Skip to footer

A sunshine of truth in China’s health scare

Compared with its reaction in past outbreaks of disease, Beijing shows a new willingness to adopt transparency as a rule for governance – and for social stability.

|
AP
Health officials in Malaysia's international airport check arriving passengers for health conditions.
  • By the Monitor's Editorial Board

On Wednesday, the World Health Organization will weigh whether to declare a global health emergency over the rapid spread of a virus that originated in China. Compared with a similar outbreak in 2002-03, known as the SARS epidemic, this time WHO has far more information from China’s tight-lipped rulers to make its decision.

The reason? Beijing is slowly learning that transparency in governance can create a stable and safe society, not threaten it.

International health experts give cautious praise for China’s quick response to this latest outbreak, which began in early December in the central city of Wuhan. In China, too, an official commentary explains why transparency on health scares is so important:

“Only by making information public can [we] reduce fear,” it said. “People don’t live in a vacuum and [we] will only provide a breeding ground for rumors to grow if we keep them in the dark and strip them of their right to [know] the truth.”

During the SARS epidemic, authorities hid the victims and denied the spread of the virus for months. Nearly 800 people died in a number of countries while the international scare slowed Asia’s economy. The loss of trust in China’s ruling Communist Party led it to rethink the secrecy that pervades official information, a result of the party’s own fears for its survival.

That struggle for openness continues. Under the personality cult that has developed around President Xi Jinping since 2012, China lacks the normal tools of democracy to hold the party accountable. Changes in governance are often forced on it by the rest of the world, such as in improving the accuracy of financial data or the independence of patent-court judges.

As China becomes even more reliant on the judgment of other nations – such as in its infrastructure investments – its leaders will realize transparency in governance is its own form of power. During a health crisis, openness acts like sunshine, offering reassurance and allowing swifter solutions.

The elements of democracy are not a luxury. They also help cure what ails society.

You've read  of  free articles. Subscribe to continue.
Real news can be honest, hopeful, credible, constructive.
What is the Monitor difference? Tackling the tough headlines – with humanity. Listening to sources – with respect. Seeing the story that others are missing by reporting what so often gets overlooked: the values that connect us. That’s Monitor reporting – news that changes how you see the world.
editor@csmonitor.com
Subscribe
Mark Sappenfield
Editor

Dear Reader,

About a year ago, I happened upon this statement about the Monitor in the Harvard Business Review – under the charming heading of “do things that don’t interest you”:

“Many things that end up” being meaningful, writes social scientist Joseph Grenny, “have come from conference workshops, articles, or online videos that began as a chore and ended with an insight. My work in Kenya, for example, was heavily influenced by a Christian Science Monitor article I had forced myself to read 10 years earlier. Sometimes, we call things ‘boring’ simply because they lie outside the box we are currently in.”

If you were to come up with a punchline to a joke about the Monitor, that would probably be it. We’re seen as being global, fair, insightful, and perhaps a bit too earnest. We’re the bran muffin of journalism.

But you know what? We change lives. And I’m going to argue that we change lives precisely because we force open that too-small box that most human beings think they live in.

The Monitor is a peculiar little publication that’s hard for the world to figure out. We’re run by a church, but we’re not only for church members and we’re not about converting people. We’re known as being fair even as the world becomes as polarized as at any time since the newspaper’s founding in 1908.

We have a mission beyond circulation, we want to bridge divides. We’re about kicking down the door of thought everywhere and saying, “You are bigger and more capable than you realize. And we can prove it.”

If you’re looking for bran muffin journalism, you can subscribe to the Monitor for $15. You’ll get the Monitor Weekly magazine, the Monitor Daily email, and unlimited access to CSMonitor.com.

Subscribe to insightful journalism

QR Code to A sunshine of truth in China’s health scare
Read this article in
https://www.csmonitor.com/Commentary/the-monitors-view/2020/0121/A-sunshine-of-truth-in-China-s-health-scare
QR Code to Subscription page
Start your subscription today
https://www.csmonitor.com/subscribe