Another black mark for China

Some reporters are so good it just makes your head shake when you read them. In the flu world, the prize (always) goes to Helen Branswell of Canadian Press. She's not a stylish writer, just an exceptionally clear one. Her sources are the best and her reporting as reliable as her sources are good. My RSS reader seems to miss some of her stories, but when I get them they are usually head and shoulders above the competition. And sometimes there's no competition. Like her interview with Dr. Keiji Fukuda, head of the WHO's global influenza program.

In it we learn that China is still not producing the viral isolates she has promised so many times:

China has not shared human H5N1 virus samples since early 2006, the World Health Organization has confirmed.

[snip]

China's most recent shipment of human H5N1 isolates was sent to a WHO collaborating laboratory in the spring of 2006. But the newest sample contained in that shipment is said to have been taken from a Chinese patient infected more than a year ago, in late 2005 or early 2006.

Most of China's reported H5N1 infections have occurred since the beginning of last year. Of the 24 cases and 15 deaths China has confirmed so far, 13 infections and eight deaths occurred in 2006. And two cases, one of which was fatal, have been reported so far this year.

Late last year China also provided the WHO lab network with a shipment of viruses collected from birds. But those agricultural viruses are said to date back to outbreaks that occurred in late 2005 - eons ago in the lifespan of the fast evolving viruses. (Helen Branswell, Canadian Press)

We're not talking about genetic sequences, here. Chinese scientists have been sharing sequence and scientific information. It is the viral isolates themselves that is the issue. It would be nice if the sequence information told us everything we need to know, but it doesn't. There is a huge gap between the genetics and the biology, a gap that can only be bridged by having the virus itself. And that is what the Chinese are not providing, despite international agreements and promises to do so.

China's successful nominee for post of WHO Director-General was Dr. Margaret Chan, a native of Hong Kong. There was belief among some that Chan's knowledge of the Chinese system and her stated determination to hold China to the same standards she would any other country made her just the person for the job at this critical moment. That hope is looking misplaced, as many of us feared. The world scientific community came down hard on Indonesia when it stopped sharing isolates because of (legitimate) concerns over lack of access to any vaccine made from the viral isolates of its own citizens. China has no such excuse. They have a thriving vaccine industry and many resources.

Whatever the reasons the Chinese aren't sharing, they are insufficient. This is irresponsible and shameful behavior. WHO is an intergovernmental organization and must be diplomatic when discussing a major power and member of the Security Council.

We don't have those restrictions. Shame on China. They are to be condemned -- again -- and don't deserve the trust of a global community whose lives might depend on information they are withholding. China also risks taking down WHO's Director-General with them.

Not that they will read this in China. Effect Measure is reportedly blocked there.

More like this

If they share anything it will be after the Olympics in 2008. And that sentence can be taken a number of ways.

"Not that they will read this in China. Effect Measure is reportedly blocked there."

It must have been Randolph.

COINCIDENTALLY.... this week the US heads to the WTO for sanctions against China for trade practices against the US and a few others. If held then the US can impose 100 tarrif on Chinese goods entering the country.

Related to BF samples?.... Likely in part. But its to our own advantage to use it against them. They let none of our goods in unless they need it to make more goods for us. The Chinese are using like 8% of their GDP for their military and they will use that power that they build soon, somewhere. They are screaming for oil right now and there are really only two sources... The Middle East, Iran is excluded from that for this, and Russia.

They have had cruisers in the S. China Sea for months now in and around Java which is the oil can of the region. So maybe they should be reading EM so that they know we are on to them. Oh and the most important thing.? Release the fucking samples so that the entire world doesnt die from something thats unnecessary. IMHO of course

By M. Randolph Kruger (not verified) on 17 Apr 2007 #permalink

Randolph where do you get your 8% from?
I noted in Jeffery Sachs first Reith lecture, to the The Royal society London, that he said the Pentagons budget request is $660Billion and would make US military spending greater than the rest of the world combined.
The first lecture can be found here
http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/reith2007/
and the second is to be delivered in China and broadcast tomorrow.

Revere
I know we have been through this before, after you WHO series on the old site, but as I have said before our nation states should have seeded more power to the WHO in the IHR(2005)so they are able to negotiate on a more equal footing. How can they do what we need of them when so constrained? Some of the post I have read here in the past ridiculed the WHO as being ineffective but they have no teeth, what can they do?

I will listen to the rest of Sachs' lectures with great interest as I suspect he is going to argue that the current nation state structure is inadequate to meet challenges like climate change(& attendant extinctions), fresh water scarcity, over fishing and zoonotics inc. H5N1 (which got a mention in the first lecture).
I hope he will argue for a redistribution of sovereignty with a little more going to the UN end other global organisations and a little less at the country level.

It is an extrapolation JJ.

http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/editorials/archives/2007/03/07/20033513…

Overall as their economy has grown, it relates to a real time spending of about 8%. Thats 'bout 3-14% more than we are spending if you take the now 17% increase over last year. Part of it is hype, part of it is buying from the French and Russians in a real world. They have some top of the line systems going onto old Russian platforms such as cruisers. Some of them match well with our Aegis Class cruisers, destroyers, frigates. A rifle is a rifle though. They might just get ambitious soon.

Trust but verify.

By M.Randolph Kruger (not verified) on 17 Apr 2007 #permalink

It is an extrapolation JJ.

http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/editorials/archives/2007/03/07/20033513…

Overall as their economy has grown, it relates to a real time spending of about 8%. Thats 'bout 3-14% more than we are spending if you take the now 17% increase over last year. Part of it is hype, part of it is buying from the French and Russians in a real world. They have some top of the line systems going onto old Russian platforms such as cruisers. Some of them match well with our Aegis Class cruisers, destroyers, frigates. A rifle is a rifle though. They might just get ambitious soon.

Trust but verify.

By M.Randolph Kruger (not verified) on 17 Apr 2007 #permalink

If the PRC is still using PLA line units to run industries, as they have for decades now, then they aren't yet committed to doing what it will take to modernize their military.

What I have heard about the PRC's recent military spending sounds like a DoD 60s wishlist. But it doesn't read as it should if the people composing it had pondered the events in South Lebanon late last summer.

Long story short, the Israelis took a high-tech but low-smarts approach, and Hizbullah, who had done their homework the previous five years, ate their lunches. The IDF was letting Merkavas get caught in the sort of killboxes where the ambushers don't need state-of-the-art missiles to take down a tank. Meanwhile, Hisbullah tore up the old Arab playbook (which called for tight Soviet-style central control), and let the local commanders call the shots. Ye gods, apparently, Hizbullah was actually reading Israeli crypto. That requires so many foulups on the part of the IDF that it boggles the mind.

If the PRC wants to put itself in a position to project military power much past their own borders, then they are going to have to break with the "high tech is everything" paradigm that the Pentagon has chained itself to, and which it appears the PLA is imitating. In particular, they are going to have to prepare to use combined arms methods in chaotic battle space. And that isn't a high-tech issue. It requires distributed command and control in service of a shared overall strategic goal. That isn't a tech issue, it's a people issue and training issue.

The classical example, prior to the 20'th century, might be the Seven Weeks War of 1866. Von Moltke basically sent three Prussian armies off on separate routes with orders that left their commanders with a great deal of room for initiative .. provided that they were able to concentrate when and where they had to. Consequently, the outcome of the Battle of Königgrätz was a foregone conclusion. Read Trevor Dupuy's analysis.

Until and unless the PLA makes that conceptual leap, the military threat they pose to anybody but PRC citizens is going to be quite limited.

By Charles Roten (not verified) on 17 Apr 2007 #permalink

Lovely, the way that rendered. Should read "Koniggratz".

It would appear that the scienceblogs comments system does nonstandard things with European character sets. *sigh*.

By Charles Roten (not verified) on 17 Apr 2007 #permalink

Charles what I fear is a moderately high tech PLA coupled up with a huge arsenal of humans. Not much anyone could do to stop them except neutron nukes or tactical nukes. I have been watching the supply centers on Google in and around their bases and the resolution is a lot less than what I got in the military there is some astounding buildup towards the range of helicopters and landing craft from the mainland to Taiwan. It goes without saying that their fighters are getting better but its the old Soviet strategy of overwhelming their enemy by sheer numbers. Now they are sheer numbers and are at Gen 2.5 for their fighters while we are at 4.5. They are closing this gap with cash.

I also have been watching around the western border with Old Russia. With only moderate resistance they could be into Iran and secure their border there for them with lead elements inside of 72 hours. They could also be airlifted in. Proximity, proximity. I want all these groups to back off and sit down else they get close and something gives. Putin isnt stupid, he isnt going to let China have the Iranian oil either. Tick-tock doc, we have to see who runs the clock.

By M. Randolph Kruger (not verified) on 17 Apr 2007 #permalink

The Soviet air arm was doing considerably better than "overwhelming their enemy by sheer numbers" by the 1980s, if Zuyev's account is to be believed.

The PLAAF has got some horrendous history to overcome. The last report I had about their pilot training was that it was grossly inadequate by the standards of any first world country. Up until the mid-90s, the majority of their fighters were MiG-17s, whose avionics were not up to Soviet standards. It seems that they have scrapped those.

In order to make a cross-strait invasion play, they're going to have to MASTER combined-arms methods. They were taking baby steps in 1990. They CANNOT get even halfway to that goal with the Maoist "army in tennis shoes" mentality.

There are several examples that illustrate the difficulties of a cross-strait invasion of Taiwan.

1) The failure of Sealion, consequent to the lack of preliminary requirements being met.

2) The failure of the Dieppe raid.

3) The brutal nature of the fighting on the beachheads the Americans seized on D-Day. Against a Wehrmacht whose air support was effectively nil, and which had been bled to death on the Eastern Front for the previous three years.

The gaps the PLA has to close cannot be closed with cash and they cannot really be closed with technology, either. They have to be closed with a military culture that not only preaches but practices selective disobedience of orders and encourages rather than suppresses internal criticism. This is radical by anybody's standards. Only two armies that I know of have passed this bar: the Prussian, later German Army from around 1860 through 1945, and the pre-1970 IDF.

If my remark about selective disobedience seems counterintuitive, recall that standard fare for officer training in the Prussian army, by 1865, included field problems that could only be solved by ignoring specific orders and conforming instead to the overall strategic goal. Officer candidates who failed that test were told so in no uncertain terms.

The USSR proved that you could defend territory successfully, against a first-rate army, with weight of bodies and metal. Assuming that your officers know how to handle what they have.

Effectively investing and seizing territory defended by locals who are willing to die is another matter entirely.

In fact, you have your work cut out for you if the worst you have to contend with is a local population which merely permits an insurgency to operate in it's midst.

The Soviets ran into this in Afghanistan. We ran into it in Vietnam, but today's civilian leadership has chosen to forget the magnitude and severity of the problems involved.

How is the PLA going to get to this level of performance without risking everything politically? The PLA is the mainstay of the regime in the PRC, it's enabling arm. Even the Soviets did not have this problem, since the the KGB, not the army, was the enabling organization of that ruling elite.

I really find it hard to imagine the PLA deciding to cultivate the sort of military culture needed to go from 2G to 3G warfare. The consequent political risks would be huge.

By Charles Roten (not verified) on 17 Apr 2007 #permalink

You are mostly right Charles and its well documented what you put out. But its based in a western thought process. Those guys are a LOT different than we are when it comes to decision making processes.

Here is going to be your cue if and when this thing starts to tip over. We are going to increase the size of our military because we have gotten bogged down in yet another policing action like Mogadishu. Cant use soldiers as cops. But on the other hand, we still have to possibly fight a 3 theatre war scenario. One of those is a China tries to take Taiwan. The second those guys declare their independence then the balloon is going to go up and thats part one of the cue. The second part will be troops, landing craft and helicopters massing in three points on the mainland. That of course would also be just before their bombers and fighters started across the strait. Its to their advantage at that time to also start as much trouble in the Gulf as possible. Are we there yet. No thank God but dont be surprised when those avionics you speak of are upgraded. The French are happily finding a new customer base and Dassault has a very, very good fighter that they could sell them in the F1 and F2 and if nothing else retrofit their aircraft with air superiority missiles on one group of bombers and make it a platform. AWST indicates that this is exactly what is happening. Aircraft carriers are in the mix now. Add in the fact that everyone is wondering how a diesel powered ex-Ruskie boat appeared inside of the exclusion zone with full dipping sonar, six towed arrays, and two of our subs working without anyone knowing three months ago. Yep, something is up.

Would they win? Nope, but the costs would be tremendous for all involved. And you can bet it will be over oil. If they could neutralize even two battle groups they could take the Spratleys, Java, and the Phillipines inside of a month. We would be running combat sorties from Guam. Adventurism? I dont know but its something to watch.

By M. Randolph Kruger (not verified) on 17 Apr 2007 #permalink