崔天凯:疫情说明中国确立国家治理现代化目标正确性

Well, this is a very big challenge to us. And I think in a sense, this is very big challenge to the entire international community as we develop, as our economy grows, how we take care of public health needs. How do we respond to epidemics like this? So this is a challenge for the entire international community. For any government. And we are, somebody is saying...

…the challenge and the response is also unprecedented. I think this is quite true. I know we are doing our utmost to contain, control the virus, and provide treatment to the people, and reduce its impact on economic and social activities, and we're still doing whatever we can do right now.

Well, as I said, this could be a big challenge to any government, to any governing system.

Actually, you see, yeah, we are at the forefront. We are at the forefront. Actually long before this outbreak, we already set a goal for ourselves, which is the modernization of our governance system and governance capacity. We believe this should be the overall goal for our reform process, and this epidemic has proved that we have set the right goal. So we have to do our best to reach that goal. But this is an ongoing process. You see, there will always be new challenges and we always have to make new progress. We should never stop. I'm sure we will learn more from this outbreak and do a better job.

First of all, this is a new virus. Actually, nobody knew it very well at the beginning. So there was a process for people to get to know more about it, to identify the virus, to know its qualities, the transmission routes. All this has taken some time. And for everybody, I think, that there's some kind of a learning process.

Well, everything we are doing now, including all these personnel changes, have one goal, to respond to the call of the people and meet the needs of the people. This is the only goal for everything we are doing now. So naturally, under such special circumstances, people who are, people who can do the job better should be given the responsibility to do it. And this is a very heavy responsibility

I think it's only natural that some people would be panicking under the circumstances. So we always have as one of our basic principles, openness and transparency. We believe openness and transparency will give people more confidence, will give them more awareness about this virus. What is the real, what are the real risks and how to prevent them? And we are providing, you see all the figures, the numbers on daily basis just to make people reassured that we are doing our most to confront it. And this will certainly help us to dispel any fake news, rumors or what people call pseudoscience.

As I said, we are doing everything possible to meet the needs of the people. So anybody who can do their job better should be given the opportunity to do it.

No, first of all, he was not detained. I think somebody talked to him, but he wasn't, he was not detained. Otherwise, you cannot be working in the hospital.

You see, he was a doctor. He was a good doctor. We really, all of us feel really sad for his death. But he was a devoted doctor. He was a good professional. And he saw some coming danger from the specific cases he dealt with. As a doctor, he was alerted, but not everybody quite understood and appreciated him at the very beginning because this is a new virus. Nobody knew anything about it.

You see, as a doctor, he could find things from specific cases before the government to make an alert, any announcement they need more evidence. They have to base themselves on scientific analysis. So all this would take some time. But now, of course, with the benefit of hindsight, everybody knew that Dr. Lee was right. And he continued to work in the hospital. And it was very tragic for us that he, in his work, he lost his life. But I think he was one of the good doctors there are tens of thousands of them still working as a frontline, still risk their own lives to save other people.

I think that the city government made some announcement at his passing away. They expressed their condolences and there was such an expression of condolences, support to the family all over China.

Actually, I think Dr. Lee is also part of the Chinese system. He's not alone. As I said, there are tens of thousands, even millions of healthcare workers, community workers still working on the very frontline. Dr. Lee was just one of them. Maybe he was an outstanding doctor, but he is part of the system. Maybe people are not aware, he was a member of the Communist Party.

I think he, he is a good member of the party.

You see, we believe in openness, but openness does not mean that you could say anything under any circumstances. The government has to respond in a responsible way. Whatever action the government is taking, whatever announcement it is making, alert it is issuing, you have to pace yourself on sufficient evidence and science.

I'm not in a position to explain everything on social media, and I don't think I should do that. People have that freedom to express their views. But I'm not responsible for their views.

When you talk about government there are different levels of government in China, like in the United States. You have the central government, you have provincial government, you have city government, you have village people. So you cannot talk in very general terms "the government." Sometimes government at a particular level makes some mistakes. This is possible. This is, I think it is all natural all over the world. But you cannot say the whole government in China is making a mistake. This is not true.

I think officials all over the world could make mistakes, including here in the United States.

The leading role. He's taken such a strong leadership.

Well, he set up a central government mechanism to fight this virus and he had made tour in Beijing with the two communities, encouraging people give people good hope. Without his strong leadership, the nationwide effort would not be that strong. And he also talked with foreign leaders, many of them, including President Trump on the phone. They had a very good conversation on the phone last week.

Of course we will welcome them. We welcome experts of all countries to come to help us. But you see, first of all, the World Health Organization is sponsoring such expert group.

They have already sent an advance team to China. They are working in China. Secondly, people have to understand right now, people in China are so preoccupied with their work to combat this virus. So we have to have some ordered manner to have experts from other countries. And also there's a real risk that they might be exposed to the virus. We'll have to take good protection of them.

They I think that they have recommended a list of names to the W.H.O. and this is all under the consideration of our communication with the W.H.O.

I don't know the latest progress, but the W.H.O. is doing a good work in this regard. They have an advanced team already in China making all the necessary arrangements and actually some American experts, a professor from Columbia University, I think Professor Lipkin, has already visited China and he's now back in New York. He has been working with a Chinese counterpart for many years, ever since SARS.

Well, as a diplomat, normally I don't compare the government of China, and the government of the United States, but you can have your own views because you also have had things like disasters, emergencies here, like the Hurricane Katrina some years ago. And you do not shut down the city, but there was total disorder in the city. I visited Louisiana. People told me all kinds of stories. So we're shutting down some of the cities, especially Wuhan to stop the transmission of the virus, to protect more people. We are doing all this of course, at high cost. But we are doing this in the larger interest of the entire world. If we fail to stop the virus, it could spread to other countries. Then this will cause international crisis. So this is, I believe, a real example of one for all, all for one situation. We are doing this for the world, and we appreciate that the world is helping us.

Of course.

First of all, people's well-being, their health, their safety, their lives, are the most important thing for us. So we'll do our best to protect people's well-being in a sense at whatever cost. At the same time, people also need economic development. They have to have the economy grow and more normal social life. So we are also trying our best to restore normal economic and social activity.

It would depend on how soon we can control the virus.

I think we are working on two fronts. On the one front, we are doing our utmost and this is a nationwide effort to fight the virus. At the same time, we are doing whatever we can, to the extent that we can, to maintain some normal economic and social life. For instance, people's daily necessities have to be provided and some of the companies, factories have to resume their work after the Lunar New Year holidays. And we are looking at when and how schools could be reopened.