Introduction The China Current continues its special coverage on the outbreak of COVID-19. Go to our social media @thechinacurrent and our website, for interviews, videos, and podcasts. I'm James Chau. Thank you.
Ambassador He Yafei is one of China's foremost diplomats. In a long career, he was posted to Africa, North America, and Europe. He served as Permanent Representative to the United Nations in Geneva, and as Vice Foreign Minister in Beijing. He's very much a figure who continues to bridge China to the heart of global affairs. And that is why I wanted to engage him on his important thoughts at this time. The outbreak of COVID-19, which is also referred to in China as NCP – for 'novel coronavirus pneumonia' – means many people who happened to be back in their hometowns for Chinese New Year, are unexpectedly still there a few weeks later. Ambassador He is one of them. He's originally from Zhejiang Province, where you can find lots of beautiful natural landscape in areas like Hangzhou and Ningbo. I called him in Zhejiang.
This is a rush transcript; an audio recording is available here.
James Chau:
Ambassador He, thank you very much for speaking with me today and not only as ambassador, but as someone who is in your hometown right now in Zhejiang province. What does it feel like and how are you?
Ambassador He Yafei:
Fine. It's a pleasure really talking to you again. I'm in Zhejiang because I have been spending my Spring Festival with the family. And because of the epidemic, what we call NCP, we have been homed-up. There are very strict regulations for people not to go around and socialize, so that the measures taken by government at different levels can be effective to prevent the spread of NCP.
James Chau:
So you're not going out at all right now?
Ambassador He Yafei:
I'm not going out so much to meet friends, for instance, to have gatherings, or out of the community compound we live in. But you are certainly free to go to the supermarket as long as you have a mask on, and there are no strict restrictions. You can take a walk within the compound where you live, and certainly you can say hello to a neighbour. No harm done. In Zhejiang, especially in the place I am living now called Anji, there is not a single case of NCP up to now. So it's pretty safe.
James Chau:
And talking about supermarkets and just trying to get through each day, even though there are no infections, confirmed cases, where you are, what are supplies like? Can you get everything that you need?
Ambassador He Yafei:
The supermarket is as usual, full of supplies, vegetables, rice and wheat flour, and everything. Everything is in in plentiful supply. There is no shortage, there are no people rushing to buy things for stocking at home, etc., nothing of that sort, everything is as normal. The only noticeable change is there are a bit less people than before in the supermarket. There is no hurry, this is normal life.
James Chau:
This is very different though to what's happening in Wuhan and in the surrounding areas in Hubei province. It's a very, very painful time for the millions of people there. Has this taken you by surprise, that this new virus occurred, and that it seems to have spread so quickly?
Ambassador He Yafei:
Wuhan is a special case. Wuhan and Hubei, where the epidemic broke out and spread within the province. It has been contained and controlled, thanks to the concentration and mobilization of national resources under the strong leadership of President Xi Jinping and the central government. Things are getting better. We were a little surprised by what had happened in Wuhan, but not so much so that we feel it's a national crisis, as if life stopped. I served as Chinese Ambassador in Geneva to the World Health Organization, so I am quite familiar with the international efforts to cope with the outbreak of epidemics. We experienced SARS in 2003, so for China it's not such a surprise.
We didn't expect it to be repeated. But we certainly know the world will not be devoid of any virus attacks in the future. It's something you have to live with. The only thing you need to do is to strengthen your research, and set-up a national emergency response system at different levels. So as something happens, you need to react quickly before... of course on solid evidence that something has happened, based on scientific evidence. I think at this time the Chinese government, Chinese people, or China for that purpose, has acted timely and effectively.
James Chau:
We don't know what's going to happen in terms of the future course of this particular outbreak, or this new virus that the world didn't even know about until many weeks ago. But what we do know for sure is that another disease epidemic or pandemic will occur in some part of the world. Maybe in the very near future, maybe in the not too distant future. We've been warned again and again about this as a world. What are the lessons we can take from this and apply to everywhere?
Ambassador He Yafei:
I think the lessons we should learn from this epidemic in China... it's happened in the past, Ebola, H1N1 in the United States, Ebola in Africa. Certainly, they're going to happen again and in the future elsewhere, or even in China. Virus is something humankind so far has not been able to completely eliminate in this part of the world. I think we should learn this lesson, is that we need to get prepared. This is one thing. Secondly, we need to learn more about virus, the origin of the virus, in what conditions it will come back possibly. Lots of R&D should be put into that. I think people... humankind.... the international community for that matter, put a lot of efforts, money, equipment into how to prevent war for instance, weapons of mass destruction, etc. But we haven't paid enough attention to life-threatening viruses. We tend to take this for granted that it will not kill as long. It's something at some stage it will happen from time to time. So, we can't take it for granted.
James Chau:
It's incredible because, as you said, we're so willing to invest resources in many, many other areas in almost every other area, but in what keeps us going, which is health and wellbeing... that's the fundamental of life. I sometimes think that we humans refuse to listen to history, that we are very resilient, but also we're very arrogant by nature. Why don't we learn from history as a race, as humankind? Why have we failed to learn from the Spanish influenza, from Ebola, from MERS? Where have we gone wrong as a world?
Ambassador He Yafei:
I think we have been complacent. We have been complacent with the advance of medicine and technology. We believe everything is curable, which is not true. It will happen from time to time, but we have avoided the repeat of the Spanish flu for instance, that happened a year a long time ago in Europe. There has been no global outbreak of an epidemic. This time, too. Thanks to China, China's efforts, it has been contained within China, and only less than 1% of this occurred outside of China. So, people tend to believe it can be localized.
Actually, we have witnessed a lot happening in Africa from time to time. But we tend to neglect it. We think it's localized, it can be contained, and does not cause much deaths worldwide. When I was in Geneva, I heard very often from WHO experts, from Margaret Chan, for instance, the former Director-General, warning us and not just China but the world that virus is dangerous. We need to put in more resources in trying to do more research, to set-up in every country, stressing your public health system and response, emergency response system, etc., so that whenever it happens, we have something ready to cope with it.
James Chau:
Let's talk about some of those containment efforts. China put a number of areas on lockdown with over 50 million people largely confined to their homes, so that it doesn't spread further through the country, so that it doesn't spread beyond its borders into the world. There are many cases around the world, but they are relatively very small compared to the tens of thousands of confirmed cases in the Chinese mainland. So my question here is that one of the flip-sides to that, has been the productivity of the economy obviously has slowed, because people can't back get back to the big cities. That's a kind of sacrifice in itself, isn't it?
Ambassador He Yafei:
It is a sacrifice. You're right. I think we need to seriously consider what we need to do to balance. On the one hand, we should continue to fight the virus with whatever resource we have, with necessary measures in place. Not quickly lifting everything we have imposed on ourselves. It is a sacrifice. But on the other hand, we need to also think very seriously how it can hurt the Chinese economy, and in this highly interconnected world of globalization, when the Chinese economy is hurt, it can also have a spill-over effects to other countries, because China is right in the middle of the global supply chain, global production chain. We have been hearing stories already about car makers, they cannot fulfil their production quota because the supplies components are not being produced adequately in China. For Apple, too, the same thing is happening to Apple. So, in this globalized world, China is in a very difficult position on the one hand, as it continues to fight, as some measures have to be imposed. On the other hand, I think the government now has been all-out trying to restore production of goods. I have to say that some countries overreacted to International Health Regulations, recommendations by WHO by cutting-off totally air links, trade links with China. So, even if China fully restored its production, it still faces with some countries, the transportation problem. So this is a globalized world, and we need global efforts.
James Chau:
I spoke to one economist who says that international travel restrictions will end up hurting themselves?
Ambassador He Yafei:
That's true. That's very much true. Because the epidemic is generally speaking, by and large, already under control in China. and China has been making a great sacrifice, especially Wuhan, Hubei. Wuhan is a special case, but in other parts of China, we have seen declining confirmed cases for over two weeks already, a straight line, declining in a straight line. So we can certainly see this. I'm not a scientist or an expert on epidemics, but I can see the line, and also can see what is happening in other parts of China. It's already become kind of back to normal in terms of production. But still, problems exist. There were some restrictions or highways that have been removed, restrictions imposed on people living in certain quarters. If you travel to a place, you'll be under voluntary quarantine for 14 days, for instance. That will certainly hinder enterprises to return to normal. But measures have been taken, to maintain the balance between a very urgent need to restart, to jumpstart the economy which has been put in dormant position for 1.5 months. You can expect that the Chinese economy will suffer a little bit in the short-term, and therefore it will have implications for the global economy. But it will over very soon, I think.
James Chau:
I covered SARS as a journalist, and many people for obvious reasons have been comparing this outbreak of coronavirus to SARS. But I actually lean more on HIV and AIDS. My work there shows me that travel restrictions internationally don't really work. You can't really shut down a border completely, and when you do that you only encourage people to travel in secret, and to keep their travel history to themselves. If they become infected, they don't seek treatment from primary healthcare or from hospitals because they're now scared, because they've broken some rule. Do you think that these travel restrictions are going to have the same impact internationally, that it's going to end up hurting people, and maybe prolonging the outbreak longer than it needs to be?
Ambassador He Yafei:
I agree. I think we need to listen to recommendations by WHO. We understand some cautionary measures: do more inspections, for instance, for travellers to go through checkpoints across the border, whether air travel, by train etc. It's understandable. We need to have more inspections to make sure that anybody who carries the virus won't pass through. That's alright. But not overreact to the point that you cut-off international travel. If you cut-off internet travel, certainly you will cut-off international trade. The whole world will be locked in a kind of war state. It will hurt the economy not in the short-term, but also will disrupt the global supply chain.
It's a long term effect. Especially now when the global economy faces a downward pressure, a stronger and stronger downward pressure, 2020 will be a very essential and important year for the global economy to grow. We had high hopes after 2019. The IMF had projected 2019 GDP growth globally will be 3%. It's already very low compared to 2012 or 2010. But if 2020 starts like this, already started hesitantly economically-speaking. But we need to think very carefully. Between the balance, we maintain a balance, it's important. I do not discount the importance of fighting the virus. For the sake of fighting the virus, China has made a sacrifice. But China also realizes that we need to start our economic activities as normally as possible.
James Chau:
You talk about this start of a new year. It's also the start of a whole new decade... 2020.
Ambassador He Yafei:
Exactly. Exactly.
James Chau:
January felt like the longest January I had ever experienced myself. It seemed to go on for a very long time. You're not just a former diplomat who has represented China at some of the highest levels, in Geneva at the United Nations, you're also a man of the world. When you put those different experiences together and the insights that they provide you, what do you think is going to happen to the world, and how should we prepare ourselves for 2020... just for this year alone, what would you tell us?
Ambassador He Yafei:
I think we need to have a normal mindset. Viruses will happen. New viruses will appear, will emerge from time to time, and we need to make greater efforts in identifying, in the fight against newly-emerging viruses. It's an ongoing fight. It makes us believe, I think this virus has an effect of a wake-up call, a kind of wake-up call, telling us that, hey, look, we live in a world that is complicated, a lot of threats. This is one of the non-traditional security threats, non-traditional. We have been telling people there'll be lots of non-traditional security threats, because of war, so to speak, because of nuclear weapons in the possession of many countries... it's not an option, really. You may see military clashes from time to time, but war... we're not going to see war in the foreseeable future.
But what is more important, more threatening to humankind, is in our non-traditional threats like viruses, especially for public health. Global public health is extremely important. Extremely important. I think we need to be more conscious of these threats. We need to do more, from basic research, to the prevention. As far as China is concerned, or for that matter, the U.S. is included, we need to for instance do more in Africa, because they have much weaker public health systems. When I look at China, I can see we are 'fortunate' because of SARS. We have set-up since SARS, we set-up a national system that can cope with such an outbreak of a virus. You can see the quick mobilization nationally of all kinds of resources. We are also thankful to international assistance for instance from Japan, from Europe, including from the United States, and we are grateful for the international efforts, of assistance, to help China to tide over the difficulties.
But I think if we look into the future, Africa and those countries with weaker public health system or a lack of emergency response system, we need to do more. We need to do more because viruses as I understand, you understand too, respects no borders. There are no borders for viruses. And in this highly connected world, one airplane, one flight, can carry the virus from place A to place B, and then go on. So I think we need to look at this issue from a global governance perspective. We need to strengthen global governance economically, to look for a better economic growth model, but I think we need to look more carefully and spend more time on global health governance.
James Chau:
I think you're absolutely right. I think it was AIDS that the very first health issue to be recognized as a UN Security Council resolution I think was [number] 1308, recognizing that health and particularly that virus threatened peace and development in the same way, I think all these viruses can be regarded. And perhaps that's the best way - and also in terms of preparedness that you spoke about earlier – is the finest way in which we can honour the more than 2000 people who have died to date in this current outbreak. Ambassador He Yafei, thank you very much for sharing your thoughts on the world.
Ambassador He Yafei:
Thank you very much. It's my pleasure. Hope to see you soon.