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发帖数: 4825 | 1 https://www.rt.com/op-ed/484298-east-west-war-coronavirus/
27 Mar, 2020 16:21
Asian democracies like South Korea, Japan and India are doing a better job
than Europe and the US in combating the coronavirus pandemic. Deep social
divisions and poor leadership in the West are just two of the reasons.
Even as the coronavirus has spread like wildfire to 199 countries and
territories around the world, a pattern of differential extent of
devastation is evident. The list of worst affected countries with the
highest recorded infections and deaths is overwhelmingly populated by
Western democracies.
Barring two exceptions — China, which is unique because the virus
originated there and it has a one-party political system, and Iran — a
mixture of theocracy and democracy, which is under harsh US economic
sanctions — all the top victims are Western democracies. Comparatively,
Asian democracies come lower down the list and may succeed in averting the
calamitous mass-scale losses in lives and collapse of healthcare that have
befallen Europe and the US.
Moral persuasion & stern enforcement
Three interrelated factors explain why Asian democracies are safer. Firstly,
they have dynamic and confident leadership. South Korean President Moon Jae
-in, Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and Indian Prime Minister Narendra
Modi are commanding figures who enjoy high popularity and legitimacy with
their respective citizens. When powerful and unifying politicians are in
charge, the public follows and obeys directions and orders, especially
during existential crises.
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battlefield in the fight against Covid-19
Social compliance with government restrictions has been stronger in Asian
democracies. The balanced mix of coaxing with moral persuasion and stern
enforcement of rules which Asian leaders have adopted has found a receptive
audience in their countries. For example, Modi has begged Indians “with
folded hands” (a gesture of extreme humility in India) and sermonized about
“responsible citizenship,” while hisofficials warned those flouting ‘
Stay at Home’ orders of jail sentences.
If Asian leaders have convinced most of their people to abide by corona
confinements, Western leaders have struggled. The sharp social polarization
in Western Europe and the US between ‘liberal’ versus ‘populist’ camps
has left large segments of populations bitterly opposing incumbent leaders.
US President Donald Trump, Italian Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte, Spanish
Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez, and French President Emmanuel Macron are not
cutting ice in their divided houses.
The level of trust that citizens must have in governments is low in the West
and that has hurt its ability to mobilize people in a time of grave peril.
Many Western leaders believe their political survival is delicately poised
in such a poisoned atmosphere and hence delayed taking preventive actions to
stem community transmission of the coronavirus out of nervousness about
their approval ratings and re-election chances.
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Asian collectivism vs Western individualism
A second factor going in favor of Asian democracies in the war against
Coronavirus is culture. Asian societies tend to be collectivist, where
citizens have a hardwired willingness to sacrifice individual freedoms and
undergo hardships for the sake of common well-being. The degrees of putting
society over self vary among South Korea, Japan, India and Indonesia. But
taken together and compared to Western Europe and North America, the Asians
have an advantage of not seeing the individual and society or society and
state as locked in perpetual conflict.
Unlike Western democracies, whose political culture is shaped by asserting
individualism, human rights and treating the state as an enemy of liberty,
Asians mostly do not worry about violation of privacy or government abuses.
One primary reason why Italy, for instance, could not stem the march of
coronavirus had to do with the ingrained social practice of ‘Furbo’ (
slyness or cunning behavior), whereby citizens are suspicious of perceived
state repression and find tricks to evade governmental restrictions. Conte’
s pleas that “we should not try to be clever” fell on deaf ears until it
was too late.
The surreal sight of British pubs, Italian cafes, Spanish bars, French
patisseries and American beaches teeming with mingling crowds in spite of
state-imposed social distancing rules contains lessons. Rampant flouting of
closure rules, which could have broken the chain of coronavirus transmission
, as well as wrenching debates about the threat to civil liberties from
creeping excesses of the government, have hampered Western democracies. On
the other hand, South Korea faced little public resistance to using
intelligence agencies to infiltrate cell phones and credit card details,
track minutest movements of citizens, and intrusively perform contact
tracing to break the virus’ transmission.
Ability to override business lobbies
The third factor where Asian democracies have come out ahead of Western
peers is in their ability to override business lobbies. Politicians like
Trump, Johnson, Conte and Merkel waffled on imposing drastic lockdown
measures at early stages out of fear that they would upset financial
investors and hurt market sentiment.
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Even as 1,300 people died in the US (as of March 27), Trump remains
obstinate that the nationwide shutdown of businesses must be short and that
the state must not interfere in the private sector to fill critical
shortages. The fact that the coronavirus-induced economic shock has wiped
out three years of the ‘Trump bump’ in the stock markets grates on the US
president’s nerves, contributing to his fumbling response.
In contrast, Asian leaders tend to be statist. While none of them love
economic recessions or are immune from pressure from business interest
groups, these actors do not dominate the calculus of Modi or Moon. Abe did
hold out on declaring a national emergency in Japan out of concern for
forfeiting the vast commercial investments and sunk costs of the Tokyo
Olympics, but he ultimately bowed to the larger public interest on health
grounds by moving toward stricter restrictions to confront a “national
crisis” and postponing the games.
There could be other idiosyncratic factors why Asian democracies appear to
have been spared mass outbreaks of the virus. India enjoys a youthful
population, which may reduce the death rate, pluswarmer temperatures, which
could slow down the transmission.
Japan and India have also not conducted widespread coronavirus testing the
way South Korea did, implying their numbers will get worse over time. But
the trend lines indicate that Asian democracies are stepping up with
measures to avoid the dreaded ‘Phase 3’ of the virus’ transmission that
was callously allowed to set in and hammer Western countries.
Quality of political leadership and social attitudes matter in times of
catastrophe. East might prove its superiority over the West in this mega
crisis. For once, Western democracies and their news media should swallow
their pride, keenly observe and learn from their Eastern counterparts. |
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