Society

Lianhe Zaobao’s Beijing correspondent Yang Danxu recounts her recent visit seeking medical treatment in Beijing in times of Covid-19. She extrapolates from her experience of being initially turned away and sounds a reminder to officials not to let complacency or a wish to maintain a positive recovery record lead to China facing a recurrent rash of outbreaks.

It was a very different time when Kwek So Cheer visited the doctor in China prior to the Covid-19 outbreak. Nevertheless, recent events have highlighted the need for countries to band together, sharing knowledge and expertise, not least in healthcare management. Speaking from personal experience, Kwek thinks that Singapore can collaborate with China to build a better healthcare experience beyond this special period.

Hong Kong academic Yuen Kwok-yung was a prominent figure in bringing the 2003 SARS epidemic under control. But he has recently sparked anger in mainland China for his commentary on the Covid-19 outbreak, leading to a subsequent retraction of the piece. Zaobao’s Associate China News Editor Fok Yit Wai asks: "Will Beijing boycott Yuen?"

Netizens are devastated that an investigation report into the Li Wenliang incident released yesterday only yielded a chastising of local police officials. They assert that the report was grossly inadequate in addressing their suspicions of a cover-up in the initial stages of the Covid-19 outbreak. They ask: Was this meagre result all Dr Li Wenliang’s death was worth?

Following the US labelling China state-owned media organisations in the US as “foreign operatives” and limiting US-based Chinese media staff, China has retaliated by expelling US journalists from The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, and the Washington Post. Yang Danxu and Norman Yik examine how this might affect China-US relations, the “one country, two systems” policy, and press freedom in China.

Professor Deng Xize of Sichuan University says that months into the fight against the coronavirus, strategies that countries are adopting are coalescing around two main threads — a war of annihilation or a protracted war. He cautions that these conflicting approaches are bound to generate risks on a global scale. Not only will the history of some countries take a different turn, international dynamics will also be altered. For the individual, it may become a gamble of health and luck.

Researchers possibly withholding information about human-to-human transmission, or publishing papers using someone else's research data... These are just a few of the controversies of the Chinese research system highlighted by the Covid-19 outbreak. How can the scientific community break out of the cycle of alleged unscholarly conduct?

Stories of race-related incidents have crawled out of the woodwork and spread almost as fast and venomously as the coronavirus itself. Zhou Ruirui of the Centre of Globalisation and Governance at Hamburg University says it’s time for some self-reflection.

First it was Wuhan residents expressing their indignation at food delivered to them in rubbish trucks. Now, residents of neighbouring city Xiaogan show that they will not stay quiet if monopolistic practices see them paying sky-high prices for daily necessities.