conduct its business more openly and protect public safety more aggressively.

The government has been unusually swift in investigating a lethal gas explosion last month and assigning blame. New regulations unveiled this month promise monthly news conferences by national and local security bureaus "to promote transparency of police affairs."

And earlier this week, the State Council, China's Cabinet, announced plans to increase the number of government spokesmen and "ease news flow."

"We hope to better address the needs of the domestic and foreign media," said Zhao Qizheng, the minister in charge of the State Council Information Office, quoted in the state-controlled newspaper China Daily. "The global demand for Chinese information has increased greatly."

The new attitude toward the press has not extended everywhere, however. Earlier this week, an editor in southern China whose newspaper broke the news of China's first new SARS case was detained and questioned by prosecutors, a human rights center reported.

Cheng Yizhong, editor-in-chief of the Southern Metropolitan Daily, was taken from his office Tuesday in the southern city of Guangzhou by three members of the municipal prosecutor's office, the Hong Kong-based Information Center for Human Rights and Democracy said. It said he was released eight hours later.

For the most part, though, officials seem less defensive as the new battle against SARS begins.

"Last year, we were at our wit's end. We didn't understand or recognize this illness. We didn't have a lot of knowledge about it, especially when it first emerged," said Tang Xiaoping, president of Guangzhou's No. 8 People's Hospital, where suspected SARS cases are transferred.

"This year," he said, "we were prepared to fight this war."