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http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/asia-pacific/3371659.stm

China follows Mao with mass cull

 

Mao Zedong's mass extermination campaign went horribly wrong

 

Tuesday, 6 January, 2004, 15:45 GMT

By Tim Luard

BBC News Online

China is fighting the Sars virus through a

Maoist-style " patriotic extermination campaign "

against civet cats, badgers, raccoon dogs, rats

and cockroaches.

 

But how does this latest mass cull compare with

those of the 1950s, when Mao Zedong ordered the

killing of what he called the country's biggest

four evils - rats, flies, mosquitoes and sparrows?

 

The late Chinese leader's " four pests " campaign

proved the Communist Party's power to mobilise

China's millions of peasants but the results were

often unfortunate.

 

The anti-sparrow campaign, for instance, was

extremely effective but had tragic results.

 

Villagers were told to rush out to the fields,

banging on pots and pans and screaming at the

tops of their voices.

 

The sparrows took to the air, and as the

pandemonium continued, stayed there, too

terrified to land, until they dropped dead from

exhaustion.

 

The only trouble was that sparrows are a vital

link in the food chain and are particularly fond

of locusts. With no sparrows left to eat them,

there was a plague of locusts, the crops were

ruined and millions of people died in the ensuing

famine.

 

There are certain similarities with the present

campaign, says Dai Qing, one of China's most

prominent journalists and environmental activists.

 

Extreme measures

 

" Mao knew nothing about animals. He didn't want

to discuss his plan or listen to experts. He just

decided that the 'four pests' should be killed. "

 

In the same way, today's rulers have rushed to

adopt a radical, over-simplified solution without

proper consultation, she told BBC News Online.

 

" The main difference is that Mao just wanted to

show how great his revolution was, while

officials in Guangdong are over-anxious to show

they are doing something to look after the

people's health.

 

" But while I don't approve of eating wild animals

I also totally disagree with killing them as is

being done now, " she said.

 

Officials in Guangdong ordered the immediate

killing of every civet cat in captivity in the

province after researchers found that a man had

fallen ill with a new strain of the Sars virus

that is genetically similar to a strain found in

civet cats.

 

The small, weasel-like animals - distantly

related to the mongoose - are being removed from

farms, markets and restaurants where they were

bred as a culinary delicacy and put into vats of

disinfectant and drowned, before being

electrocuted and incinerated.

 

But the mass slaughter may turn out to be

counter-productive, according to the World Health

Organization (WHO).

 

Killing the animals, and perhaps exposing their

blood, is more dangerous than letting them remain

alive, say WHO experts, and could also mean the

destruction of valuable evidence.

 

There is no proof yet that civets carry the Sars

virus, says the WHO, adding that the latest Sars

case involving a 32-year-old TV producer remains

an isolated one which does not constitute a

public health emergency.

 

It is not only civets that are being targeted in the anti-Sars cull.

 

" We will start a patriotic health campaign to

kill rats and cockroaches in order to give every

place a thorough cleaning for the Lunar New

Year, " said Feng Liuxiang of the Guangdong health

bureau.

 

Chinese New Year this year falls on 22 January

and is a time when large numbers of people move

around the country visiting their relatives,

adding to fears that Sars could spread as it did

last year, when almost 800 people in China died

from the pneumonia-like disease.

 

Mainland China imposed restrictions last spring

in response to preliminary research suggesting

that Sars came from wild animals, but allowed

sales to resume last autumn after complaints by

people who farm civet cats and other exotic

species.

 

This time officials appear determined to show they mean business.

 

While the Communist Party no longer exerts the

same daily control over people's lives as it did

under Mao, it still has the ability to mobilise

and check up on them to a degree rarely seen

outside China.

 

" Partly because of effects of the reforms such as

unemployment and migration (the Chinese

authorities) are now reinvesting in social

control. " --Bob Benewick, Sussex University

 

The appearance of Sars has lent new life to the

old Neighbourhood Committees, which were starting

to die out under the recent market-style reforms

but which once reported to officials on the

activities (and even the likely pregnancies) of

every household.

 

The party has been trying to revive its

activities at the grassroots level, which had

started to atrophy, says Professor Bob Benewick

of Sussex University.

 

He is co-author of a recent report called Nine

Grannies with Eight Teeth Between Them - a

reference to the old women who did much of the

daily work of the neighbourhood committees, often

involving no more than sitting in a doorway

pretending to sleep while closely monitoring the

street's comings and goings.

 

" Sars has meant that there has been plenty of

opportunity to go round checking up on people's

health, spraying their houses with disinfectant

and that sort of thing, " Professor Benewick told

BBC News Online.

 

" This is a form of social control that goes back

to the '50s. The neighbourhood committees are now

known as community councils and to some extent

they have been modernised, but essentially they

still have the same old infrastructure and in

some cases they have a lot of power, " he said.

 

China's Maoist past helps explain the speed,

thoroughness and aggression with which this

week's cull is being carried out - and also the

contrasting slowness and secrecy with which

Chinese officials initially reacted last year.

 

" It's new wine in old bottles, " says Professor

Benewick. " Partly because of effects of the

reforms such as unemployment and migration they

are now reinvesting in social control. "

Story from BBC NEWS:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/1/hi/world/asia-pacific/3371659.stm

 

Published: 2004/01/06 15:45:45 GMT

 

© BBC MMIV

 

 

--

 

 

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