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Jack_www
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ranskaldan well i sure hope that your outlook on the future of China is right, because the day when China stops abusing human rights that will be great day. For me If I had a choice right now of living in USA or CHina i would have to pick USA or even Europe, because for one the standard of living is higher, but I know that Chinese economy is growing though. And second I know that my rights are protected, while in China there is no protections, they dont brother you today, but what if some other party officals come in and want to crack down??
Yes this was on SARS, but is more about how the government of China handeld SARS and that led to disscussion of the other problems they have in China.
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Tingkai
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To find the Northwest Passage
Aug 2001
time: 13:28
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quote:
Originally posted by Oerdin
PRC has a pattern of trying to ignore health issues and hoping they will go away. Do you folks remember the Aids tanted blood incident from a few years back? |
Another point is that this is not exclusive to China.
The British government hid information about mad cow disease for years.
The US government's school lunch programme used to buy meat from suppliers that were known to be unhygenic and refused to check the meat for health standards. The US government also refuses to do extensive testing for mad cow disease.
The Canadian Red Cross hid information about HIV contaminated blood for years.
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Tingkai
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To find the Northwest Passage
Aug 2001
time: 13:28
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quote:
Originally posted by Jack_www
ranskaldan well i sure hope that your outlook on the future of China is right, because the day when China stops abusing human rights that will be great day. For me If I had a choice right now of living in USA or CHina i would have to pick USA or even Europe, because for one the standard of living is higher, but I know that Chinese economy is growing though. And second I know that my rights are protected, while in China there is no protections, they dont brother you today, but what if some other party officals come in and want to crack down??
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Well I wouldn't live in the US right now given the recent Homeland security policies being implemented. I don't even want to travel there on transit. I feel much safer in Hong Kong, even with the SARS.
But it is easy to complain about stuff.
How would you go about improving human rights in Mainland China?
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ranskaldan
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Beijing ~ Singapore ~ Toronto ~ All hail to the new Rome
Sep 2001
time: 00:28
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(continuation to Tingkai's question)
Keep in mind that in China:
1) The middle class is still very small (5-10%) and cannot yet sustain stable, moderate opposition parties.
2) Come to think of it, all the talented people who could have been leading opposition parties are already working in the Communist Party.
3) Rule of law is still being established in many areas. But in most places it is corruption, not law, that runs society.
4) Around 75% of China's population is rural, and they are all trying simultaneously to enter the cities to find work. If all of them were allowed to do so at once public services would simply collapse.
5) In the privatization process, many government-owned enterprises have been forced to shut down, and they have laid off many workers, who have no experience in any other field and are basically valueless in the job market. They are now selling apples and clothing on Chinese streets, and agitating for revenge.
6) In the ideological void, many Chinese citizens are turning to nationalistic fervor (let's nuke Japan now!), Maoist idiocy (down with capitalism!) or religious gibberish (the wheel of karma will cure you of SARS).
7) Every single country is watching and commenting on every move made.
Running a country isn't exactly about "let me enact this law", "let me be nicer here", etc. It's much more complex than that and problems are rarely easily solved.
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LoneWolf
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Well, I've said this before, but apparently it didn't stick.
SARS is a media event. 250,000 people die every day, 3,000 just from malaria. In 1918, 600,000 died from the flu in the US. Now THAT is an epidemic. Equal to 1.5 million today. The only year in which the US population has declined.
I feel bad for those who have died, and their families, but it is not a major event.
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Thue
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Copenhagen, Denmark
Jan 1970
time: 06:28
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quote:
Originally posted by LoneWolf
Well, I've said this before, but apparently it didn't stick.
SARS is a media event. 250,000 people die every day, 3,000 just from malaria. In 1918, 600,000 died from the flu in the US. Now THAT is an epidemic. Equal to 1.5 million today. The only year in which the US population has declined.
I feel bad for those who have died, and their families, but it is not a major event. |
I think the point is that 1.5million could easily die if it ran unchecked.
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mindseye
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A Yankee living in Shanghai
Apr 1999
time: 13:28
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quote:
I think the point is that 1.5million could easily die if it ran unchecked. |
That and the fact that, as a mysterious new threat, people had no way to gauge it's risk level. Even though malaria kills 3,000 a day, it's a known risk, and people know how to deal with (or avoid) it. Until they had the same knowledge about SARS, for all anyone knew it could have wiped out half the planet's population.
Now, as people have access to reliable information that allows them to accurately assess the risk, they are starting to return to their normal lives. GZ and BJ are fast returning to normal, friends there tell me.
Shanghai is just peaking its wave of paranoia, the number of masks worn around town is starting to drop I think. Out-of-towners are still being quarantined, however, and teachers like me are still out of work.  (classes are expected to open again mid-June)
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mindseye
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A Yankee living in Shanghai
Apr 1999
time: 13:28
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Reported in today's New York Times:
quote:
Number of SARS Cases Falls Sharply in China
By ERIK ECKHOLM
EIJING, May 30 — China has nearly tamed the SARS epidemic, with new cases dwindling and no evidence of the wildfire spread in the hinterlands that experts had feared, a senior health official said today.
Daily reports of new SARS cases nationwide averaged 151 in early May but fell to 14 in the final third of the month as the epidemic "started to be effectively controlled," said Gao Qiang, executive vice minister of health, at a news conference today.
The country reported seven new SARS cases in the 24 hours ending this morning, six of them in Beijing. A cumulative total of 5,600 cases have been reported nationwide since the epidemic began last fall in the southern province of Guangdong, with a total of 328 deaths.
Mr. Gao, who took effective command of the health ministry on April 20, when the former health minister and the mayor of Beijing were both fired, cautioned against complacency. But he said that the country's sweeping new measures of quarantine, contact tracing and infection control appeared to be taking effect. The disease has largely been confined to Guangdong, Beijing and a few provinces near the capital, he said, and "there has not been large-scale spread in rural areas."
International experts still raise questions about China's SARS reporting but generally agree that the disease appears to be waning. Some warn that SARS might resurge in the fall, a pattern shown by related viruses.
Mr. Gao defended the statistics today, saying, "I've learned that infectious diseases are impossible to cover up."
But he refused to offer special praise to a retired military doctor who in mid-April played a key role in exposing an official cover-up of SARS.
At a time when the health minister at that time, Zhang Wenkang, claimed that Beijing had only 12 SARS cases and that the disease was under "effective control," the doctor, Jiang Yanyong, told the news media that more than 100 SARS patients were being treated in a few military hospitals alone, with many deaths.
Alarmed by Dr. Jiang's claims and other evidence, the World Health Organization demanded access to Beijing hospitals and found that SARS was far more prevalent than officials had admitted.
On April 20, China's top leaders changed course dramatically, firing the two officials, pledging honest numbers and starting huge control campaigns.
Dr. Jiang was not been punished for speaking out and has recently won praise from a few newspapers, but he was also ordered by military superiors to stop speaking to the press.
"I don't know why people are so interested in Dr. Jiang," Mr. Gao said today when asked about the man considered by many people here to be a real hero.
"We have six million doctors and health care workers and Jiang Yanyong is one of them," he said, praising the profession as a whole for its sacrifices.
Mr. Gao did say, though, that the epidemic had exposed the unprepared state of China's public health agencies and medical facilities. As the immediate threat of SARS recedes, he said, he faces the even more
daunting task of fixing those problems.
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29-05-2003 21:57
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