SARS wars: how a deadly disease is helping Chinese journalists fight Party censors

Washington Monthly, June, 2003 by Tad Fallows

NOWHERE IS THE EFFECT OF THE SARS epidemic more apparent than in Beijing. And nowhere in Beijing is it more strikingly evident than in the city's bustling public transportation system. When I first arrived in early April, I moved into an apartment conveniently situated along Municipal Bus Line 10. What I hadn't counted on was quite how many of my 14 million fellow residents I'd have to compete with. Thanks to an automobile tax that doubles the price of cars, public transportation literally overflows with humanity. I was nearly late to my first day of work at a Beijing news magazine, as bus after jam-packed bus rolled past my departure queue. Several days later, I wandered through some of Beijing's old Hutong neighborhoods, brimming with pride at having mastered the system well enough to get home--until three buses came and went, each so flail I couldn't squeeze through the doors. Eventually, I gave in and hailed a taxi.

But all that changed after SARS. My first inkling of the coming panic came a week later when, at a World Health Organization press briefing about the situation in faraway Guandong Province, a German reporter, like the soothsayer in Julius Caesar, suddenly began screaming, "I thought you were doctors and not diplomats! Why don't you tell us the government is still lying about Beijing?" My fellow reporters largely ignored him. But over the next several weeks, rumors of a cover-up became more common, and as they did, the city gradually shut down. Suddenly there was no wait for a table at a popular teahouse. Then food deliveries started arriving at my office, to prevent any lunchtime exposure. Each day something else closed: schools, movie theaters, Internet cafes, barbershops, the Forbidden City. Rather than panic, people watched the energy gradually drain from the city.

For me, this process culminated one day in early May; when I descended into the Dongsi Shitiao subway station at 9:30 p.m.--and found myself completely alone. The newspaper girls had departed days earlier. And when I boarded a train, I encountered just two other passengers.

At the time, SARS had infected barely 1500 people and caused fewer than 100 deaths in Beijing; tragic, certainly, but not enough to singlehandedly shutter a city of 14 million. What prompted the alarm was ignorance stemming directly from government censorship and misinformation. As rumors leaked out of military hospitals, it became increasingly clear that the authorities were lying. But no one had any way of gauging which information was reliable.

About a week before my solo subway trip, Communist Party leaders fired Beijing's mayor and the nation's health minister and began giving out relatively accurate infection figures. Its new policy of openness and press freedom about SARS eventually recovered some of the government's lost credibility. As a result, the crowds started returning to the streets. For the first time in a month, I had to share a bench on the subway.

Chinas handling of SARS has sparked an interesting debate among Western observers. Optimists, such as the authors of a recent Economist cover story on China, believe the episode heralds a new openness that they compare to the great change in the Soviet Union in the late 1980s. Pessimists counter that, in fact, SARS provides yet another excuse for the Communist Party to clamp down, as it has done by quarantining large numbers of people. From my vantage point as a reporter for one of China's leading independent magazines, I believe both sides misunderstand the nature of Chinese censorship, and with it, the likely impact of SARS. While widespread censorship still obtains, the situation here is not nearly so dear-cut--and there is reason for cautious optimism.

Free lee Cubes

When SARS was first making news in Guangdong and Hong Kong, Caijing Magazine, where I work, was virtually the only publication outside the affected provinces to cover it. The rest of the Beijing press was waiting for the government to declare its position. As soon as the party decided on a policy of transparency, China was deluged with coverage--so much so that my magazine switched from a biweekly to a weekly schedule to keep up. As recent headlines attest, even state-run media are being allowed to cover SARS openly and accurately. "SARS Situation Remains Severe," blared the May 2 headline of the state-controlled Beijing Today, which went on to report that "a shortage of beds in designated hospitals is preventing full-scale and timely quarantine of suspect patients." An editorial in the government-run China Daily stated bluntly, "China should attach more importance to its public health care system, the weaknesses of which were highlighted by the [disease's] outbreak" My editor pointed out to me a series of investigative reports in the China Youth Daily from within the SARS wards, and a candid interview on state-run television in which Beijing's acting mayor expressed deep concerns about the future, as examples of the kind of journalism that hadn't existed in China just a month before.