China's response to illness shows history of hiding disasters

BEIJING -- From the communists' earliest days of governing China, the axiom has been pivotal to political survival: If something doesn't look good, hide it.

So it went with the disastrous famine that followed Mao's "Great Leap Forward." So it went with earthquakes, mine floodings and accidents at illegal fireworks factories. Now, it appears to be happening with the mysterious illness that has killed at least 53 people worldwide, infected 1,400 and may be spreading.

From official announcements to coverage in state-controlled media to cooperation with other countries' health experts, government responses to the flu-like disease that struck southern China have been sluggish and at times nonexistent.

What's more, some reporters at state-controlled newspapers say they have been instructed to do no independent reporting on the sickness and to toe the line of government announcements.

"They want to focus on one point -- that the disease has been brought under control well -- and keep other details low profile to avoid public panic," said a reporter at Southern Daily, a newspaper in south China's Guangdong province. It is there where the disease began and where authorities on Wednesday reported 31 deaths -- nearly a month after the last death is said to have occurred.

The reporter, contacted by telephone Thursday, wouldn't give his name. He said newspapers had been told to keep reports brief and off the front page.

"Atypical pneumonia under control," said a headline in the Beijing Morning Post above a four-sentence report on page 9 that mentioned only the three deaths in the Chinese capital. Other newspapers had similarly brief reports or none at all. State television ignored the matter entirely.

For more than a month, the Chinese government stuck to its figure of 305 sickened and five dead from the mystery pneumonia that the World Health Organization on Wednesday linked to severe acute respiratory syndrome, or SARS.

New, higher figures

Abruptly, the newer, higher figures emerged. By Chinese standards, it was as if a stopped-up drain had been unclogged and information started flowing through.

That would fit the modus operandi of the communist government that has ruled China since 1949 -- and which named a new generation of leaders earlier this month, a politically sensitive time that coincided with the disease's spread.

The leadership would never acknowledge such a connection. But occasionally, the government statements offer insight.

"From the Chinese media, you can see that atypical pneumonia is not a very serious disease," Foreign Ministry spokesman Kong Quan said at a briefing Thursday. "Spring is," he added, "a season of respiratory disease."

In Hong Kong, which returned to Chinese rule in 1997 but still operates its own government, newspapers have plastered front pages with stories about the disease and photos of residents in surgical masks. Hong Kong has had 10 deaths.

"Shortfall of accurate news reports can easily cause public panic and other side effects," said Li Xiguang, a journalism professor at Beijing's prestigious Tsinghua University. He cited coverage of the outbreak in Guangdong as one of the "bad examples."

Another such example, even more extreme, was a 1970 earthquake in southwestern China. Beijing waited a full 30 years before disclosing the disaster killed 15,621 people.

The past two years have seen subtle changes. After an explosion in southern China's Guangxi region killed 81 tin miners in 2001, the central government invited aggressive reporting to reveal local cover-ups. Coverage got more assertive, then retreated after a few weeks.

That same year, after a schoolhouse explosion killed 42 people and police blamed an illegal fireworks operation, then-Premier Zhu Rongji warned local authorities they would be held liable for deaths.

In the case of the respiratory illness, no such high-level admonishments have been made public. And while WHO is still beseeching China to provide more information, its investigative team this week praised the government's cooperation.

In the case of the disease outbreak, the mainland has come under pointed criticism from the neighboring island of Taiwan.

"Because the mainland is not sharing information, the source of the contagion has not been clear and the period of risk for the outbreak has been lengthened," said a report from Taiwan's Mainland Affairs Council. "This hasn't helped us protect ourselves from an epidemic."

As for how mainlanders can protect themselves, Kong, the Foreign Ministry spokesman, had this to say at the briefing Thursday: Check the Chinese media.