2020-04-04 The Week Magazine

Best columns: International NEWS 15

CHINA

PHILIPPINES

When China put Wuhan’s 11 million residents

under strict quarantine to contain the spread of the

new coronavirus, the West was aghast, said Wang

Guan. Western commentators called the measures

“draconian,” “authoritarian,” and “a violation of

human rights.” Fast-forward a few short weeks,

and Italy has put its entire country on lockdown,

forcing people to remain in their towns and con-

fining many to their homes. Was Italy similarly

criticized? No, it was praised as having taken the

drastic steps necessary to protect its people. The

New York Times, for example, said the Wuhan

lockdown came at great cost to “people’s liveli-

hoods and personal liberties.” But the same news-

paper saw nothing menacing in Italy’s more severe

restrictions, calling them an effort to “contain

Europe’s worst coronavirus outbreak.” The fact is,

the measures that China took early on to halt the

spread worked. “New cases in China have declined

dramatically.” Now other countries are trying

to emulate the Chinese model, only too late and

without giving China credit. U.S. officials are even

trying to blame China for their sick citizens by re-

ferring to the “Wuhan virus.” It’s not China’s fault

that America has been unable to organize a “coor-

dinated national response” as effective as ours.

As the coronavirus threatens to become a “public

health emergency,” many Filipinos still lack ac-

cess to basic sanitation, said Cielito Habito. While

nearly 9 in 10 Filipino families have a cellphone,

only 3 in 4 have access to their own sanitary toi-

let. Among the poorest of us, the figure is barely

1 in 2. The coronavirus can spread through fecal

matter as well as by airborne droplets, so it’s im-

portant that all of us have good toilet hygiene. But

some 6 million Filipinos in rural areas defecate

“in open fields and waterways,” which contami-

nates the water and makes children more prone

to diarrhea and infections. That leaves the whole

population more prone to sickness. The govern-
ment has tried giving out toilets, with the idea that
the residents would dig their own septic tanks.
But I’ve visited rural homes only to see “a toilet
bowl on the wall hanging like a vase, adorned
with flowers.” The Manila Water Foundation has
found that to make sure the toilets are put to use,
you have to educate the locals on groundwater
contamination and how it affects their children,
and then leave an observer present while recipients
dig their tanks. It’s “hard to change” the cultural
habit of going outside—but if we are to combat
Ne disease, we’ll have to.

ws

co
m

Western

hypocrisy

on lockdowns

Wang Guan

CGTN.com

What if

you can’t wash

your hands?

Cielito Habito

Philippine Daily Inquirer

In times of international crisis, the

world used to be able to look to the

U.S. for leadership, said Matthew

Fisher in Canada’s GlobalNews.ca.

But as the coronavirus pandemic rages,

U.S. President Donald Trump has

made clear that he’d rather build a wall

around America than cooperate with

any other country. Trump first treated

the outbreak as a hoax, then declared

a national emergency and barred most

Europeans from flying to the U.S.;

America’s European allies were given

no notice of the ban. And instead of

expressing sympathy for the Italians,

French, and Britons dying of the illness, Trump boasted that if Eu-

rope had implemented a similarly tough travel ban “it would not

have replaced China as the new epicenter for the disease.” No one

has stepped up to fill the leadership void. Russian President Vladi-

mir Putin has used the crisis to launch an oil-price war with Saudi

Arabia, hoping to “depress the price of oil enough that the U.S.

fracking business goes bankrupt.” Chinese President Xi Jinping

“has behaved no better.” He initially hid the virus from his citi-

zens and the world, allowing it to spread like wildfire. Yet Xi now

claims that China’s authoritarian system saved the planet, because

it was able to enforce a quarantine on tens of millions of people.

Actually, Beijing’s response to this calamity “is giving hope to

humanity,” said Peter Kagwanja in the Daily Nation (Kenya).

After rising “from the ashes of Covid-19 like the proverbial

phoenix,” China is now using “its spectacular success in rolling

back the virus to project its soft power globally.” Xi has pledged

$20 million to help the World Health

Organization improve public health

systems in poor countries, and is

sending doctors and medical equip-

ment to hard-hit Italy. Contrast this

generosity with the selfishness of

President Trump, who tried to cut

funding for international pandemic

prevention efforts and who weeks

ago “portrayed the outbreak as good

for America”— claiming it would

make Americans spend their dollars

at home rather than abroad.

What we need now is an “interna-

tionally coordinated medical project, equivalent to the wartime

Manhattan Project,” that can mobilize global resources in the hunt

for a vaccine and a cure, said former British Prime Minister Gor-

don Brown in The Guardian (U.K.). “An ideology of ‘everyone

for himself’ will not work when the health of each of us depends

so unavoidably on the health of all of us.” That would require

China and the U.S. to end their “belligerent superpower wran-

gling,” said Shi Jiangtao in the Hong Kong–based South China

Morning Post (China). Beijing is furious that the U.S. quickly

imposed a travel ban on China, and it’s now floating rumors that

the virus originated in America, not China. Meanwhile, the U.S.

is moving against China on all fronts: Its import tariffs remain in

place; American allies are being pressured to boycott Chinese tele-

com giant Huawei; and the U.S. Navy is increasing its maneuvers

in the South China Sea. Given such “soaring antagonism and a

widening trust deficit,” it’s unlikely that Beijing and Washington

will find a way to cooperate—even to combat a global pandemic.

How they see us: China steps up as U.S. steps back

President Xi: Wielding soft power