The Christian Science Monitor from the April 08, 2003 edition By Robert Marquand | Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor

BEIJING – When the US pushed China to participate in an Asian coalition to halt North Korea's nuclear ambitions, Beijing demurred. It claimed little influence over Kim Jong Il.

But in fact, for nearly two months, China has been quietly "getting North Korea's attention," as a well-placed Western source puts it - halting oil pipeline shipments to Pyongyang for three days due to "technical difficulties," and using its wide diplomatic channels to urge North Korea down a nonnuclear path.

Now, since the start of the US-led Iraq war, Chinese efforts have increased and taken firmer shape in response to the Bush administration's "doctrine of preemption," now on display in the Gulf.

"The Iraq war has brought a change," says Shi Yinhong, a professor of international studies at People's University in Beijing. "Before Iraq, there was a stalemate in the Chinese position, and fragmentation. Now there is some recognition of a possible time sequence in the US approach to North Korea, and that has created a sense of urgency in China."

At the highest levels, Chinese officials have been closely studying ways of bringing about a "verifiable" denuclearization of the Korean peninsula, sources say. They're coming to the conclusion that without a firm common policy among Northeast Asian states and the US, verification may not be possible - and the US might step in. "We have never been opposed to multilateral talks," says one high-level Chinese source, somewhat belying the fact that since October China has ardently advocated direct talks between the US and the North.

The Iraq war itself seems to have strengthened the position of an influential minority of bolder, more pro-active Beijing analysts and party and government foreign policy experts - the scholarly class that traditionally advised the emperor in Chinese society. In their view, China should use its diplomatic capital to urge the North into the kind of multilateral talks that the White House has advocated to stop Kim Jong Il from bringing his enriched uranium and plutonium programs to fruition.

Unlike their South Korean counterparts, some of these advisers even echo Bush team hard-liners - expressing a willingness to keep military options on the table, and considering sanctions against North Korea. (Seoul is closer to North Korean artillery than is Beijing, a Western source notes.)

Yet while China wants to cultivate improved relations with the US, it is incorrect to say that Beijing's recent pressure on Pyongyang is simply serving American attempts to deal with Mr. Kim. Rather, new Chinese efforts are articulated in terms of self-interest. They are attempting to outflank the new US doctrine, and what Beijing sees as potential chaos on the Korean peninsula and a refugee calamity on China's border, if US bids to deal with the unpredictable Kim later take a turn toward the extreme.

It would also be incorrect, sources say, to assume a bolder Chinese approach to the North has taken hold here as policy. What Chinese diplomats actually say to their North Korean colleagues at the various levels of contact is a closely held secret.

Ties between old Communist Party comrades, and at the military level where Chinese memories of aiding the North in the Korean War are intact - have a powerful sway. In some readings, the scholars' view is a minority view - that internal dynamics in China have not ripened at least yet toward a bold stance, and that the pressuring of Pyongyang is simply a tactical or experimental position, and not to be read as a pro-US helpmeet.

China has only reluctantly agreed to back UN Security Council talks to be held Wednesday on North Korea's January withdrawal from the nuclear nonproliferation treaty. Officially, Beijing is vehemently opposed to sanctions on North Korea. China said little during Kim's escalations - kicking out UN weapons inspectors, withdrawing from treaties, intercepting a US reconnaissance plane - in the six months since he admitted having a secret nuclear program.

Still, Western reporters have confirmed that Chinese Vice Foreign Minister Wang Yi has made clear representations to North Korean Foreign Minister Paek Namsung to resolve the crisis. Even the willingness of Chinese sources such as Dr. Shi at the People's University to be quoted by Western journalists indicates a stronger position in Beijing.

Zhang Liangui, an influential policy advisor at the Central Party School in Beijing, where progressive young Party officials attend, for example, says that he cannot confirm whether or not China had cut off oil from its Da Qing pipeline - to send a message to North Korea. But he says that, "if it wasn't an intentional warning, still, Beijing should conduct such acts as part of a package of [sticks and carrots] in dealing with Korea."

Mr. Zhang is one of four scholars who have openly advocated a tougher Chinese position toward the North in official media here, something that indicates backing in high government echelons. At the same time, the Zhang position advocates that China take a friendly approach to North Korea, use its channels of communication with Pyongyang as an asset - while leaving Washington to play "bad cop."

Some experts in Seoul believe Kim's 55-day hiatus from public appearances, and the recent relative absence of North Korean provocations along the DMZ, suggest he has been reconsidering his strategy.

But he has reemerged with a blast of new and often contradictory positions and rhetoric. Mr. Kim accused the US of plotting his overthrow, but in another venue said that direct talks with the US were the only means toward settling the crisis.

Some Chinese scholars are already staking out a post-Kim position. What China wants, according to Chinese sources, are assurances in high-level meetings that in a "worse case scenario" - a collapse of North Korea - that China's border would be secure, and that the international community would take care of refugees. "We would want any US forces to quickly withdraw from the Chinese border, to be replaced by an international force - and guarantees that the UN would handle the refugees," one source says.

Reuters Health Last Updated: 2003-04-07 10:00:54 -0400 (Reuters Health) By Tan Ee Lyn

HONG KONG (Reuters) - A WHO expert said on Monday the course of the deadly respiratory disease SARS appeared to be slowing at its source in southern China, while Hong Kong reported a spate of new cases of the mystery virus that has caused a global health scare.

Two more people died in Singapore of severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS), state media said on Monday, days after the city-state showed signs of success of subduing the virus that has killed at least 90 people worldwide and infected more than 2,600.

The Hong Kong government said on Monday SARS had infected 41 more people, bringing the total number of cases to 883, and hospitals were bracing for a possible tripling of cases.

The respiratory disease, which originated in China's Guangdong province, hit neighboring Hong Kong in March and has been spread around the world by air travelers.

Robert Breiman, head of a World Health Organization team investigating the outbreak in Guangdong, said on Monday the number of SARS cases was slowing in the province and the virus was showing signs it might be weakening.

"It does look like the disease rates are dropping -- dropping quite a bit," he told Reuters in a telephone interview.

"The problem isn't extinguished, which would be the nice place to get to. But it's occurring in lower frequency, lower incidence than it was during the peak time in February," he said.

"We're still not ruling out the possibility that the virus itself could become burned out and become less and less transmittable," Breiman said.

Some experts have suggested the SARS virus came from animals and mutated, then jumped to humans, but the team in Guangdong saw no evidence supporting that theory, he said.

SCHOOLS CLOSED

The deadly virus has spread to nearly 20 countries, slashing tourism, canceling events, closing schools and prompting economists to trim growth forecasts for parts of Asia.

Australia added SARS on Monday to a list of diseases requiring quarantine, ranking it as dangerous as cholera and smallpox.

The virus has skirted Europe but Belgium's health ministry said on Monday it was looking into a possible case of SARS after a 56-year-old woman was hospitalized with symptoms of the disease in the port city of Antwerp over the weekend.

Hong Kong Hospital Authority chairman Leong Che-hung, speaking of a worst-case scenario, told local television late on Sunday that health officials were preparing for up to 3,000 cases. He believed there would be sufficient manpower and facilities although intensive care units would be under pressure. Singapore, where eight people have died and which has the world's fourth-highest number of cases, is battling to control SARS from spreading in the city-state's main hospital.

A doctor at Singapore General Hospital was confirmed to be infected, raising fears of a crack in the government's strategy of isolating infected people. Twenty nurses at the hospital are also suspected of having SARS and have been isolated.

The fresh outbreak came after the government imposed strict control measures, placing more than 1,000 under home quarantine and closing schools.

PM'S TRIP CANCELED

Singapore's Prime Minister Goh Chok Tong canceled a trip to China over the SARS scare, but went ahead with a visit to India, where a health official said the Singapore delegation would be subjected to a health screening, though not Goh himself.

Goh told Singaporeans to learn to live with the virus, because it would not disappear soon.

"What we are saying is this is not the end of the world, there's life. With terrorism, with the Iraqi war, with SARS, we are going to live as near normal a life as possible," he told a news conference.

Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao, whose government is grappling with its first big crisis since taking office in March, said China could control the spread of SARS and welcomed visitors.

Few are likely to heed the assurance. Some foreign health experts in Beijing believe cases there have gone unreported.

The WHO team has been talking to early survivors of the illness trying to find how, or if, the virus -- new to science and possibly belonging to a family of viruses that cause the common cold -- made the leap from animals, possibly domesticated pigs and ducks.

SARS symptoms include high fever, chills and breathing difficulties, and the disease has a mortality rate of about 4 percent, roughly the same as measles. By comparison, tens of thousands die every year in the United States from various strains of influenza.

The WHO's Breiman balked at suggestions the outbreak was under control, as the Chinese government has said publicly on several occasions.

"I think that term 'under control' keeps getting people into various kinds of trouble. To me, that's not so much the issue as whether or not people are taking all the appropriate steps that are available to us at the moment," he said.

Breiman said the team would head back to Beijing on Tuesday pleased with its work in Guangdong, but had not solved the puzzle of how the disease originated and became an epidemic.

"I don't think that we, ourselves, during this time will have the answers. Of course, we didn't really expect that we would. It's too big of a set of questions and it's the people that have the data themselves that have to come up with the answers."

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Reuters Health Last Updated: 2003-04-07 17:00:33 -0400 (Reuters Health)

TORONTO (Reuters) - The mysterious pneumonia-like SARS virus has claimed its 10th Canadian victim, health officials said on Monday, adding that another case is being investigated as a possible SARS death.

Health officials in Ontario said the number of people with severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) had risen to 188, with 88 probable and 100 suspect cases.

As of Sunday, there were reports of 217 probable or suspect SARS cases across Canada.

The illness has killed about 100 people worldwide and infected more than 2,600 since it emerged in southern China in November. Canada has the third-highest number of cases in the world after China and Hong Kong, and the bulk of them are around Toronto, which has a large Chinese immigrant population.

Thousands of people have been quarantined in Ontario to prevent the spread of the virus.

Outside Ontario, cases have been reported in British Columbia, New Brunswick, Saskatchewan, Alberta and Prince Edward Island.

SARS symptoms include high fever, chills and breathing difficulties, and the disease has a mortality rate of about 4 percent, roughly the same as measles. By comparison, hundreds of thousands can die in a year from various strains of influenza, and malaria kills about 1 million a year, mostly children.

Reuters Health Last Updated: 2003-04-07 10:00:30 -0400 (Reuters Health)

MADRID (Reuters) - The World Health Organization's infectious diseases chief said a mystery respiratory virus that has killed more than 80 people should be identified within weeks but he feared it might be carried by people without symptoms.

WHO's David Heymann was asked in an interview with Spain's El Pais daily how long it would take to identify the source of the illness, which has spread through Asia and beyond, killing more than 80 people and infecting more than 2,400.

"Given the speed with which the 11 laboratories we have coordinated are making progress, not long. Not long could be weeks or months, but I think it will be weeks."

He said the next stage was to develop a test for the disease and find out if there were carriers of the pneumonia-like virus, called severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS), who were not showing symptoms.

"If there are people who have the virus and don't show symptoms, we are lost, because that would mean it had spread throughout the world, as it is easily contracted," Heymann was quoted as saying.

"That was how AIDS was transmitted before it was discovered. We still don't know if this is the case, that's why we need a test," he added.

He also said finding a treatment and vaccine would take "a long time."

The SARS outbreak started in southern China late last year before showing up in Hong Kong, Singapore, Vietnam, Canada, Germany and elsewhere in recent weeks.

Reuters Health Last Updated: 2003-04-07 13:00:26 -0400 (Reuters Health) By Jason Szep

SINGAPORE (Reuters) - Two more people died of atypical pneumonia on Monday, Singapore said, as Prime Minister Goh Chok Tong canceled a trip to SARS-hit China and the deadly virus spread to a fifth Singapore hospital.

Days after showing some success in subduing the virus that has killed 100 people worldwide and infected more than 2,600, Singapore said six more nurses had been struck by the illness at three different hospitals.

The infections bring Singapore's total confirmed SARS cases to 112 -- the world's fourth-highest -- and raise concerns over how quickly the disease is spreading despite aggressive attempts to stop it.

As the country counted its eighth death from the disease, Prime Minister Goh Chok Tong told Singaporeans to learn to live with the virus, because it would not disappear soon.

"What we are saying is this is not the end of the world, there's life. With terrorism, with the Iraqi war, with SARS, we are going to live as near normal a life as possible," he said.

The illness has dire consequences for Singapore's US$88 billion economy, which barely escaped a second recession in as many years last year and was already hammered as exports fall during the war in Iraq.

Orchard Road, a main shopping district, is quieter than usual and taxi drivers complain of dwindling fares as residents stay home. An industry body said some retailers reported sales down as much as 75 percent last weekend.

Goh said the government would revise down its forecast of 2 to 5 percent economic growth this year, citing the blow from SARS. Economists have already done that, slashing forecasts for growth by one percentage point, on average, according to a Reuters poll.

"It is really across the board," said Jannie Tay, president of the Singapore Retailers Association, referring to the effect of the disease on retailers.

ISOLATION POLICY HIT

Singapore's SARS infection rate had slowed dramatically last week. Just five new cases of the disease were confirmed over the weekend, and only one on Friday.

But new infections on Monday stoked fears of a possible crack in its strategy to contain the illness.

Singapore had contained SARS to one hospital, Tan Tock, until last week when it reached National University Hospital and then on Saturday hit KK, a women's hospital.

On Sunday a doctor at Singapore General, the nation's biggest hospital, came down with it, and on Monday SARS reached another center, Changi General Hospital, with two new cases.

Headlines of a confirmed SARS case at Singapore General, the nation's busiest hospital, triggered a wave of panicked callers. Phone lines at the hospital went down briefly as they swamped the switchboard, asking if it was safe. Visitors to the hospital had their temperature taken before they were allowed in.

More than a dozen nurses at the hospital have developed a fever -- a key symptom of the illness. Around 80 patients and 91 staff were transferred in ambulances to Tan Tock.

The disease also took a diplomatic toll as Goh canceled a visit to China to meet the country's new leadership, citing the outbreak of SARS, which has killed at least 53 people on the mainland, where it is thought to have originated in November.