Good blogging requires lots of surfing, reading, absorbing, rejecting, questioning, checking, picking, choosing and responding, and right now, in my smoky Internet cafe in Guilin, a spectacularly beautiful gem hidden away in Guanxi Province, south China, I can't do much of any of those things. So please bear with me as this blog continues its holding pattern. The most I can do for now is offer some observations as I travel through the country on my way to Singapore, my new home.

Last night I saw yet another dimension to the evils of China's censorship machine. I was watching CNN in my hotel when a guest was introduced to discuss how China's lies about SARS in Beijing were damaging the nation's political system. This sounded interesting and I sat up to listen. Suddenly, to my utter amazement, the screen went black. It stayed black for about ten minutes with no sound. Then, just as suddenly, the picture and sound came back, just in time for me to hear the announcer thanking the speaker for his time. China is still obsessed with censoring the news and will go to any lengths to keep people in the dark about its crimes, whether we're talking about Tiananmen Square or SARS.

For anyone who wants to believe that China has actually learned from its experience of the past few weeks, for anyone who wants to believe China now understands how dangerous it is to smother the voices of others and suppress information -- I invite you to come to China and see what it is really like. I have tried to give them every benefit of the doubt, and still they emerge as paranoid thugs whose automatic response to criticism and/or scrutiny is to stifle it.

I won't go into this topic any more, as I am on vacation and want to keep my blood pressure at a safe level. All I can say is that any changes the government is attempting to demonstrate, any new-found spirit of 'glasnost," is strictly cosmetic. Same old brutes, same old party.

I am in Xi'An now. Due to impossibly slow Internet connections and other headaches I will be posting infrequently for at least the next few days.

Leaving Beijing two days ago was like an escape, as though I were climbing over the Berlin Wall. I can't go into all the frustrations and agonies of my last couple of days there. I'll try to get back to this soon, but chances are there will be no opportunity until Wednesday. Thanks.

For the past 8 months I have tried to tell readers about Beijing the way I see it. There's no way I could just end all of that and not feel some nostalgia, some sense of loss, some poignant emotions. But I would be lying if I said I wasn't also relieved. Beijing is not an easy place to live during the very best of times. But during a veritable panic, when the city seems to hover on the brink of total breakdown, closing its schools and businesses and hospitals....during a time like this, it's hard not to feel as though you are being slow-roasted on a spit. With the flames being turned slowly but continuously higher and higher.

Today I oversaw the movers as they carted away my things, and tomorrow I am off to Xi'An, Yunnan (Dali, Kunming, Shangrila, Li Jian). Guilin and Hangzhou, then off to Singapore via Shanghai and Hong Kong (yes, I am actually going to HK to see old friends and pick up some belongings).

For those of you who have come to read more about SARS in Beijing, I might disappoint you tonight. My brain is too fried, and I'm too busy to keep up with it. Let me just say that tonight it seemed as though Beijing has become resigned to its plight. The mood everywhere seemed subdued, almost reticent, philosophical. (Although this, of course, may have been merely a reflection of my own mood.) The long lines at grocery stores are over, the palpable sense of fear has melted into one of acceptance. It's still a sad city, under enormous strain, but it appears at least to be coming to grips with the nightmare.

I finally went to the Great Wall today for the first time. Gorgeous, of course, but my friend and I had it all to ourselves, just as we had the Forbidden City yesterday. Tourists are nonexistent, and you can cry looking at the desperate shopkeepers whose fates are tied to the traffic to Beijing's tourist attractions. Yes, it's a sad, sad city, and I can't say I am sorry to be leaving now. Sure. I will miss the excitement of knowing I was helping to provide breaking news to readers thousands of miles away about one of the scariest stories since 9/11. But it's definitely time to move on.

I'll probably post for the very last time from Beijing tomorrow morning, provided my Internet connection is working. (It is down about 40 percent of the time.) In any case, thanks for adding an incredible new dimension to my life by coming here, and I hope I was able to shed just a bit of light into a country that still, for all the propaganda, thrives on keeping its people in the dark.

I know I will never, ever have an opportunity that can approach the one I had here. China, for all of your harshness, your inscrutable ways and your daily hardships, I can't say that I do not love you. I will certainly never, ever forget you, and I thank you for making me a more tolerant and knowledgeable person. Thank you, and goodbye for now.

One writer tells me the posts from the SARS bloggers are becoming predictable and redundant, and I'd probably agree (at least about my own blog). Still, I think there are enough nuances to make it worthwhile to tell how the SARS phenomenon is affecting life here. The first story on the news this morning (it's approaching 8am China time) was "Officials confirm martial law will not be imposed on Beijing." That's good news. The remarkable thing is seeing how anouncements like this are actually soothing, as opposed to bizarre -- the city is at a point where the announcer could take the "not" out of that sentence and no one would be surprised. Shocked, upset, furious, but not really surprised.

I have very little to say about SARS itself; other bloggers can do that a lot better. What to me is blogworthy is the effect it's having on the people and the way of life in Beijing, which was a relatively complacent city just two weeks ago. I have learned volumes about the Chinese people and their government; I have seen first-hand just how weak the government's platform is, supported almost entirely with propaganda and brute force. And now, the propaganda is irreparably weakened; no one believes a thing they hear at the moment, and thus the never-ending wave of rumors.

My own opinion is that this panic is irrational beyond words. The hysteria is absurd, as are the witch-doctor remedies people are racing to buy. It's a case study of panic and, in some cases, stupidity. I want to flee Beijing not because of SARS but because of this hysteria, which has made life here painfully difficult and nerve-wracking. OK. the movers come in 30 minutes and they'll be pissed if I'm sitting here blogging....

Ominous post from The Gweilo is a must-read for anyone wanting to believe that the Chinese Communist Party may have actually learned anything from its bungling of the SARS disaster. Apparently they haven't. Sigh.

A new article in the Times captures the current mood of China's capital city:

China carried out a sweeping quarantine today of thousands of Beijing residents who have had contact with suspected carriers of a highly infectious respiratory illness, as the Communist government began a resolute campaign to combat a national health crisis.

Authorities wrapped white-and-yellow crime-scene tape around a city block in northwestern Beijing, sealing more than 2,000 health workers and patients inside the Beijing University People's Hospital complex. Medical personnel there said by telephone that more than 70 staff members were suspected of having severe acute respiratory illness, or SARS, forcing the isolation of the facility.

Two of the city's major hospitals have been closed and sealed off, and one can only wonder where this will end. I don't believe I could exagerrate the craziness of Beijing at the moment if I wanted to. The CCTV announcer assured us in calming words that the city will not be blockaded and people will be free to travel in and out. But the very fact that a good number of the citizens here believe such steps really might be imminent says much about the current misery.

While observing all of this is, as I've said before, fascinating and amazing, it's impossible not to be depressed and frightened as well. I am scheduled to fly to Yunnan in 48 hours. How will I be greeted there? I just read (sorry, I didn't keep the link) that Hangzhou is holding passengers arriving from Beijing in isolation for two weeks. What if Yunnan decides to do the same? I know at a moment like this such thinking may sound selfish, but I have waited for this trip for more than six months, to meet my closest friend and enjoy nearly three entire weeks together touring some of the most beautiful places on the planet....Now I'm just wondering how we're going to cope with all the stress brought on by SARS.

We went to the Forbidden City and Tiananmen Square today, and had them all to ourselves. Hawkers looking dazed and desperate ran up to us literally begging us to buy their tourbooks and trinkets. This is all they have, it's their life. What if this nightmare just goes on and on?

Tomorrow will be my last day in Beijing. The movers come in the morning to take my stuff to Singapore, we head off on our great adventure Sunday morning, and I will only be able to post sporadically at best. Meanwhile, I just want to say thanks to everyone who's come by. This site started as a naval-gazing exercize, mainly a personal journal, then it became more political and China-focused, and over the past few weeks, incredibly, it got cited in the UK Guardian (along with my blog buddies SARS Watch, bwg and Flying Chair). Suddenly the tiny trickle of onlookers swelled into a flood, at least for the past few days. I guess there aren't many bloggers here in Beijing, and I am lucky (if that's the right word) to be able to help offer an insider's view of what's going on in this madhouse. I'm afraid these posts from Beijing will soon dry up, but I'll still report on what's going on in the rest of China whenever I have the chance.

Last night when I went to pick up my friend at the Beijing Airport, three taxis in a row turned me down, which is unheard of. Usually they are ecstatic to get a long ride like that. I was utterly confused. Finally, a driver agred to take me there, and it all became clear: There was a veritable sea of taxis waiting in endless lines for passengers back to the city. In other words, lots of people are leaving the city and precious few are arriving.

I stood in the airport lobby in mild shock: There was almost no one there, maybe 8 or 9 sitting by the arrivals door, no one in the halls. What is usually a circus was an empty field. My friend arrived and told me there were fewer than 30 passengrs on his flight from Tokyo.

I have to be really quick. I am gone from work and now on vacation, so I will have few opportunities to post. I'll keep trying, at least once a day, but no promises -- almost all the Internet cafes in Beijing are closed down. Later tonight I'll be back....

Okay, what's next? From AP:

BEIJING - China shut down a major hospital in Beijing and put more than 2,000 employees under observation for severe acute respiratory syndrome Thursday, as Hong Kong health experts said the disease may be even deadlier than originally thought.

I mean, are we ever going to get a break? Will we ever see a positive headline? Beijing is a city under siege and it can only be battered so many times in a day....

Thanks to Conrad, here's a link to the scariest article I've seen on SARS yet, echoing Andrew Sullivan's prophetic fears of AIDS and SARS working in tandem to devastate the poorer parts of Asia.

I have no choice, I have to quote a healthy chunk:

If just one person infected with SARS is on any of the countless trains now leaving Beijing, these trains could significantly increase the speed of the spread of SARS throughout China's interior. The tragic irony of this exodus is that everyone leaving Beijing hopes to avoid getting SARS there, but they will in all likelihood contract and spread it throughout the country, to strangers, friends and family. Which brings us back to HIV/AIDS.

It seems apparent from the government's reaction to either epidemic that the economy is its top priority. Therefore it is reasonable to conclude that Beijing will do little to protect China's impoverished hinterland. This makes it quite plausible that SARS could kill tens or hundreds of thousands of people in China alone.

So this is the one week of my entire life that I have designated for travel through China's remote hinterlands. Can you believe it? Can you fucking believe it?

Utter panic erupted in my own office today when the property manager called to announce that a worker in our office complex has been diagnosed with SARS. There are several towers in the complex, all connected, and the SARS patient doesn't work in our tower. But mighty close.

The management has put up signs in the lobby with this information and is recommending companies let workers leave early today. Now nearly everyone is wearing a mask. There is only one topic in Beijing.

For months and months I have been planning my scheduled trip to South China, with tickets to fly out of Beijing on Sunday. Now I am utterly terrified and depressed. I told my best friend there was nothing to worry about and he is in transit this instant, scheduled to arrive here at 9 pm. I honestly believed it was safe, but now it doesn't seem possible to be so sure.

The panic is palpable. My colleagues are so on edge. Today they all took me out to lunch to say their goodbyes, and when we arrived at the restaurant it was -- yes -- closed because of we-all-know-what. We went to a nearby Japanese place (food was wretched) and we all sat there kind of morosely, trying to chit chat, but everyone was obviously wrapped in his/her own thoughts. It was literally on our way out the door to lunch that we received the news about the SARS case in the building, and it added a new dimension to the whole drama, driving it home.

I was loooking forward to travelling around Beijing with my friend, going to the Great Wall, the Forbidden City, the neat restaurants I've found. Now I have only one desire: to get out of Beijing as fast as I can.

This sums up tidily the heinousness of the coverup:

Until Saturday, China's government reported only 37 cases of SARS in the capital. On Saturday, that number increased tenfold. Today, the government listed the toll in Beijing at 693 infected and 35 dead.

A friend called me last night from the supermarket and told me there was a 90-minute wait on the cashier lines. People are stocking up on packaged/canned food as they fear businesses in Beijing will close down because of SARS. I went to a popular restaurant last night for dinner last night and it was closed. SARS. This morning as I rode to work I saw an immense line circling down the street and around the corner. The people were queued up to get into a shop that sells medical clothing -- gowns, gloves, caps and, of course, a variety of surgical masks. It's good to see that somebody's profitting from this insanity.

The NY Times has its most ominous article yet about the unreal situation here:

BEIJING, April 23 — Reported cases of a new respiratory disease in Beijing surged by 105 new cases today, bringing the total to 693, as the threat of deadly infection suddenly became the main topic of conversation in this metropolis of 14 million.

Health experts warned that hundreds more cases of severe acute respiratory syndrome appeared inevitable as the government belatedly struggles to contain an epidemic it had tried to conceal until several days ago.

This is followed by the quote of the day:

"Beijing lost the entire month of March in the fight against SARS, and now this is the consequence," said Henk Bekedam, chief of the World Health Organization office here.

Today's my last day at work in Beijing. I can now claim that I was present when China got turned upside down.

This comment is from early in the week and somehow I missed it.

SARS is obviously a huge worry. But it still makes sense to recall that many more people have died of the flu recently than of SARS - and almost certainly will do in the coming months. But what does worry me is the possibility of a combined SARS and HIV epidemic across the developing world. People with weaker immune systems, as Luc Montagnier has just pointed out, are far more vulnerable to viruses like SARS. Healthy HIV-positive people in the West might do okay (fingers crossed), but the death-rates in Africa or Southeast Asia could surely soar from the double-whammy.

Andrew Sullivan today posts a whole string of superb comments on the controversy over Sen. Rick Santorum's anti-gay, anti-sexual freedom remarks, which he refuses to retract. Sullivan is doing here exactly what he did with Trent Lott just a few months ago. This is where I admire Sullivan most: he can be like a pit bull, and he makes his aruments air-tight. (Where I don't admire this tendency so much is when he shifts from eloquence to shrillness, which he did during the pre-Iraq invasion months. I basically agreed with him, but he was still shrill)

This is just one snippet, but you have to see all of his posts:

The point is that Santorum is proposing a politics that would essentially abolish domestic sexual privacy - for all of us, if we deviate from "correct" sexual practice. Many social conservatives, I think, may oppose same-sex marriage or gays in the military, but most don't want to send the cops into bedrooms across America to jail gay citizens. They may disapprove of adultery, but still not want the police investigating. They see the difference between what is publicly normative and what is privately permitted. They adhere, like the vast majority of fair-minded people, to the very American notion of live-and-let-live. Even Bill Kristol has publicly said he opposes anti-sodomy laws. But Santorum, in these remarks, clearly doesn't. What he disapproves of mustn't only be denied public recognition; it must be criminalized. If you think I'm exaggerating, read his full comments. They are not a relic of a bigoted past, as Trent Lott's were. But they are an expression of a bleak future, in which tolerance and privacy are subject to the approval of "moral" majorities and enforced by the police. If that truly is his view, he needs to explain it further. And the Republican party has to ask itself if it wants an unconservative extremist as one of its leaders.

Richard,

Thanks for reporting the SARS crises in Beijing (a sea of white masks). I feel it is my duty to let you know what is happening in Hong Kong now, although the masks are more colorful (some with hello kitty on it).

70% of the population wear a face mask. Retail staff are wearing disposable caps and gloves too.

Lifts buttons are covered with a plastic sheet which is changed every 2 to 3 hours. All public places are fumigated daily. some twice.

An entire housing complex which is infected is cordoned off with all residents sent into quarantine.

Hospital workers are not allowed to go home after their work shift to prevent transmitting to their family. They have to stay in make-shift quarters.

All non-emergency operations are cancelled (including cancer) because hospital operation rooms are now turned into ICU wards for SARS patients. Private hospital beds are "drafted" to cater for "general" patients.

Strictly no family visiting of all patients (including non-SARS patients) in hospitals. No last rite allowed. Patient cannot see their family before they die. They allow them to do it through mobile phone.

No make-up allowed for patients died of SARS. Coffin must be sealed. Can't even say last goodbye in funeral.

All schools suspended (3 weeks). Some even indefinitely in infected areas. All students must pass temperature check and step on disinfectant soaked carpet before entering school. Hand wash every hour. Strict all day face mask rule. Heavy dose Vitamin C for every student. No school lunch in canteen. Teacher supervised lunch in classroom only (strictly no talking). No physical contact with other students.

Temperature check at airport in and out. One passenger found sick, the entire plane's passenger are quarantined.

All shops, banks, offices, restaurants, schools will be closed immediately for disinfection if one case is found among the staff. The entire team of staff will be sent into quarantine and the place disinfected.

Cinemas and restaurants are closing down to cut loss. 70% of the airplanes are grounded, hotel are empty (one 5-star recorded 0.3% occupancy). It is now causing an "economic meltdown" in a once prosperous city.

This article deserves to be quoted in full:

BEIJING (Reuters) - A sea of people in white masks thronged Beijing railway stations on Wednesday as hundreds of students and migrant workers tried to flee from China's capital following the outbreak of SARS.

"My train doesn't leave for another six hours, but I'm not waiting inside," said 20-year-old Cao Shu, a student whose university halted all classes two days ago because of SARS fears. I'M SCARED"

[Courtesy The Gweilo]

From today's Times:

BEIJING, Wednesday, April 23 — With a terse announcement in this morning's newspapers, the city of Beijing closed all its primary and secondary schools until May 7 at least....

It'll be refreshing to get away from SARS, if only for a moment.

More than any other topic I've posted about, my recent posts on Tibet generated the most reader response, some of it very passionate. I know I will lose a couple of friends, but after doing my own research I have to conclude:

1. Pre-"liberation" Tibet was nothing at all like the Paradise that many Westerners (like me) have been led to believe. It was a theocratic serfdom of vast inequalities and, for those on the bottom, near-slave-like conditions. China seized on this as justification for its takeover in 1950.

2. That said, I have to conclude it was more an invasion than a liberation. The Chinese sincerely believe the Tibetans should be grateful to them for paving Tibet's roads and making it a tourist attraction, and I can understand this viewpoint. But many Tibetans feel they can never forgive the destruction/desecration of their monasteries, not to mention their cultural heritage. If indeed it was a liberation for which the Tibetans are grateful, there would be no need for China today to maintain its heavy-handed military and police presence there.

There are a lot of grey areas here, and I've learned a lot trying to figure it all out. Some of the Chinese who wrote to me about the Dalai Lama have a good point about how he has been popularized by the US media, with an entire cottage industry growing up around the "Free Tibet" movement. So I no longer see him so much as the saintly, loving victim of China's evil. But I do believe his gripe with China's takeover has enough validity to put me closer to his side than to that of the invaders.

The most impassioned response I got was from a Xiangangren, who got apopleptic after I posted the point of view of a native Chinese reader:

Why don't we hear what true Tibetan have to say about all this instead of tuning in to what we want to hear and what they want us to believe? However, under the present regime, can the ordinary Tibetan speak freely of their plight? Haven't enough Tibetans been killed and permanently muffled to justify that fear?

Dalai Lama or not, the CCP cannot tolerate any religion because they are the biggest and most evil cult existed in human history. They want the people to idol worship them as gods. How can they allow other religions to contest their authority and untouchable position? And, like god, they can determine whether you live or die (and the way how you die).

He's got a point. Okay, back to SARS....

My travel agent called me today and said there is talk about the government blocking all travel into and out of Beijing, and she asked if I still wanted to book my long-planned trip to South China. A minute ago a friend of mine called and said the same thing, travel is going to be severely restricted. These may well be total rumors, but the anxiety they are generating is totally real.

Apparently Beijing has made it to the top of the charts and is now the No. 1 SARS breeding ground and the city has gone certifiably insane.

My own company just issued this:

Dear colleagues,
As we all are well aware of, the number of Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) cases in Beijing has continued to rise over the past few days. The situation has brought a lot of anxiety and inconvenience. All of us, both the management and individual staff members, are experiencing an unprecedented challenge. It has affected our business to a certain extent; yet, most important of all, it will affect our health if not handled decisively.

On the part of the company, a new batch of 3M facemasks has been ordered and the shipment will be delivered to the office by this Friday. In addition, herbal medicine for strengthening the body health has been purchased for those who prefer Chinese medication. Office premises will be cleaned on a daily basis, and alcohol wipes will be provided should you need them to wipe down computers as well as telephones.

It's now beginning to take on an eerie dream-like quality, as each day the news in the nation's capital grows progressively worse. I remember when I turned on the television set that fateful night in Hong Kong to watch how two jets had flown into the World Trade Towers. It couldn't be real, could it? And then as I am watching, transfixed, the announcer interrupts to tell that another jet just flew into the Pentagon. That's surreal, the epitome of unbelievableness. And yet there it was.

That's really what Beijing is like at this very instant. One day the caseload is 27, the next it is 600. The government has been thrown into such violent upheavals that some are questioning if it can weather the SARS storm. And if it does, will it be the same government afterward? That is to say, it seems that SARS is destined to leave a permanent mark on how the ossified communist system operates, in how it relates (or fails to relate) to its people. That may be one of the rosier side-effects of the sickness. But right now, nothing looks rosy in Beijing.

On a very personal level, I am quite distraught about this mess. My closest friend in the world flies into Beijing tomorrow night for a three-week trip through South China that we've been planning for half a year. It'll all work out, as everything does, but at this moment it's a lot to deal with.

A week ago I spoke with a colleague in Hong Kong who described the atmosphere there as "surreal." Now that same atmosphere has drifted north to Beijing, where the number of SARS cases just doubled again, approaching 600.

Two weeks ago one young lady in my office wore a mask. Today there are seven. I wish I had a camera with me on the subway after work yesterday, when I was just about the only one in the car not wearing one. I wrote an earlier post (can't get the link thanks to The great Firewall) on how every restaurant hires an abundance of guards who stand in front of the building for no apparent reason. Suddenly, as of Monday, they all started to wear surgical masks.

Schools are still closing left and right. The government is now forbidding newspaper reporters to leave their respective cities to cover events/stories. I just received the following email from the office manager: "We have alcohol and wipe cotton available to you on the sign-in desk, please wipe down your computers and telephones daily." This sort of thing is now commonplace. SARS has become an institution, another aspect of our daily lives.

One doesn't often have the chance to watch an entire society transform this dramatically over so short a time. In some ways I feel very lucky that I can be here in SARS City to observe the phenomenon, and I am actually getting a bit sad knowing that I depart in just four days for my 3-week trip through South China, followed by the exodus to Singapore. History in the making....
[note: updated and title changed, 4:55 pm China Time, April 23]

Another must-read article holds no punches as it analyzes the long-term effects the past week's amazing revelations will have on China and its international reputation. (And you think I'm hard on China?)

A story in today's NYT depicts the grim odyssey of SARS from bustling Hong Kong to the rural provinces of Inner Mongolia, courtesy of an Air China flight attendant. She passed it to her husband of 3 months, whom it killed, and to several other family members.

"We were told atypical pneumonia was finished in February," Ms. Meng [the flight attendant] said through tears at the Hohhot Hospital, where she has mostly recovered. "I never imagined that this kind of tragedy would fall on me and my family."

Out in the distant provinces, the article reveals, the local government is telling people that quack herbal remedies will cure the lethal disease. This is hardly surprising; I'll bet you anything that those selling the "remedies" crossed the officials' palms with some silver, and the endorsements followed. That's just the way things work here. (We in American have no idea what real corruption is.)

This is an alarming development. At least in Beijing, HK, Singapore and Guandong Province there are facilities modern enough to offer a sterile environment and competent doctors. Not in the hinterlands, where conditions are often so primitve, the people so destitute, that there's virtually no way the infected could hope to receive anything close to adequate treatment. It really could parallel the AIDS crisis here, which has so far been most devastating in the impoverished distant provinces.

More alarming still is another Times story on how SARS is becoming deadlier, with death rates doubling. I wondered last night as I watched CCTV what it meant when the announcer said that fewer SARS cases were being reported, but suddenly more of the infected were dying. The article explains:

The death rate from severe acute respiratory syndrome has more than doubled, to 5.6 percent, since the epidemic was first detected in mid-March, causing deep concern among health officials....The current 5.6 percent rate is much higher than that for the influenza pandemic of 1918-19, which was less than 1 percent, Dr. Stöhr said. But influenza then killed 20 million to 40 million people worldwide because it spread so quickly.

One theory for the rising SARS death rate is that the initial cases involved health care workers who were healthy 20-to-45-year-old adults and who had better access to health care than others. Then, as the infected health workers unintentionally spread the disease to family members and friends, and they, in turn, to others, SARS has infected an increasing number of older people with heart disease, diabetes and other chronic ailments.

This is scary stuff. The Times article also indirectly contradicts CCTV's claim that the rate of infection is declining. The article says it is actually increasing. You decide for yourself which to believe....

Dear Leaders,

You are making bold if somewhat desperate attempts to win back your credibility and to convince the world that you are indeed a friend to your people. Yesterday's groundbreaking press conference and the new wealth of coverage of SARS in all the (state-run) media show that you are at least trying to operate more transparently.

Since you are now encouraging free communications and honest dialogue, I urge you to look at the greatest roadblock to these noble goals -- your custom-made Internet censorship mechanism, lovingly referred to as The Great Firewall of China. You cannot have it both ways. Either you are transparent and in favor of dialogue, or you are a frightened deer caught in the headlights, terrified of what your people see and think.

The blocked Internet is a glaring symptom and symbol of your fears. It reinforces the perception of you as paranoid ideologues. It reminds the world that your past eagerness to block communications (which, in the case of SARS, resulted only in more unnecessary deaths and unending streams of rumors) is alive and well, and thus you are still not to be trusted. Suppressing information and blocking dialogue indicates you still cannot be trusted.about SARS -- knowing that you want to control what is told to the public, your own officials will be terrified to report honestly, lest you punish them for it, as you have been known to do in similar situations. They will only want to tell you what you want to hear. And more people will die.

I am a personal victim of your censorship, unable to read this very site, thanks to your terror of the exchange of information. How ironic, that if not for this terror, which you cling to fanatically, you would be less vulnerable to criticism. You set it all up yourself, and it is time to "unset" it. Mr. Hu, tear down this wall and allow more light into your nation. All you have to fear, as another great leader once said, is fear itself, and this fear will suffocate you if you do not let it go.

Thank you.

The Peking Duck
[edited, Apr. 21, 10:38 am China Time]

One word I thought I may have overused when writing about the epidemic is unprecedented. But it's really the only word to describe what I am seeing during my final days in Beijing. Only a few hours ago the government held a two-hour, live press conference broadcast on national television. Trust me, it is a very, very rare occurence for this government to hold an open press conference of any kind-- but live? Nationally broadcast? For two full hours, with international reporters hammering them with tough questions? Unfuckingprecedented.

But that's just for starters. Now the Health Minister and the mayor of Beijing have been demoted, which is equivalent to their political crucifixion -- remarkable, considering all the praise the governmnent has heaped on the national health ministry for its glorious handling of SARS. But that was last week, when it was okay to tell blatant lies. This is big news, a sign that the government is scared shitless of not taking drastic action to show the world it's not totally evil. (Too late, in my book, but we'll soon see how it goes down with the rest of the world.)

Wait -- there's still more. Next week is one of the "big three" full-week national holidays China celebrates each year. The government today canceled (or postponed) the entire holiday, another unprecedented move. The economic and psychological consequences are immeasurable. We are viewing history in the making here in Beijing, all brought about by a nasty variation of the common cold.

This press conference is amazing. I hope they show the entire thing on the world's TV screens. The questions are merciless, the rulers are squirming. The NY Times has a pretty good article on today's -- yes, unprecedented -- events. But you really had to be here to feel just how amazing the government's turnaround is, adjusting, with a straight face, yesterday's figure of 37 infected in Beijing to 339. You also have to be here to see how creepy this whole thing has become. You have to see all the masks and the taxi drivers wearing gloves and people refusing to meet with others under any circumstance (my Chinese tutor has canceled our last two lessons for this reason). It is truly historic, both the anxiety level and the upheavals it is causing within the normally unassailable, uncriticizable government. I am kind of sad that I will be moving out of Beijing at such an exciting and bizarre time. It is definitely going to be material for a stranger-than-fiction book.

Big White Guy, I'm sorry but I couldn't resist borrowing this -- the photo and the caption -- from you:

"Just look carefully, I only want you to look carefully. Do not repeat the lies of liars. Do not become like them. Once again, I blame the WHO for reporting before it ascertains what takes place. Please, make sure of what you say and do not play such a role."

More than any other article I have seen so far, this one backs up my own observations about the Chinese government's contortions over the past weeks, from idiotic, bold-faced lies ("there's never been a better time to visit Guandong, and tourists are arriving in record numbers!") to stern warnings to tell the truth about SARS. It's a great piece. Excerpt:

China's top leaders, seeking to quell an international uproar over the honesty of their medical reports on a deadly respiratory virus, have issued their strongest warning yet about severe acute respiratory syndrome and have explicitly cautioned officials not to cover up its spread. ....The top leaders called the spread of the new disease a serious threat to "China's reform, development and stability" and said that party and government leaders around the country "will be held accountable for the overall situation in their jurisdictions."

But the tactic appears to have backfired, with official credibility demolished and rumors gone rampant.

Sarswatch is doing an extraordinary job of filtering and collecting the latest information on the disease, chronicling the story as it unfolds worldwide. Especially noteworthy and disturbing was its coverage yesterday of yet another story from Time Asia. Needless to say, the government here is blocking access to the article, doubtless for our own well being, but Sarswatch gives us the entire thing with an informative preface:

Time Asia is reporting that earlier this week, Hospitals in the Chinese capital hid SARS patients from international health officials. In an amazing story, Time details how patients were moved to other hospitals, moved to hotels, and even driven around Beijing in ambulances, all to avoid the WHO inspection team. They are also reporting that internal memos say there have been 100 new cases of SARS in Beijing in the past 10 days, even as the official count remains at 37

Is everyone getting this? Read that snippet again (I had to, because it's hard to believe). Can you imagine the paranoia that would manifest such insanity? Read the whole article; it's another eye-opener.

Shocking column by Maureen Dowd on Bush's buddy who intends to Christianize Iraq. Here's a taste:

Franklin Graham, the Christian evangelist who has branded Islam a "very wicked and evil" religion, was the honored speaker at the Pentagon's Good Friday service. After Kenna West, a Christian singer, crooned, "There is one God and one faith," Mr. Graham told an auditorium of soldiers in camouflage, civilian staffers and his son, a West Point cadet: "There's no other way to God except through Christ. . . . Jesus Christ is alive because he is risen, and friends, he's coming back, and I believe he's coming back soon."

....Muslims suspicious that America is on a crusade against Islam were inflamed to learn that Mr. Graham is taking his missionary act to Iraq. They are still scorched by his remarks to NBC News after 9/11: "It wasn't Methodists flying into those buildings, and it wasn't Lutherans. It was an attack on this country by people of the Islamic faith."

It was exactly this thinking that led to the rounding up and interment of the American Japanese after Pearl Harbor, one of the sorriest moments in America's history. How can Bush endorse such a person?

I am packing up my stuff and preparing to leave Beijing so I can't spend a lot of time writing. I wanted to clarify my post yesterday about universities closing. I am singing in an international chorus here, and one of the singers is a professor at Peking University (Beijing Daxue, or "Bei-Da"). He told me that rumors were flying last week about two professors dying of SARS and 20 students being infected as well. In truth, he said, he knew of one professor for sure who died of SARS and that he could say with a good amount of confidence that at least 10 students were infected. All classes have been cancelled. I realize this is "hearsay," but you have to understand that in Beijing, which until a few days ago was insisting there were a total of only 27 SARS cases in the city, hearsay is all we have. (I won't repeat rumors here until I think my source is a good one.) This same professor said that earlier this week it was announced to the students that they must be ready at any time to leave the school and go home. Two students of Bei-Da who are in the same chorus confirmed this.

Last night, a German businessman I know from work called and told me he came to Beijing all the way from Yunnan to give a lecture at a local university and that, to his shock, "the university is closed." He said cities outside of Beijing have no idea how seriously SARS is affecting the nation's capital. He said he was leaving right away for Yunnan, where there have been few if any cases of SARS reported.

These pieces of anecdotal evidence were the main reasons I posted that Beijing was "going crazy." That, and the frenzied and very visible efforts to disinfect every surface in the city. I still think there's a lot of over-reaction that could have been avoided had the government been forthright from the very beginning. (That will be the day.) Now, after the damage has been done, after weeks of telling us the disease was under control and tourism was rising, the central government is doing a complete about-face and talking nonstop about the "grave threat" of SARS and what it's doing about it, threatening "severe punishment" to any officials caught covering up cases of SARS. (All I have to say is, Physician, heal thyself.)

This is a defining moment for China and it will be interesting to see where it all ends. All of that work over all of those years, all that propaganda about the new China, the more open society -- so much of it was built on sand, and the SARS tidal wave washed it away overnight. As someone who gives crisis management training to executives, I will forever refer to this as a classic case study in exactly what not to do in a crisis. No. 1 rule is acknowledge it, set up a system for sharing information, make yourself available and tell the truth. If you do not, it will catch up with you, always. The "new leadership" (which is as fossilized and plutocratic as those before them) gets an F minus in crisis management and, in the eyes of the world, will be sitting in the corner wearing a dunce cap for a very long time to come.
[Edited, 4/20]

Beijing has gone utterly crazy. All the universities are either closed or on the verge of closing. It's a one-topic town. Unprecedented.

Looking back at that last post a few hours later, I am a bit in shock; I don't usually use such strong language, and it just sort of....appeared. Maybe I needed to say it before I say goodbye to China, to get that out of my system. If anyone's offended, apologies in advance -- but I still think what I wrote is true. I'm just worried about hearing knocks on my door at 2 in the morning...

[Note: I have edited and retitled this post, which started off as an update on SARS, but ended up more an indictment of my host country's inherently wicked government. TPD, April 19]

I was intrigued to see the NYT article today on how the Chinese government's mishandling of SARS has totally demolished its painstaking efforts to position itself as a fast-changing, dynamic society that is moving closer and closer to liberalizing its laws, its policies and its general philosophy. You must read this article in full to understand just how grievously China has damaged itself with this fiasco.

There is no doubt that in some ways China is changing, especially in regard to trade and economic policy. There have also been some baby-steps in the right direction when it comes to education (problem solving is slowly being encouraged, not simply "chalk and talk" memorization). But what SARS has shown the world is that for all the fireworks, for all the self-congratulatory praise we see on CCTV and read in China Daily about "the new China," politically the country is rotten to the core, atrophied and senile.

The article wastes no time getting to the point:

China's restrictions on information about a highly infectious respiratory illness has undermined five years of diplomacy intended to alter its image as a prickly regional power and to improve relations with neighboring countries, Asian politicians and analysts say.

Beijing's secretiveness for much of the last several weeks about severe acute respiratory syndrome, or SARS, contrasts sharply with the openness of its neighbors, even one-party states like Singapore. It also reflects the emphasis China puts on overall social stability above individuals' well-being, many argue.

That last sentence contains the keys to understanding this strange nation. The obsession, to the point of insanity, that the government places on "social stability" and "harmony" makes this government an enemy to its own people. To ensure social stability and harmony, the fundamental necessity is to look good. This is a government that lives to make itself look good, so that people remain placid and accepting of (or better still, oblivious to) the shit going on around them.

Worried about a new catastrophic disease that could kill your citizenry by the thousands? Don't give it a second thought -- the Chinese plutocracy has the ideal answer: Don't do anything. If you say nothing, you might be able to contain it. Taking that awful risk is far more attractive an alternative than informing people, and in so doing creating "disharmony."

Now, any sane, rational government knows that contagious diseases don't give a flying fuck about Mao's Red Book and won't be contained in just one village because Jiang Zemin wants them to be. But let's give them the benefit of the doubt for a moment and assume the Chinese leaders are not totally brain damaged. Let's say they really believed this sort of wishful thinking might work. After learning that this policy was an absolute disaster -- in fact, a tragedy of unimaginable dimensions for millions of Chinese citizens -- wouldn't they then know at least not to do the same thing again?

Normally the answer would be yes. But this is no normal government. This government did the exact same thing for nearly 10 years with AIDS, ignoring it, stigmatizing those infected, and setting up every conceivable obstacle to creating awareness and preventative measures for its people. Its people, for whom this government supposedly exists. Ha. (For reference, see what I wrote just a few days ago on the AIDS holocaust here in China.)

In other words, they learned nothing from their repellent "see-no-evil" approach to AIDS, which now threatens to turn China into the next Africa in terms of AIDS infection. The audacity, the sheer hubris of these pompous oafs who, as SARS began to spread through Beijing were lauding one another on television and clinking champagne glasses for the farcical rubber-stamp "People's Congress" -- these bastards knew, and they did nothing, just as they did nothing in the late-80s as contaminated blood flowed into the veins of its citizens across their vast nation, sentencing innocent men, women and children to a lifetime of stigmatization and the guarantee of death without dignity. Acknowledging the tragedy may have made them look bad, and we can't have any of that now, can we?

They knew. And they said nothing. Fifteen years ago, and today. And you wonder why I am hard on the Chinese government?

As I prepare to leave this country, I worry less and less about telling the truth. To say that another way, I have always tried to tell the truth here, but often I felt I had to tone down my rancor, soften the blows. Right now, I just don't care, and I want whomever happens to stop by this little site to know the truth about China, or at least what I perceive that truth to be: China is the Evil Empire, a tottering, power-drunk, paranoid nation of thugs dressing themselves up as saviors -- a bad country. It was for the bastards we saw smiling and waving at the "People's Congress" that my God made hell.

Any questions?

Footnote: I refer only to the Chinese government here. The people I know here are gracious, kind and good. They know, to a large extent, what their "leaders" are all about. Luckily for these good people, the SARS fuck-up has been of such great magnitude that it could end up resulting in long-term change and improvement here. Maybe. It has certainly opened the eyes of the world as to what "the new China" is all about.

Extreme anxiety hits the city as a rumor spreads about two students at Beijing University dying this week of SARS. (Friends of mine insist it is true -- these are responsible, adult people but who knows?) A Westerner in my office, married to a local woman, heard it from his wife last night and he, too, believes it. "You wouldn't believe how students live on Beijing campuses," he told me. "They live in dorm rooms with as many as eight guys, jammed in like cattle. It's the perfect breeding ground for disease."

As I said, it's an unvalidated rumor. But this I can state as fact: All of a sudden they are disinfecting Beijing like there is no tomorrow. I went to the bank today, and two workers with buckets were scrubbing the counters and the floors and the ATM machines. I went back to the hospital and this cleaning frenzy was visible everywhere you looked, the floors, the seats, the doors, every surface was being scrubbed and the smell of disinfectants hit you in every corridor.

It's definitely a different city than it was a week ago. Business is grinding to a halt (in my industry, anyway) as more and more of the multinationals send their foreign staffs back home. Just today the US embassy put out a notice suggesting that US citizens consider foregoing trips to China until the situation has been improved. Concerts and shows throughout the city have been canceled, as no one wants to sit in close proximity to others. I was laughing a few weeks ago when I went to Singapore and saw several passengers on my plane wearing surgical masks. Now as I get ready to travel to south China I'm pretty sure I'll be wearing one as well, at least on the plane.

I try not to use this site to whine about personal stuff (too much), but my shoulder is still a big issue in my life right now, and the doctor has ordered me to get an MRI tomorrow. He thinks when I fell I tore the rotator cuff of my right shoulder, which would require surgery. I wear a sling all the time now and still can't lift up my right arm nearly two weeks after the big fall.

On a happier note, traffic to my site has tripled in recent weeks, soaring from 6 to 18 viewers, most of whom are sent here by google, thinking they'll be able to find a recipe for Peking duck. Actually traffic is a bit better than that, and since I started posting about SARS there really was a big spike.

Traffic is sure to plunge again by the end of next week, when I start my 22-day holiday with my favorite person and in all likelihood blogging will come to a complete halt as we peruse South China. Then, immediately after the trip, I move to Singapore. It would be bad form to blog during my first few days at the new job, so the slowdown will most likely continue.

Singapore. It doesn't quite seem real at the moment. I will be sad, in some ways, to leave Beijing, which I've come to enjoy a lot more as the weather's improved, but I can't deny that in most ways I feel relieved. In some ways, very relieved.

My big dilemma is this blog's name. I've got a lot invested in the name "The Peking Duck," but will it be appropriate after I leave China? What about "The Singapore Sparrow"? No, I don't really think that works.... I'm open to any suggestions readers may have!

Gweilo Diaries has a humorous description of SARS-crazed Singapore. I hope it's toned down by May 20, when I move there permanently.

In a dramatic turnaround, which I haven't seen noted anywhere yet, the Central Government is acknowledging the existence of SARS throughout the country, its growing dangers and its geographical spread. This morning on CCTV, for the very first time, the announcers talked about the situation in a helpful and believable manner. No light-hearted sugar-coated testimonials from delighted tourists who love China "now that SARS is a thing of the past."

Today the message was clear: SARS is spreading rapidly and the number of cases is rising. I was impressed, as it's a 180-degree turn from their usual (non)"reporting." I suspect that with the eyes of the world on the country, and with the presence of international investigators, there really was no choice if the government wanted to save even a thread of credibility.

Latest report from the American Chamber of Commerce here:

FROM THE WORLD HEALTH ORGANIZATION:

A reader (I believe she's native Chinese and living in North America) wrote to me to point out that I may have a gross misunderstanding of the liberation of Tibet, as it's referred to here. Earlier I had written, "Then again, maybe the Chinese do know more about liberating countries than we do. After all, they liberated Tibet, though, come to think of it, they didn't call for the UN to step in and handle that liberation, now did they? And anyone who asked, "Liberated Tibet from who? Liberated Tibet from what? is rotting away in a Chinese jail....

The emailer wrote,

"How much you know of that region? Have you ever been there? I met many Americans or westerners who have strong opinion on this topic. But once we started discussion, I found they barely know anything about the issue except Dalai Lama and a general impression of how much tibetan people are suffering from suppression. They don't know before 1956 (?), tibet had slavery system. Most tibetans were slaves or peasants, owned by monks and aristocrats. They don't realize that dalai lama was indeed an emperor living in a huge palace, serving as both political and religious leader, enjoying all the luxuries (he had a car disassembled into parts in order to get into Lahsa.) I believe if Dalai never left tibet, he might not allow girls to go to school even up to today.

Fewer people know that as early as 400 yrs ago, then 5th dalai came to beijing to see the mandarin empiror to receive an official title and subsede to central government... I figured it's getting nowhere to argue with people without these basic knowledge. I've been to tibet myself. I'm sure the freedom of religious pratice is limited there. But I also saw the tremendous change the area has embraced. Ask an ordinary tibetan, would he/she choose modernity or primative living condition, you may have very dispersed answers.

I admit I have no formal knowledge of this topic other than what I have learned in school and read in the papers. After reading this email I tried to do some research on the Internet, where I discovered there are two very different schools of thought on the topic, and I have no way of knowing, at least not yet, which is true.

This was a fascinating exercise, because it forced me to consider that fact that I had a very fixed notion about a topic, simply because I had been told that it was so. Maybe America's propaganda is as bad as that of less free societies, at least in some ways.... I asked several of my colleagues and friends here about the subject, and was shocked to find that virtually all of them agreed with my emailer friend. They all said it was simply a matter of fact that the Tibetans' lot was improved immeasurably and that it was an act of mercy.

I was shocked because this totally flies in the face of what I -- and, I believe, nearly all Americans -- know to be "true." And I must admit that at this moment, I am inclined to say that at least maybe, possibly, we in the West are all under a vast misimpression when it comes to Tibet, and maybe, just maybe, the Dalai Lama is not the saintly, gentle creature who dared stand up to the wicked communists. Maybe.

Anyway, I am holding off any final judgment until I have a better grasp of the facts, but this really did get me thinking. I looked back at my education during the height of the Cold War and all the vile things we were taught about Red China and its partner in crime, The Evil Empire (most of which were grounded in fact), and I just have to wonder, were we duped, at least in this case?

Sorry to make so much about this, but it was like having cold water thrown on me. The crushing of freedom in Tibet -- a liberation? Okay, I'll let it go at that for now.

John Pomfret at the Washington Post again provides excellent coverage of the SARS travesty here in the People's Republic. Be sure to check it out to see just how vulnerable some parts of this vast country are, and how irresponsible the Wise and Magnanimous Central Government can be when it comes to protecting its citizens. (Courtesy of Ole Eichhorn.)

As so many people say over here, "We love our country, but our country doesn't love us."

As the war began, members of the House of Representatives gave speech after speech praising our soldiers, and passed a resolution declaring their support for the troops. Then they voted to slash veterans' benefits.

So begins Paul Krugman's scathing column on the hypocrisies of the Republicans. His conclusions are scary. America doesn't seem to be the country it was just a few years ago. While George Senior called for a kinder, gentler nation, it seems Junior's America is meaner, more predatory and greedy -- unabashedly so.

What that scene demonstrated was the belief of the Republican leadership that if it wraps itself in the flag, and denounces critics as unpatriotic, it can get away with just about anything. And the scary thing is that this belief may be justified. For the overwhelming political lesson of the last year is that war works — that is, it's an excellent cover for the Republican Party's domestic political agenda. In fact, war works in two ways. The public rallies around the flag, which means the President and his party; and the public's attention is diverted from other issues.

This coming Saturday (April 19) I will be singing in a chorus at the Forbidden City concert hall. At last night's rehearsal, the choir director told us that he was considering canceling the entire thing due to SARS, which has caused many multinationals to send their expat staffs packing. Nearly all concerts have been cancelled in Beijing, it appears, due to SARS fears. We discussed it and agreed that there would be no sense cancelling; there is no way to predict when the city will get back to "normal," if ever. We will be discreetly offering surgical masks to any attendee who would like one. If you'll be in Beijing and want to hear some amazing music let me know.

Yesterday afternoon I spoke with the CEO of a well-known Hong Kong company who told me that the city has in recent weeks become an utterly surreal place. It is virtually SARS City, and the media, he said, have made the situation far worse than it is. He cited reports in Fortune magazine and other international publications that "restaurants are empty" and "everyone on the street is wearing a face mask." These are gross exagerrations, he said, and they are only helping to destroy the city's economy unjustifiably. What is true, he said, is that the city's anxiety level is being stretched to the limit. He described how prank emails about SARS disasters are circulating at a fever pitch, and at least one (on how Cathay Pacific was terminating most of its flights) was picked up by a local newspaper, increasing the general spirit of fear and misery.

So SARS is still alive and well here in Asia, no matter what the Chinese Minister of Health says, and it is top of mind with everyone I know, local or expat. The panic seems slowly to be shifting to a mood of grim resignation as people adjust to the fact that SARS may never be cured, and that it is something we may simply have to get used to.

Jon Udell at Infoworld responded to some of my and fellow bloggers' recent remarks on how PR people might try to take advantage of blogging to benefit their clients.

In general, I think Udell is too magnanimous toward PR people, almost naive. While acknowledging that they ("we," I'm aftraid) may be hired to ghost-write "an executive's or architect's blog" to make them and/or their firms look good, he says this won't go too far, as the connection between bloggers and their readers are founded on a deep authenticity that is "hard to fake." I don't know about that last part. I have seen some PR people who can fake just about anything (it'll all be in my book).

Once we have people who command a large audience ("transmitters"), we have PR people fluttering like moths around a light bulb. I would be very surprised if the mega-bloggers do not begin to get "pitched" blog ideas from PR hawkers (posing as dedicated fans who "want to share an idea" with them). We have already seen how Dr Pepper plans to create a "blogging network" to help hype its new product. Blogs are a rich and untapped market, and there is no way PR people will be able to ignore them.

As Udell goes on to say, there really is a helpful, justified side to PR in terms of brokering and facilitating smooth connections, to the benefit of journalist and spokesperson alike.

My gripe with my own industry is how this legitimate role can be abused. For example, a PR guy in one of the multi-national mega-PR firms (not my company here in China) recently put out a company-wide email asking everyone in the firm to go to a website where a poll was being held on which Widget has the best features; there, we were told to "vote" for the client firm's Widget. This raises a slew of ethical questions that this emailer apparently never considered: it's ballot stuffing; it destroys any possibility of a credible poll; it's not the PR person's role to tamper like this; it's utterly stupid -- the email is red-hot evidence of dirty tricks, etc., etc. But this is how a PR person responds: Opportunity; exploit it at any cost. It's Pavlovian. The Opportunity bell rings, the PR person salivates.

The PR person who acts as a true coach and mentor is the exception, though that's not necessarily our fault. The bottom line is that clients' measure our success generally by a single criterion, i.e., column inches or other "measurable results." (Many of them have no interest in our service as coaches/mentors.) Is it any wonder that we'll go to nearly any extreme to obtain them? And that driving force will, I am afraid, end up contaminating the blogosphere, at least to some extent. It's just too irresistible. Someone has a captive audience of a quarter-million readers a week, then someone somewhere is brainstorming on how to subtly use that blogger to get their client's message across, be it on political affairs/legislation, a product, a company, whatever. Very low-hanging fruit in the eye of the PR shark.

I have been working on a report on AIDS in China. As I read the latest UN materials, I have to admit that even I was startled at just how awful the situation has become and how atrociously the government has dealt with it.. Equally startling are the reasons AIDS has had such an easy time spreading, basically unchallenged, throughout the country. It all goes back to the government and its obsession with "looking good." The parallels with the current SARS crisis are abundant and rich.

Below are some of the paragraphs I've written over the past few days (an ideal cure for insomnia). This was a true "learning experience," one that gave me a new and deeper understanding of this mysterious land that I am getting ready to leave....
AIDS in China

As this document is being prepared, China finds itself embroiled in controversy over the way that it has handled the outbreak of SARS (Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome). The New York Times has written, "China's Ministry of Health still says that there is no evidence that the disease can be acquired in Beijing. What is clear, though, is that Chinese doctors knew a lot about SARS long before it had a name or had left China's borders, and chose not to share that information for many months."

Unfortunately, this scenario more or less mirrors the way China has handled its AIDS crisis, the process being denial, resistance, grudging acceptance of the need to cooperate, followed by the nightmare of a full-blown health crisis that could have been lessened had the government taken action earlier.

All indicators show that China is on the brink of an unprecedented explosion of the AIDS epidemic. The latest data, prepared by UNAIDS, the Joint United Nation Program on HIV/AIDS, indicate there were well over 1 million cases of AIDS at the end of 2001 and that this number will most likely mushroom to 10 million by 2010. About 70 percent of those infected are peasants living in rural areas.

Only in the mid-1990s did China start to acknowledge the worsening crisis, and the central government has been slow to take action. Currently only a few Chinese hospitals, all in the big coastal cities and far from the vast majority of infected citizens, are equipped to treat AIDS, and the cost of treatment is far too high for average citizens to afford. These factors, combined with the unwillingness of the government at the local level to take actions such as prevention awareness, converge to increase the likelihood of a future AIDS tragedy in China.

The main cause of AIDS in China has not been sexual transmission but contaminated needles, mainly those shared by injection drug users, but also needles used in unsanitary ways during paid plasma collection. In poorer parts of China, selling blood is a common way to earn extra money, especially for drug users and commercial sex workers. Tragically, many of the blood-collecting companies are unlicensed and illegal, and their use of contaminated needles has been a major factor in spreading the disease. Furthermore, those who sell blood to these companies are often in the most high-risk groups and have already been infected with HIV. Their blood is not tested, and is mixed into the blood pool and sold. Most of this occurs in poor, remote areas of China where there is less likely to be interference from authorities.

The epidemic is worse in provinces with a higher level of commercial sex and intravenous drug abuse. It is not surprising that the most severely affected area is along China's southwest territory, bordering "The Golden Triangle" along the Myanmar, Laos and Thai borders, a region famous for its heavy trade in heroin, methamphetamines and other illegal drugs. In the northwest province of Xinjiang there has also been a huge outbreak due to prostitution, sharing of needles for drug injection, and little to no awareness of AIDS and its prevention.

AIDS in China has been a taboo topic for years, and to a large extent it remains so today. This is key to understanding the evolution of the AIDS epidemic in China, and why confronting it is so challenging.

The Chinese culture and government tend to frown on sex education and to discourage open dialogue on controversial subjects like AIDS, which has made it difficult to raise awareness, especially in the rural parts of the country. Most Chinese citizens, especially in rural areas, are frightened to discuss sex-related topics, and have a hard time gathering the courage even to purchase condoms. Their local governing officials usually harbor the same fears.

As the current SARS crisis demonstrates, both the central and provincial governments are highly reluctant to discuss anything that might reflect poorly on the image of China, as this might have an adverse effect on tourism and/or foreign investment. Officially there is still no prostitution, no drug abuse, and no blood donation scandal in China.

While in recent years the central government has become more involved in raising awareness of AIDS and taking steps to prevent and contain it, the local and provincial governments have been slow to follow suit. Often they make the situation more difficult by refusing to acknowledge the AIDS crisis as it might reflect poorly on them. It is at the local/provincial level that most of China's 1.2 billion citizens deal with their government, and where they turn for help.

Because of the government's avoidance of the issue, the general public has little knowledge of AIDS and how it is affecting China. This in turn creates fear of AIDS patients, who are often fired from their jobs or banned from attending school. This contributes to a vicious circle, where the AIDS victims chooses not to seek help for fear of losing their job or facing public disgrace.

Even today AIDS has "no face" in China; it was only in 2001, at the Beijing International AIDS congress, that the first infected man was allowed to speak to a public audience. This was after the central government had implemented its "Five-year Plan of Action to Contain and Control of HIV/AIDS" with a set of specific goals for grappling with AIDS. Since that time, in 2002, there was actually a public wedding of an AIDS-infected couple, indicating a further shift toward coming to terms with the disease.

Still, the five-year plan continues to present AIDS strictly as a medical problem without considering the broader social-economic implications of the crisis. Thus, public awareness remains low. Some of the legislation has actually made the situation worse, especially at provincial and local levels. Many local governments simply do not want to know or let others know about AIDS in their respective regions, as it might make them look bad. So information is suppressed. In addition, local officials worry that an honest assessment of prostitution, illegal plasma collection and drug abuse in their region would lead to their being accused of incompetency.

Laws based on prejudice and fear exacerbate rather than curb the epidemic. Employers in Beijing, for example, are required to report "suspected AIDS patients" to local health authorities, reinforcing the notion that AIDS victims will be punished. In Hebei, all citizens with STDs are banned from entering school, getting married or working in service-related fields. Local and provincial laws are frequently in direct contradiction to national AIDS guidelines prepared by the central government's Ministry of Health.

International experience shows that restrictive laws and punitive measures have little effect in curbing AIDS, while there is no question that they can have a negative impact on both prevention and care. In a punitive environment, vulnerable people will be more inclined to avoid preventive outreach, and people will decline getting tested for HIV for fear of punishment and/or stigmatization.

At the heart of the entire problem is awareness. When AIDS first surfaced in the US, the mantra for years was "Siilence equals death." Sadly, that formula has proven to be totally correct when it comes to China. Keeping silent and ignoring the reality of AIDS has made the situation in China infinitely worse than it could/should have been.

Simply acknowledging the existence of these issues, let alone taking bold action on them, is challenging in a cultural environment that is inclined to minimize or ignore its problems, especially those related to traditionally "untouchable" topics like drugs, prostitution and homosexuality. Let us hope that the small steps China is only just beginning to take continue to accelerate, gathering increased momentum and determination. There is no time to waste.

Don't miss this excellent article by The Washington Post's China correspondent John Pomfret on how SARS patients who don't have enough cash are being tossed onto the street by China's capitalist hospitals. Snippet:

Several days after Chen Jianchang checked into Guangzhou's No. 8 Hospital with what appeared to be severe acute respiratory syndrome, officials ordered one of his roommates to check out. The man, who was also exhibiting symptoms of SARS, owed the hospital $250, said Chen's daughter, Chen Lili, who was visiting her father at the time. "They made him pack up and go," she said. "Who knows what happened to him? He had no money and he was sick."

The SARS epidemic has hit China at a time of turmoil in its health care system. Once the pride of this nation, the country's socialist health care system, with its "barefoot doctors" and free clinics, has collapsed. In its place has emerged a dog-eat-dog medical system that benefits the rich and generally hurts the poor, Chinese economists and public health researchers say.

The picture Pomfret paints is bleak, and you have to ask, If they are doing this to SARS patients, are they treating AIDS patients any differently?

He goes on to describe just how nasty things here can get:

The Chen family found that out. When Chen Jianchang, 78, died on Feb. 22, his body lay at the hospital for two days because the family owed the hospital $750 in medical fees, including charges for immune-system boosters and antiviral and steroid medications, which are widely used in China to treat SARS. "The hospital wouldn't release him to us for cremation until we came up with money," said his daughter, Chen Lili. "They just kept his corpse in a room, waiting for the cash."

Pomfret also points out how the abuse of antibiotics in China (you can buy them at any 7/11-type shop) is messing up people's immune systems here....
[Courtesy of SARSWATCH and a fellow blogger via email)

My "broadband" service was down all weekend, so no blogging. I will make up for it later today.

Trouble in paradise? Apparently there are 9 new cases of SARS in Shanghai and other assorted bad news according to Sarswatch.

Another excellent article in the NY Times on SARS, which is apparenly under control in most places. The disconcerting sentence is this:

The main caveat in the health organization's guarded optimism is China, Dr. Heymann said, because SARS cases continue to occur in Guangdong and "we don't know what's going on outside of Guangdong Province, and that is our concern."

Some more somber observations on why there's really no way to know the state of SARS in China can be read here.

A scary article on how pro-lifers and creationists are threatening research and science in the US. Especially jarring are the Bush administration's slick and sneaky efforts to slip creationism in under the door while intentionally perpetuating negative myths about abortion:

Some other signs: if you were contemplating an abortion and were worried about the rumour that it might increase your risk of breast cancer, you might visit the website of the government-funded National Cancer Institute to read their factsheet, which noted that most scientists doubt a link. Or, at least, you might have done so until June last year, when the page, criticised by some Republicans in Congress, simply vanished. (A replacement page was posted last month.) Or maybe you were an Aids activist, elated by the president's unexpected (and genuinely revolutionary) announcement in the State of the Union address of $15bn (?.7bn) in funding for fighting the epidemic worldwide - and then surprised to find that only around 10% was destined for the Global Aids Fund, while the rest would be funnelled through US agencies, where it is more likely to be accessible to American abstinence-only groups campaigning against condoms.

Ominous post from InfoWorld's Jon Udell (courtesy Scripting News) about the further (ab)use of tools like RSS feeds by those bloodsucking, unctuous, hypocritical, shameless, duplicitous, conscienceless, paid-to-lie slimeballs whom we blandly refer to as "PR professionals."

Of course, being a PR professional myself, I can safely say that most of them really are all of the above. The good ones, like me, are kind, compassionate, sensitive, creative, well-read, articulate, open-minded, forward-thinking, slightly quirky and generally delightful people. The problem is, at last sighting there were about 19 of the good ones left walking the planet and millions of the others.

One day, when I am not working in the industry, I will write my expose.

Anyway, as I posted earlier (can't get the link thanks to the Great Firewall), it was only a matter of time before the industry sharks descended on innocent bloggers, coming up with ways to "nudge" them into mentioning their clients' products and services. "Hey, Andrew, as you write about the great victory in Iraq, you might want to let your readers know that those missles were built by Raytheon...." Expect to see more and more of this, ye who run the Big Blogs.

Beijing has just announced a 24-hour "SARS hotline." I can't post the Chinese text (gets all garbled) but can forward the notice, in Chinese, to anyone who requests it by email.

I am getting tired of posting about SARS, but as I wrote yesterday, Beijing really is SARS City. Four of my colleagues donned surgical masks today. Just now, an email started flying through my office that the Mayor of Beijing has authorized a special 2,500-man "SARS Brigade" to walk through the city streets, with the authority to detain anyone whom they believe has been afflicted and force them to pack off to isolated prevention wards.

Repeat, this is probably a hoax, but that's what I thought about the Time story earlier this week. Meanwhile, here's the latest from the Official SARS Photo Album, this one titled SARS Wedding.

> >

Due to my recent injury, I have to go to the clinic every day for physical therapy. The first few times I went, late last week, it was business as usual at the modern, Western-style facility. Then, as of Tuesday, they started the policy of mandatory surgical masks, which they hand to you as you walk in (first you have to wash your hands with some antibacterial lotion). Does this indicate there is less fear or more fear?

My doctor there is an urbane Chinese woman who has lived much of her life abroad, and for the first few days of my visits she was telling me how she felt the reaction to SARS was overblown and that the problem was being controlled. When I told her on Wednesday about the alarming news of a government cover-up in Beijing she expressed deep skepticism.

By yesterday afternoon, this skepticism had turned to fear. One of the clinic's star doctors, an American, decided to take immediate leave and departed from Beijing back to America with his wife and kids, she told me, because he fears no Beijing hospital can be fully safe. She told me that she heard from a colleague of hers at a nearby hospital that their staff is quite concerned about a new SARS case there -- it is not one of the hospitals specifically designated to deal with SARS, and she is afraid they may not be able to prevent spread.

While I cannot say for a fact that these two bits of anecdotal evidence are true, I do know my doctor is a mature person, quite well known in the city, and I could see something really turned her around.

At the moment, my logic tells me Beijing is generally safe, but I would not want to be hanging around the city's hospitals, nor would I want to sit in a big group communally eating out of a single big bowl, which is quite the norm here. It's definitely a time to be careful, and to ignore just about everything the central government has to say about the subject.

Thanks to BWG in HK.

CCTV is laying it on with a steam shovel. America has won the war but at a very heavy price. Iraqis are afraid they may suffer more than they did under Saddam if America chooses to "colonize" the country and take away their land. We must leave matters in the hands of the UN. There must be an international solution to administer change in Iraq. They are interviewing one anguished-looking Iraqi after another, while the translator's voice-over, like a broken record, keeps saying basically the same thing -- we are all terrified of American rule and wish the United Nations would step in now and take over. Of course, they are all speaking Arabic and could be telling the reporter they need to pick up their dry cleaning later today. (Some are obviously poor peasants, and I have to wonder, with respect, how they all know so much about the machinations of the United Nations.)

Needless to say, SARS is a dead story according to CCTV -- only 22 cases in Beijing and all on the road to recovery. As the announcer reads the statistics, I can see she wants to get through the story as quickly as possible. Her face can't hide that she knows she is lying. That's one of the most interesting aspects of the Beijing media -- all the reporters know they are lying, and they hate to do it. This is not why they chose to be journalists. But there is no choice, of course, and many of them are quite vocal (in private conversation) about their loathing of the censors who turn their stories either into syrupy "feel-good" mush or blatant and unconscionable lies.

I almost never read the out-of-touch and at times embarrassingly bleeding-heart columns of Bob Herbert anymore. Today however his column follows the money trail from Washington to Iraq and it's pretty interesting. Not at all surprising, is it?

Meanwhile, Andrew Sullivan is crowing about our victory (with some justification; after all, he did call it right) and dishing out Von Hoffman awards at record levels. The only thing that's disconcerting is that he sounds utterly crazed -- you know, like a whirling dervish, breathless and giddy. Of all the super-bloggers, he has the unique distinction of being the most obsessed, almost to the point of hysteria.

The NY Times has an excellent follow-up interview with the Beijing doctor who went on record about the government's attempted cover-up of SARS so as not to spoil their fun at the Party Congress:

In China, health statistics are often regarded as state secrets, particularly if they are negative. Chinese leaders are particularly reluctant to release bad news occurring in Beijing, the capital.

In fact, Dr. Jiang said that the first case of SARS in Beijing occurred in March, during the annual meeting of Parliament, the National People's Congress. Ten doctors and nurses at the Army's No. 302 hospital were infected after contact with that patient.

Hospital leaders in Beijing were called to the ministry of health for a meeting. But instead of instructing them to pass on a public health warning, Dr. Jiang said, the ministry told the doctors that they were "forbidden to publicize" that SARS had arrived in Beijing "in order to ensure stability" as Parliament convened.

This is old news. What people need to get is why the governmment harbors such fears, why they are so terrified of any signs of "disharmony" or "instability." This is literally the key to understanding what makes China the country it is today. The problem is, anyone who really does undertands this is automatically an enemy of the state.

Sorry if I got a little carried away with SARS over the past 24 hours, but it's one of the stories (one of many stories) I believe people should know. I am writing a backgrounder on AIDS in China right now, and the SARS scandal pales in comparison. I will post it once I'm done.

Anyway, if I remember, there's a war being fought over in the Middle East. It's obvious, even watching Chinese television, who's won and who's lost. Needless to say, there's been none of the joyous welcoming of the US troops shown on CCTV. Everything is measured, cautious, careful to emphasize the problems America now faces, as opposed to emphasizing the hands-down victory and confirmation of the claim (now a fact) that ousting Saddam was indeed the humanitarian thing to do. But how could they now acknowledge this? For the past month all that CCTV has been about was how inhumane and murderous the invasion would be.

Interesting case in point as to how they do things here: Yesterday CNN apparently showed the statue of Saddam being torn down and the jubilation of the Iraqis doing the tearing. (I don't get CNN, but my Western colleague was telling me about it.) I saw the CCTV version, and their approach to the same story is telling. Instead of showing a long shot of the people mobbed around the scene, they focused only from the foot of the statue up -- so we only saw a couple of men wrapping the ropes around the statue, and no crowd on the ground below. The announcer said that as the statue toppled "a few people cheered." My colleague tells me that is such an understatement that it's really a lie. He told me the whole mob was thrilled and cheering. CCTV never showed them.

Right now, all we are hearing is Chinese officials saying that it's time to let the UN step in and handle things. Again, I call this "quacking" and the only thing that's not funny about it is that lots and lots of Chinese people don't realize it's quacking. And I know -- I will put money on it -- that for the next few weeks all we will hear is how "experts say" the solution should be worked out within the framework of international agencies like the UN, quack, quack, quack. Those experts know everything, just as they knew how to handle SARS.

Then again, maybe the Chinese do know more about liberating countries than we do. After all, they liberated Tibet, though, come to think of it, they didn't call for the UN to step in and handle that liberation, now did they? And anyone who asked, "Liberated Tibet from who? Liberated Tibet from what? is rotting away in a Chinese jail, er, re-education center.

According to daypop, Paul Krugman's latest column has made it to the Top 40 list of most cited articles on the Web. And with good reason. Be sure to read it.

Another reader wrote, in response to a post on the Time article:

I suspect the story only uncovers the tip of an iceberg.

Anyway, I don't trust the statistics in the media. I am also skeptical of the evidence that the WHO team are seeing. I know it must be very frustrating. And I can only wish you luck and be able to get out soon....

This hasn't been verified (as though verification by the government makes something true; remember, there are no gays living in China and no VD) and I don't know if it is the tip of an iceberg. My common sense tells me that if it were still a raging epidemic, not even the Chinese Central Government would have the balls to get on TV and state that the danger is over, especially with the WHO investigators breathing down their necks. But then, they always seem to surprise me. I am writing a backgrounder on AIDS in China, and what I have learned convinces me that the government here is capable of just about anything, as long as they believe it will help preserve their evil grip on power....

I only wish all of you could be here in Beijing to see to what extent life has become "all SARS all the time," and then watch our TV news and its fantasyland "reporting." You would see in a heartbeat just how bizarre a place China really is.

One reader pointed me to an article translated from the Nanfang Daily -- you can read it in Chinese here -- that underscores my point about the irresponsible and self-congratulatory tone of our blessed media:

Guangdong Province Governor Huang Huahua said that Guangdong is confident that it has won the battle against SARS. Huang welcomed and thanked the WHO officers and experts who had come to Guangdong. Huang said that once the SARS epidemic occurred, the Guangdong Provincial Committee and Provincial Government with the support and help of the CPC Central Committe, the State Council and the concerned central government departments, made the appropriate response and decisions to lead and unite the people of the entire province to take effective measures that achieved clear results in just a short time. [Peking Duck: read this to mean they stifled dialogue and suppressed information, hiding their heads in the sand and allowing the situation to worsen in every way until the harsh glare of the world spotlight forced them to take action.] As of April 5, 82.2% of the cumulative number of reported SARS patients had been cured and left the hospital.

Dr. Robert Frederic Bromia, the leader of the WHO expert group thanked Huang Huahua for the meeting and for the fine support the WHO enjoyed during its trip to Guangdong. Bromia said that the Guangdong experts have done great work in treating people with SARS and in preventing the further spread of the epidemic and their achievements are of great help to WHO. Bromia said that SARS is already a global problem and it isn't really important where it came from. What is important is finding the cause of SARS and finding ways to prevent it. Bromia said that the results of the WHO survey and data collected would be reported to WHO headquarters and hoped that the designation of Guangdong Province as an epidemic area would be able to be removed soon. After the meeting, Governor Huang invited the WHO experts for a night cruise on the Pearl River.

I hope they enjoyed their cruise. The epidemic may well be in decline. The crime, however, is the way the government at all levels (local, provincial, central) supressed information and stymied investigation all along the way. And everyone knows it.

The same writer provided me a summary of another article in Chinese (date unclear), and here's a generous chunk:

All Too Typical: A Review of China's Handling of Atypical Pnumonia (SARS)

Finally Guangdong Province reported the SARS numbers for February. As of February 28, the number of SARS cases increased to 792, an increase of 250% while 31 people had died, an increase of six times. Is this what the meant when they said "the epidemic is basically under control?"

A thoughtful post from China Hand, who had been silent for many weeks, on the Iraqi war through the unique perspective of an Australian expat in China. I don't agree with all his conclusions, but well worth reading.

Don't miss this story, even though it's ancient history in Internet time. It holds a mirror up to the duplicity of the central government, and what it shows is highly unflattering. This SARS story, which only a few days ago I thought was a non-story, has the potential to rock this country in ways you wouldn't imagine.

The new regime was supposed to be ever so sensitive to "the needs of the people." So what is its first accomplishment? It gives its citizens the finger, concealing a deadly health threat to make their meaningless People's Congress look pretty. For a government so obsessed with "stability" and "harmony," this is highly reckless behavior, the stuff of which general unrest is made. Now, SARS is the only thing people are talking about. This is poised to spiral totally out of control, especially if the government keeps up the CCTV bullshit ("There's never been a nicer time to visit Guandong!") while the people become increasingly aware that their "leaders" would rather see them dead than be forced to tell the truth.

NEWSFLASH: Forget about everything I wrote above. I just heard on TV (and I am serious) that "thanks to the efforts of the central government SARS is now under control and no longer a risk to the general public." What would we do without the central government?

Great place to go for the latest updates on SARS (even if they hadn't linked to my last post).

As soon as I heard the story (which I at first hoped was rumor) about the Chinese government's evil and conscious decision to quash the news of SARS I sent out a rash of emails to my fellow bloggers seeking verification. I just heard from my colleagues at The Gweilo Diaries and China Weblog and The Flying Chair -- and they say the cited article is indeed for real. (Naturally, it's blocked to anyone in China lest we know the danger and decide to protect ourselves).

This is sickening, the most appalling example of crisis mismanagement, political bungling and criminal stupidity I have ever seen. To hell with them, every last one of the lying, self-obsessed bastards.

UPDATE: Looking at this now, I think it may come off as melodramatic and an over-reaction. But I am really pissed. If you saw them dishing it out this morning on CCTV-9 -- they interviewed all these foreigners and natives reading what had to have been spoon-fed BS along the lines of, "It is wonderful that there is no longer any risk of SARS, and people are visiting and shopping and sightseeing in record numbers." I am not kidding. It's one canard after another. This government is a total hoax.

I emailed one of my blog buddies and asked whether he thought the government here could really be so invidious, to which he replied, "As for the Chinese government being invidious, I dunno, any government that calls the massacre of 3,000 student protesters an 'incident' is not exactly in my good book, y'know?" He's got a point, hasn't he?

[NOTE: It was with this post that my blog took a turn, focusing on SARS almost exclusively for about three weeks. The outrage I felt as I wrote the post below never really abated until I left Beijing for good, three weeks later. Nearly all posts between this one and April 27 are related to the SARS crisis in Beijing.]

This is apparently from Time magazine (no way for me to verify). If the doctor cited below is telling the truth, it will confirm my worst fears about the government going to any lengths to present China in a sweet, rosy glow, even if it means lives lost.

A colleague just sent me a link (I tried to hyperlink but it screwed up all my copy) -- http://www.time.com/time/asia/news/daily/0,9754,441615,00.htm
but of course it's already blocked here.

She cut & pasted the copy for me:

A physician at Beijing's Chinese People's Liberation Army General Hospital (No. 301) in a signed statement provided to TIME, says that at one Beijing hospital alone, 60 SARS patients have been admitted of whom seven have died. That indicates the number of patients infected with SARS in Beijing may be significantly higher than those totals made public by China's Ministry of Health. Last Thursday Chinese Minister of Health Zhang Wenkang announced to the press that China's capital had seen just 12 cases of SARS of whom three had died. Today's edition of the official China Daily put the number of SARS infections in Beijing at 19 with four dead.

That day after watching the Minister's statement, I telephoned colleagues at the No. 309 People's Liberation Army hospital. They
had also seen the news and said that Zhang's statement was outrageous. As of yesterday their hospital (which the PLA general
logistics department had designated its main hospital for SARS) had already admitted 60 SARS patients of whom 7 had died. Because No. 309 is already full to capacity the PLA general logistics department has again asked the No. 302 PLA Hospital to admit more patients. On April 6th the No. 302 PLA Hospital admitted five severely ill |patients from the People's Armed Police."

This is really bad news. It could be a hoax by someone trying to make the PRC look bad (not much of a challenge) but I suspect it's quite true.

It was interesting watching CCTV-9 last night as it broadcast a US press conference in Iraq. The general was reporting remarkable things about the so-far triumphal though ongoing capture of Baghdad and some of the horrors that coalition soldiers discovered. One reporter asked about civilian deaths and if there would be more, and he intelligently and carefully described the measures taken to minimize civilian casualties, but added, appropriately, that the situation was still dangerous and there might be a risk of civilian casualties if fighting in the city continues. Okay, he said the magic words, and within seconds the man behind the curtain activated a CNN-style tickertape running across the bottom of the screen: US Military: More Iraqi civilians may be killed. Nothing about the extraordinary victories or what had been found. Just that one phrase, which then ran continuously, alternating with one other sentence about how traditional Chinese medicine may cure SARS.

Throughout the news conference, just to top off the farce, the word "LIVE" appeared in the upper right-hand corner of the screen. On the lower right-hand corner just below, it said "RECORDED." There really is no place like China.

Funny, but scary too. Shamelessly lifted from Big White Guy's blog.

A New Lord's Prayer?

Our Father, who art in Heaven
Protect us from the SARS
Atypical
Pneumonia
In Hong Kong as it is in China
Give us this day our daily mask
And forgive us our sneezes
As we forgive those who sneezeth around us
Lead us not into hospital
And deliver us from disease.

I have to give Orcinus my regular plug after reading his frightening observations on the Darwinian mentality of our current administration and Supreme Court Justice Scalia. This is truly scary stuff, and validates my own fear that "liberals" are being so vilified that they may at some point be in at risk of actualphysical harm. It's not as far-fetched as it sounds.
[Edited 8 April]

I just want to thank Dave Winer over at Scripting News for the link today to my post on how the Iraq War is presented by the Chinese media. When I got up this morning I wondered why my e-mailbox was so full, and sure enough it was readers of Dave's site writing to ask me questions about the media here, especially the Internet.

People need to know that the Internet in China is heavily controlled. I cannot even read my own site without using a clumsy proxy server, since all blogspot.com sites are banned. The government here doesn't care what we write in English, as relatively few people here can read it. I suspect if I had written this blog in Chinese, I would have been exiled or imprisoned long ago. They seem to be most terrified of sites where people can interact and exchange ideas. All geocities sites are verboten, and we cannot post to any google groups, though we can read the messages. This stifling of free speech, this denial of the most fundamental freedom, is the greatest evidence of just how fragile things really are.

In his book The Coming Collapse of China, Gordon Chang describes the PRC as "a lake of gasoline" (if memory serves me) just waiting for some situation to set it ablaze. After living here, I think that metaphor may be overly dramatic, but the essential argument is sound: China is being held up with matchsticks desperately planted by an oligarchy of paranoid dictators who are concerned with one thing alone, maintaining their iron grip on power, and anything that threatens their power (like free speech) must be annihilated. (Anyone care to remember Tiananmen Square?) As long as that situation remains, the corruption and internal rot will continue to eat away at China until it collapses altogether....

All I meant to do was write a one-line post thanking Dave Winer, and look what happens. Thanks again Dave.

I just read the best and most detailed article so far on SARS, and it certainly paints a scary picture, especially about how China has handled the crisis. Here's a small excerpt:

China's Ministry of Health still says that there is no evidence that the disease can be acquired in Beijing. What is clear, though, is that Chinese doctors knew a lot about SARS long before it had a name or had left China's borders, and chose not to share that information for many months. After the initial spate of outbreaks, doctors fully understood that they were dealing with a new and potentially fatal disease that spread far more easily than ordinary atypical pneumonias.

And now, when they try to tell us everything is "under control," the Chinese government wonders why nobody believes them.

[UPDATE: For an even scarier article, go here.]

My friend over at the Gweilo Diaries is definitely of the mind that people are way over-reacting, and that's certainly true -- to an extent. Wearing a surgical mask outdoors, for instance, is certainly an over-reaction, as the virus is spread by closer, more intimate contact/proximity than we have with fellow pedestrians on the street. But there is definitely a cause for concern, if not alarm; new cases are still spiking, and I remember how AIDS appeared to be such a tiny, isolated phenomenon back in the early 1980s, and suddenly....

Like China, HK is frantically trying to calm down the panicked populace. At the risk of boring everyone to tears, here's what I just received from the American Chamber of Commerce:

AmCham-Hong Kong representatives just attended an International Business Committee meeting chaired by the Chief Secretary. He advised us that resolution of this problem is HKG's number one priority. Dr. Margaret Chan gave an excellent presentation on SARS. She reviewed the cronology of events, statistics, symptoms, linkages with other areas, measures taken by the Department of Health and World Health Organization, prevention and treatment. The HKG will forward a soft copy of the presentation to all attendees for further dissemination as appropriate. Some of the key points:

* TRAVELLERS SHOULD BE AWARE OF THE SYMPTOMS OF THE DISEASE AND PERSONS WITH THOSE SYMPTOMS SHOULD NOT TRAVEL UNTIL THEY HAVE RECOVERED

I don't always agree with Atrios, but here he is right on:

While much attention (well, relatively speaking...not too much has been paid, really) is paid to those soldiers who die in this conflict, we shouldn't forget that many of the wounded - of which there are indeed many - are going to have life-altering wounds, including brain injuries, missing limbs, paralysis, etc.

I support these troops. I support restoring the cuts to their Veterans Benefits, which were requested by the anti-troop Bush administration. I support the humble resignation of Saxby Chambliss, anti-American bigot who questioned the patriotism of his single-limbed veteran opponent Max Cleland. I support the resignation of anti-troop Tom DeLay who supported these cuts and who proved himself a Chickenhawk and a bigot when he claimed that he didn't participate in the Vietnam war because all of them minorities had taken all the positions.

I wish there were a way for those of you who aren't in China to see and hear what the state-controlled media are telling us about the war on Iraq and how they are couching all conversation of the subject.

CCTV is a series of television stations, each with its own theme (sports, travel, news, etc.) The 24-hour expat news channel is CCTV-9, all in English and all to be taken with a huge grain of sea salt.

It appears at the moment that the star of CCTV-9 is that Iraqi military "spokesman" Sahaf. He's on almost constantly, insisting that the Republican Guard have all but destroyed the coalition forces and are now weeding out and decimating those that remain. He goes on and on, absolutely unchallenged, about the slaughter of Iraqi children and innocents of all ages, of how the "coalition villains" are in full retreat and Iraqis are celebrating deliriously.

That's okay, because Sahaf is supposed to do that and it would be a surprise if he didn't. The real crime comes next, when the "commentators" come on and merely repeat, as though they were facts, all the inanities that Sahaf just spewed. There is no other point of view offered and he is never called to task on any of his lies, no matter how flagrant or stupid. Then the final inanity: While the commentators are talking, a CNN-style news tickertape runs across the bottom of the screen rehashing yet again what Sahaf just said. (The use of the ticker is sporadic and often hilarious, sometimes just repeating the same garbled sentence again and again with zero rhyme or reason, the station obviously trying to show it is as hip as its Western cable counterparts.)

To give CCTV credit, they have been showing the US press conferences regularly. But these are inevitably "analyzed" by "experts" who point out what they argue are flawed answers that only go to prove that the US will be bogged down for years in a quagmire that will bring immeasurable grief to Iraqi civilians.

Last night CCTV-9 went a bit overboard (though come to think of it they go overboard all the time). They were rattling on about the use of some weapon I'd never heard of --"BRDs"? -- that they said American troops were indiscriminately dropping across the Iraqi landscape. These weapons, the announcer warned ominously, have been identified as the cause of the 1991 "Gulf War Syndrome" which, the announcer proclaimed, "has already killed thousands of US soldiers."

With all due respect to anyone who has suffered or died from this awful disease, is it really acceptable for a journalist to state on TV categorically that it has killed thousands of US soldiers? Is that not an outrageous exaggeration? Bad enough, but the clear message the announcer transmits is that the US has inflicted this disease knowingly on its soldiers and Iraqis 10 years ago and is now insidiously doing it again on a far vaster scale, knowing that in so doing thousands will die. I am plenty critical of our government, but is there any proof to back up such preposterous claims?

The most common technique the media puppets use (abuse) to verify their nonsense is the phrase, "Experts say...." We never know who these experts are or what makes them experts or whether there may be other experts who might have very different points of view. No, it's always sweeping statements like, "Experts say the war in Iraq will cause a humanitarian catastrophe never before seen...." I call this "quacking." These aren't reporters, these aren't commentators, these are quackers.

The problem is, lots of wonderful Chinese people have no idea they are being quacked at, and they take what they hear at face value. That's the dark side to what would otherwise read like a very funny story, a parody.

CCTV-9 is presenting nightly interviews with a very bright political analyst named Philip Cunningham, a Harvard-educated pundit with excellent credentials. Cunningham is articulate and insightful, and on some topics we even think alike. The only problem is that he's virulently anti-Bush and anti-the-Iraq-War. That's his privilege and he at least backs up his points with facts, figures and keen observations. But he goes unchallenged, and his opinions are greeted as universal truths.

Worse -- the interviewer leads him on and provokes him to go even further in criticizing America, breaking every rule about the role of the interviewer. Every question is loaded and reeks of the state-sanctioned party line: "Considering the unprecedented disregard the US has shown for international law and its contempt for the rights of its citizens, wouldn't you say...." (That's not an exact quote, but trust me, it's quite close.)

So that's the war as seen in China. It is an act of evil, perpetrated by evil men who want to get their evil hands on Iraqi oil while slaughtering the country's citizens almost for the fun of it. The Americans are bumblers and idiots at best and vile murderers at worst, and whatever the Iraqis have to say about it must be true. It is utterly surreal and the idea that people in China can take it at all seriously is insane. But they do.

Last comment on the Chinese media: Now they are announcing in glowing proclamations that the SARS threat is "under control" and there's never been a better time to take a trip to Guangdong Province. No cause for any alarm. Do they believe we have no memories? Do they think we can just forget that for years they claimed there was no AIDS in China (and also no gays, of course)? Do they think we aren't all aware of the government's obsession with putting a perpetually rosy glow over anything to do with China?

I actually just saw on the CCTV-9 minutes ago the story of an annual fair in the city of Guangzhou, in the heart of Guandong Province, the world's breeding ground for SARS. The announcer cheerfully chirped that there are no longer worries about SARS and that, in fact, "the attendance rate of foreigners at the fair was 30 percent higher than it was last year!" Now, I try to be open minded, but at a time when SARS is devastating regional travel and ancillary industries, I find it most unlikely that foreigners are streaming into Guangzhou at record high levels. Would the People's Republic actually put out a fake statistic? Nah, that's ridiculous.

I have always been a bit accident prone, probably because I sometimes do things too quickly and/or impulsively, but this tendency has improved markedly in recent years -- and then came roaring back with a vengeance two nights ago. Thus, my absence over the past 48 hours from this site.

Looking back at it now, it seems so unlikely, so ridiculous and funny, but while it was going on it was anything but funny. And I am still in a lot of pain today.

Wednesday night started like any other. It's still cold at night here, so I wear flannel pajamas to bed and keep a big steel space heater a few feet away. I was sleeping soundly when, at about 3 in the morning, I awoke from uneasy dreams into a full-fledged nightmare.

Have you ever been asleep when the telephone started to ring and the ringing actually played a part in your dream before you realized the ringing was real? That's similar to the way my calamity started. I was dreaming and a character in the dream began shouting, "I have a terrible cramp in my foot," and suddenly that's what the other characters in the dream were talking about. Suddenly, I bolted upright and realized I really did have an excruciating cramp in my left foot, which obviously my dream was trying to tell me. The pain was intense, and I immediately tried to jump out of bed so I could press down on it.

But something went wrong -- my feet got caught in the bedding, and I slipped, totally losing my balance in the pitch-blackness. I came crashing down; the back of my head smashed into the steel heater, and the cramp was still there. But that was nothing. I had crashed at the perfect angle to do maximum damage to my right shoulder, which struck the hardwood floor with a vengeance. This was one of those moments where you really know what pain is. It shot through me with such a ferocity that I had to keep saying to myself, "Pain is only in the mind, it can only hurt as much as you allow it to." Honestly, that didn't help much, and I was generally quite miserable as I lay there wondering what I had done to myself.

I tried to stay calm. I realized that the slightest movement of my right arm caused pain to come shooting out of my shoulder, so I just tried to keep the arm utterly motionless. With the other hand I managed at least to get the cramped foot under control. And I knew the bump on my head from the radiator would stop hurting soon enough. I inched back onto the bed and tried to convince myself it was nothing, but soon enough I realized the pain was more than I could bear. I got dressed, which must have been a hilarious scene had their been an onlooker -- just try putting your socks on with one hand, and you will forever empathize with the handicapped. (I kept thinking of the movie My Left Foot.) This took quite a long time; my right arm was basically dangling useless. I took a taxi to the only 24-hour Western-style hospital in Beijing where I was told I had a ruptured tendon. (As I mentioned once before, I have had a problem with tendonitis of the right shoulder for a long time.) I still need to see whether it requires surgery; for now I have my arm in a sling and can only use my left hand.

The pain all day yesterday was as close to unbearable as pain can be. I could not eat, I could not move. Then, just as the doctor told me, it began to ease up this moring and now I can at least slowly put my shirt on. But it's going to take a few weeks and physical therapy, the doctor says, before I am in one piece again.

There's never a "good time" for shit like this to happen. Still, better now than in three weeks, when my friend from Arizona will be visiting me and we take a trip down to Yunnan (if SARS is considerate enough to keep out of Southwest China). Okay, back to bed and my painkillers and bags of ice. Nightmare.

I've read some hair-raising stories about the Bush administration's obsession with secrecy, and this one confirms my worst fears. The article documents one instance after another of the Bush administration's "document scrubbing." This is highly reminiscent of those famous photos of the old Bolshevik gang, which Stalin would have painstakingly altered as, one by one, those in the photographs were murdered. It's a great article.

I just got some very good news from the company in Singapore I am talking with, and they have made it clear the offer will come by Friday. I've been racked with second thoughts, pangs of guilt for letting down my current employer, incredible bouts of heartsickness over being so far from my friend, and depression over the extremely grim outlook of the US economy. I spoke on the phone with the bf today and told him how much I want to go home, but he was blunt about it -- things are shaky over there and to have a job right now is to be considered lucky. His own company is in the process of cutting his department by 25 percent.

Today I also communicated with my old colleagues in Hong Kong. It seems that SARS is all that Hong Kong is now about. My own company here in Beijing sent out an email offering free surgical masks to anyone who wants one (and I was shocked to see so many passengers aboard my recent flights to/from Singapore wearing them). My old company in HK is instructing all executives from overseas to cancel their visits to the island. Tourism, of course, is in tatters.

If you knew what HK was looking like when I left last summer, you would know just how agonizing this must be. I still remember all the taxis standing in huge lines, with no passengers to be had. Left and right people were burning charcoal (the favored way to take one's life in HK, suffocating on the carbon monoxide fumes) and the general spirit of misery was palpable. So in the midst of this anguish, yet another bombshell blasts the not-so-long-ago thriving and invincible business hub of Asia. It seems HK has fallen and it can't get up. I believe they'll recover, to a large extent, but I don't see how they can return to anything close to the glory days of pre-1997. There's been a tectonic shift, and at times it looks as though HK might be swallowed up altogether....

Being an insatiable media junkie, I love the way this site picks apart the mendacities and extravagances of today's most cherished pundits, be they on the left or the right. Today it offers some sharp observations about Andrew Sullivan and Ann Coulter you won't want to miss.