Either for us or against us: When politics and pandemics meet

By Chris Cottorone

The 2019 novel coronavirus (“2019-nCoV”) which was first uncovered in Wuhan City of Hubei province, China has so far claimed 304 lives in China and infected another nearly 14,380 as of February 1st. It is estimated to have begun being noticed in either late November or early December, with Chinese health officials since January having taken more aggressive measures to control its outbreak.

Those are facts as reported by health officials such as those from the World Health Organization. The WHO, for its part, last week on January 30th determined that the outbreak poses a global health emergency.

More recently, a wave of posts and commentary at LinkedIn have criticized media reports that either tried to portray the virus as being more serious than previous epidemics, depicted the virus as being linked with “China”, including the government or its people, too closely, or for not having pointed out that other viral epidemics such as the swine flu outbreak in 2009 in the United States actually killed many more times the number of people (over 11,000 died during that tragedy). Some have even opposed putting the name "coronavirus" too close to the words "Wuhan" or "China," amid their concerns that China is getting unfairly blamed for the outbreak of the virus.

Criticism is always fair to raise, as are calls for trying to calm a frightened public down. Of course, it is best if certified health professionals are doing the soothing rather than those who may have business in China or are simply unhappy that their personal affiliation with China, whether it be culturally or professionally, is now in question, fairly or unfairly. It is a free world, however – or at least it is outside of China in terms of speech – so it would be wrong to censor their comments or criticism.

Indeed, a few of them have raised both important and helpful points, and any forms of racism or prejudice out to be as aggressively fought back against as any deadly virus. As Taiwan's Centers for Disease Control itself noted on February 2nd, the H1N1 flu virus killed 13 people in Taiwan in the past week alone, with 116,705 people seeking treatment during the same time, and thus poses a greater threat to the public here than the 2019 novel coronavirus. In addition, the center noted that from October 1, 2019 through January 25th this year - or about nearly the same amount of time the coronavirus likely has been around - there were 771 serious infections mainly caused by the HIN1 virus in Taiwan, including 56 flu-related deaths. This is compared with 10 cases locally of the coronavirus and no deaths.

Even better, it would be preferable if the calls for a reduced level of alarm or a comparison of how bad this virus is compared to previous pandemics occurs later, when the virus actually has run its course and people are no longer in danger. There is still we do not know about the 2019 novel coronavirus, how it began, how contagious it is and how to contain its transmission. This much even health professionals have admitted.

Perhaps – and every human on the planet – should be hoping the number of deaths and infections either end immediately or begin to decline rapidly, soon. Being here in the Greater China region in Taiwan, with many people from the local and foreign population having traveled to and from China during the period of the outbreak, safety and caution are important responses at this point. The same can be said for China, as shown by Beijing’s aggressive measures to contain the virus via quarantines and halting of movement by tens of millions of its citizens. Other governments which have reported cases in their countries are also banning travel. As public officials, it is doubtful they are doing it for political or racially motivated reason rather than for precautionary reasons.

However, unlike in China, where officials have much greater power on how much they do not want to listen to citizens’ complaints, elected officials in liberal democracies err on the side of the public, who have the power to either keep them in power or remove them come next election cycle. Perhaps that means an uninformed mob can dictate to officials what to do at times, but unless laws are enacted to prevent those officials from ever running again, those same cautious and sensitive-to-public-opinion officials have every right and even motivation to speak the truth, in an attempt to educate those uninformed mobs.

Nothing to see here... move along

With that, those who are urging the public via "whataboutism" or other methods to take it easy and that “there is nothing to see here…move along,” would do well to show the kind of balance in their criticism of the media that they themselves are saying is biased, prejudiced, racist or one-sided. A few obvious scenarios will come from this outbreak, and any intelligent person should be able to immediately recognize them.

One likely scenario is that the epidemic will get worse at the pace it has for a while longer before health authorities’ actions began to successful combat the virus and contain it. Another is that the number of infections has already peaked and we will thankfully see increasingly smaller numbers of deaths and infections. Another, unfortunately more ominous scenario, would be the world finding out that Beijing and local authorities in China having been putting the safety of the party or the sanctity of Xi Jinping Thought above the safety of their citizens’ health, and that the scope of the virus is much worse than we originally feared.

Those more positive scenarios of a quick end to the spread of the virus hopefully will see people react with relief and even thanks to those who warned the "chicken littles" that the sky was not falling. Panic and pandemics should be both equally feared and combated, so hopefully the criticism of the media that at times has much to gain from taking small problems and blowing them out of proportion will prove wise and correct. For now and from what we hear many health professionals saying, this outbreak does not involve a virus which is as highly contagious as some of its predecessors. Let’s hope they are right.

Conversely, if the spread of the virus is in fact in the early stages and much more suffering lay ahead, those offering figures of previous pandemics as a way to deflect the conversation and debate away from the coronavirus and Beijing’s possible role in worsening it at the start will and should face some tough questions.

When politics impact possible pandemics

This divergence of outcomes can be attributed to the way politics in China are conducted rather than the way they are conducted in liberal democracies. In the former, with only one party which seeks to maintain both unchallenged power and ways to contain those who do disagree with it, nearly all events and problems create a situation whereby you are either for the government or against the government. This often transcends down to nearly every aspect of society.

Others have already started to point out that the outbreak of the virus in China has threatened not only the people’s health there, but the power of Xi Jinping, who since taking office in 2013 has aggressively sought to centralize his power.

The problem is, of course, that Xi cannot own all the successes and so easily distance himself from all the failures, particularly in natural events such as diseases or natural disasters. When such a dilemma occurs, we then see the debate switch from focusing on the problem at hand to how people should discuss the problem at hand. Again, either you are with Xi or against Xi. Unfortunately, Xi as well as the Chinese Communist Party that he now nearly completely controls and intends to for life has vast experience in how to deal with those who are against it, accumulated over years of the party being in unchallenged power since 1949.

One can compare that form of one-sided approach to those where officials may have less power but also less responsibility. That responsibility does not merely disappear and create a society wherein no one is responsible, however; it instead means that responsibility is shared by the leaders and the public, in varying amounts, depending on how strong or weak the government is.

Having been born and raised in a liberal democracy, the United States, and having lived for many years in Taiwan, which was once a one-party state when I first arrived but now is a liberal democracy, as well as having lived in and studied China, which still is a one-party state, I have always noticed how problems are handled differently by the former two societies as compared to the latter one. In liberal democratic societies, one party – often the one that was not in charge of everything when the problem first arose - blames its political opponents that were in charge, followed by those in power either admitting the mistakes (which is admittedly, of course, a rare thing), trying to downplay the criticism, or themselves launching criticism toward their accusers and arguing their approach was still better than that of the people who criticize them. Then, the people are free to decide who is more believable, with their decisions often shown in the next election. Former U.S. President George W. Bush saw this clearly in terms of how leaders handle natural disasters when voters went to the polls in 2006, a year after his administration’s poor handling of the Hurricane Katrina disaster in the southeastern region of the United States.The voters held Bush and his Republican party accountable, amid a landslide victory by the Democrats in Congress.

In one-party states, however, when problems arise, the path is often even more predictable as well as equally disadvantageous for their citizens. Here, the party in power will often first try to contain the information on the scope or seriousness of the problem. As we have seen, however, this may actually lead to the problem worsening as officials in power spend their time attacking the flow of information and those who try to share it, rather than the problem itself. Then, if the problem is not so easily controlled, the government will start to place blame, more often on those it can blame without much blowback – namely, those out of power – and then those within the government who are unfortunately lower on the power totem pole. Only when the problem is so serious that the government is itself unable to control the threat to its power do the people controlling all the shots within the party face the music. Then, those powerful elites who carefully remain behind the scenes make their presence felt, with a leader being deposed. This is followed by the "opposition" within the party replacing a deposed strongman, thankfully albeit undemocratically.

For China, however, that final reality is increasingly a threat to not just the around-18 percent of the world’s population that is contained under one governmental roof in China, but to much of the rest of the world to which China opened its doors, factories, labor force and investment. Here, we see this clearly as the government in China surprisingly has allies helping save the party’s “face” by pointing out that the swine flu a decade ago killed many more times the number of people than the coronavirus has so far. That is all true, but how that will help those families who have lost loved ones already in this epidemic or how it will help the world not suffer from a possibly worse spread is unclear. What is clear is attempts to take the pressure off of Beijing, at least for a period of time.

Safety first and hopes for a quick end to the spread of this virus

We will simply have to wait and see how this outbreak develops. It is fair to call out those who make matters worse by uttering or printing statements which are flat out false, racist or biased. Natural disasters are made worse by such comments that often lead to panic instead of understanding. It would, of course, be better to make some sort of attempt to discern those sources, for while some publications do carry weight in the minds of the public, not all publications are considered part of the mainstream and therefore their biased commentary is more easily discredited by observers. And yet, while it is true that at times the rantings of a racist wind up winning over public opinion, often such ability occurs in environments where there is a lack of open and free discussion. As we can see in such open societies, many a raving madman can be quickly repudiated by those who vehemently disagree with the ideological filth he is trying to sell.

Instead, caution and a focus on the problem at hand is the far better approach rather than politicizing it, particularly if that attempted politicalization is to assist those in power from deservedly facing the music or even to assist one’s own commercial success from not getting interrupted.

In the world of investment, it is expected that one airing their views or opinions first come out with a statement of “full disclosure” that reveals how they benefit from others buying into (sometimes, literally) their comments or advice. For myself, I will openly state to gain little from China’s markets, including its success or woes. Taiwan is close enough to both benefit as well as get hurt by positive and negative events in China, in any case. I do, however, as an American and with Taiwan nationals as family, have a vested interest in the flourishing of democracy, the support of freedom of speech and religion, a greater respect for the rule of law, a greater respect for human rights and reduced tensions between China and Taiwan. For that reason, I am able to both hope for a quick end to the spread of the 2019 novel coronavirus, as well as hope that China and its people suffer no more pain from it. Their pain will at some point be felt here in Taiwan. It would, of course, be better if the causes of those problems, such as undemocratic rule and a lack of free speech via governmental intimidation, were resolved in China. This would be, I am confident, best not just for the people of China but the world which can benefit from a more liberalized and open China.

Of course, those in the investment field also understand well the dangers of buying into one view too much without openly considering the views of contrarians. As I have often said here and elsewhere, on my first day of work in the field of investment after moving from the technology field and completing my MBA over a decade ago, my colleague who was a long-time financial industry professional advised me to listen to all views before making a decision. As he warned, “When everyone stands on one side of the boat, the boat tips over.” Most investment professionals - as well as investors - should hopefully be carefully reading the news before they are selling or buying shares of sanitary mask makers, airlines, or firms with factories in China, among other firms or sectors that are possibly to be impacted by the spread or containment of the coronavirus. Those who do not invest apparently are freer to make "definite" statements on what "will" happen as their comments may not immediately result in them suffering a potential loss of investment or a missed investment opportunity should things suddenly go wrong or right.

Finally, the efforts by those who complain against racism and bigotry should be appreciated. In my own case, as a Caucasian, Westerner living in the Greater China region for much of the past 32 years, I can affirm that it is incorrect to assume that people from the West are put on pedestals all the time and have some sort of “VIP pass” to wielding unlimited power in the society or field of business here. Chinese society is rich in culture, extremely well-developed and has existed for centuries. Moreover, as proud authorities on both sides of the Taiwan Strait will remind people (more often in China than in Taiwan, of course), the West (and Japan, which they sometimes forget to point out) inflicted serious humiliation on the people of China for a century. That does not always lend to a sense of awe and respect by the local population toward Westerners like myself. I have had shopkeepers refuse to put the money in my hand and instead throw it (literally) on the counter, doctors remind me that AIDS spread in the West before "invading" China and Taiwan, and even family members who teasingly point out that animals and Westerners both have much more hair on their bodies than the average person in Asia (I wish this was a trait that would continue at least for the tops of our heads once middle age sets in, of course). I have a good if not complete sense of the kinds of racism and prejudice that peoples of color receive from white Westerners around the world. It is sheer ignorance and a fair degree of hate (created, again, by ignorance) that spurs such racism, and all human beings must work together to end it, for our children and future generations of human beings.

In conclusion, it would of course be good to remember that historical circumstances change over the years, and those who were once the abused have at some point become the abusers simply due to the arrival of good fortune or the efforts of their own society as well as the help of others. As it is often said, what goes around comes around. With that understanding, we all are capable of committing such bigotry at times, either now or later. It is therefore best to combat it not just in others but in oneself as well. Diseases such as this remind us of how human we all are. 

References:

Wang, Flor. "H1N1 flu virus kills 13 people in Taiwan in one week," FocusTaiwan. February 2, 2020.

Nakazawa, Katsuji. “Xi's one-man rule hamstrings coronavirus response,” Nikkei Asian Review. January 30, 2020.