The SARS outbreak in China is now showing signs of spreading from the cities to the countryside. The World Health Organization has sent observers to Hebei and Henan, indicating the severity of this looming crisis.
The SARS epidemic will ultimately be controlled, but its after-effects will vary depending on regional circumstances. In big cities such as Beijing and Guangzhou, where residents generally are better educated and more rational, the psychological impact of the epidemic will be more limited.
Once SARS is transmitted to the countryside, however, the public there will obviously not have the same reaction. Consequently, the possibility of the epidemic giving rise to social unrest will be greatly increased, which will constitute a new crisis. Not long ago, Chinese academic Hu An-gang (胡鞍鋼) wrote an article calling on the government to "take any and all measures" to prevent the SARS epidemic from sparking rural unrest. This shows that such fears are not groundless.
Since the SARS epidemic broke out in China, there have been repeated indications of such unrest. On April 27, 2,000 farmers on the outskirts of Tianjin vandalized a junior high school because of rumors that it was being turning into a quarantine center for SARS patients. On the same day, in Linzhou City in Henan Province, several hundred farmers destroyed a local clinic and attacked a Chinese-medicine hospital. Thirteen people were arrested.
On May 3 and May 4, after plans by the government of Yuhuan County, Zhejiang Province, to use a local dormitory as a quarantine center came to light, local farmers burst into government offices and beat up the officials involved, resulting in many arrests.
On May 8, officials in Chengde City, Hebei, admitted that their area had experienced unrest resulting from quarantine problems. According to reports by the BBC, more than 100 people participated in the disturbance and the police arrested 64.
On May 11, there were once again incidents in Tianjin. Over 300 people blocked the road leading to the planned site of a "SARS hospital."
It is worth noting that along with the development of the SARS epidemic, the problem of social discrimination has emerged with a new face. It has become a breeding ground for social unrest.
In rural China, each region has adopted an "every village for itself" method of combatting SARS. When several million laborers fled from the cities and returned to their hometowns, they faced suspicion, evasion and even hatred. Many places built temporary housing for returning laborers in the fields outside their villages and didn't permit the laborers to enter the villages. Some people were forced to return to the SARS-affected areas.
It remains to be seen what this enormous population will do when prompted by such frustrations, especially after the discrimination they have already suffered in the cities. We can be sure that this kind of repression is a sign of danger.
Once unrest occurs in the villages, it will have an enormous impact on the structure of the communist regime. Foremost among those who will find it difficult to defend their positions are President Hu Jintao (胡錦濤) and Premier Wen Jiabao (溫家寶). They must take responsibility for any political fallout. But if the Hu-Wen government breaks up, there will be a strong backlash of public opinion. It is even harder to ima-gine the fallout from such a scenario. It isn't hard to guess that the Communist Party's priority in combatting SARS has already changed from controlling the epidemic in the cities to preventing the epidemic from spreading to the rural villages.
Wang Dan was a student leader during the 1989 Tiananmen Square demonstrations.
Translated by Ethan Harkness
Concerns that the US might abandon Taiwan are often overstated. While US President Donald Trump’s handling of Ukraine raised unease in Taiwan, it is crucial to recognize that Taiwan is not Ukraine. Under Trump, the US views Ukraine largely as a European problem, whereas the Indo-Pacific region remains its primary geopolitical focus. Taipei holds immense strategic value for Washington and is unlikely to be treated as a bargaining chip in US-China relations. Trump’s vision of “making America great again” would be directly undermined by any move to abandon Taiwan. Despite the rhetoric of “America First,” the Trump administration understands the necessity of
US President Donald Trump’s challenge to domestic American economic-political priorities, and abroad to the global balance of power, are not a threat to the security of Taiwan. Trump’s success can go far to contain the real threat — the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) surge to hegemony — while offering expanded defensive opportunities for Taiwan. In a stunning affirmation of the CCP policy of “forceful reunification,” an obscene euphemism for the invasion of Taiwan and the destruction of its democracy, on March 13, 2024, the People’s Liberation Army’s (PLA) used Chinese social media platforms to show the first-time linkage of three new
If you had a vision of the future where China did not dominate the global car industry, you can kiss those dreams goodbye. That is because US President Donald Trump’s promised 25 percent tariff on auto imports takes an ax to the only bits of the emerging electric vehicle (EV) supply chain that are not already dominated by Beijing. The biggest losers when the levies take effect this week would be Japan and South Korea. They account for one-third of the cars imported into the US, and as much as two-thirds of those imported from outside North America. (Mexico and Canada, while
I have heard people equate the government’s stance on resisting forced unification with China or the conditional reinstatement of the military court system with the rise of the Nazis before World War II. The comparison is absurd. There is no meaningful parallel between the government and Nazi Germany, nor does such a mindset exist within the general public in Taiwan. It is important to remember that the German public bore some responsibility for the horrors of the Holocaust. Post-World War II Germany’s transitional justice efforts were rooted in a national reckoning and introspection. Many Jews were sent to concentration camps not
RSS