Hong Kong Bird Market Closed After Discovery of Avian Flu

Hong Kong's government has temporarily closed the city's famous pet bird market after a bird for sale there was found to be carrying the H5N1 avian flu virus. Authorities say they will step up measures to combat bird flu, including a crackdown on the smuggling of birds into Hong Kong. Claudia Blume reports.

Hong Kong's famous Bird Garden in the city's busy Mongkok district usually bustles with residents bargaining for exotic birds as pets and with tourists who love the market's lively, colorful atmosphere. Now, a grim-looking guard at the entrance of the market makes sure no one enters.

The shutters of most of the 70 shops are down. A few, mostly elderly, vendors sit around with nothing to do.

They have put up a banner that sums up their feelings.

One of the vendors reads aloud, "This tourist spot has been turned into a ruin."

This woman says that her life is very hard right now. She says she does not have any customers and cannot earn any money.

Hong Kong's health officials closed the bird market about two weeks ago after a starling there was found to be carrying the H5N1 avian flu virus. All birds in that shop were removed and the market vendors were asked to thoroughly clean and disinfect their stalls. Hong Kong's agriculture and fisheries department has been collecting and testing samples from bird stalls to test for avian flu viruses.

Eric Tai, a veterinarian working for the department, said "Our last batch of samples for this exercise was collected earlier this week and if things go well, when everything is negative, showing there is no virus around, when that result comes out, then we will be opening the market again." 

When the market opens, the department will introduce stricter regulations to ensure that all birds on sale are from approved sources, have valid health certificates and have been legally imported into Hong Kong. Tai says the agricultural department will step up its cooperation with customs officials.

"With these few methods we hope that the origin of the bird will be safe, and that we will be able to trace the source and that there will be no birds from unknown sources entering our licensed premises," he added.

Chinese children handle ducks at a market in Loudi, central China's Hunan province, 10 June 2007 file photo

The starling carrying the bird flu virus had no health certificate, raising suspicion it might have been smuggled into Hong Kong.

Hong Kong aggressively tests for bird flu after an outbreak in 1997 jumped to humans and killed six people, the first human cases ever recorded from the virus. More than 12 wild birds have died from avian flu in the territory this year.

The H5N1 virus has spread throughout Asia and into Africa and Europe. More than 150 people have died from the disease; most caught the virus after handling sick birds. While human infections are rare, many scientists fear the virus could mutate so it can spread easily among humans, causing a pandemic

THE UTTER FOLLY OF CHINA-BASHING

Except in the administration, opinion in Washington is hardening on China's currency. Earlier this month, as the Treasury declined to name China a "currency manipulator" in its twice-yearly report on the matter to Congress, a new China-bashing law was put before the Senate. This measure, introduced by Democrats Max Baucus and Charles Schumer and Republicans Charles Grassley and Lindsey Graham, proposes to treat China's currency undervaluation as an illicit subsidy and seek redress through anti-dumping duties and other sanctions.

The bill has wide support on Capitol Hill – enough, the sponsors hope, to overcome a presidential veto. More surprising, perhaps, are the many calls for confrontation from disinterested economic experts.

The normally consensus-seeking Peterson Institute, for instance, is seething with impatience. In congressional testimony last month its director, Fred Bergsten, called for a new US strategy and recommended that this include a complaint at the World Trade Organisation "against China's currency intervention as an export subsidy". Mr Bergsten reminded the committee that Ben Bernanke, chairman of the Federal Reserve, had characterised China's currency policy that way in Beijing last December. (Mr Bernanke's prepared text did use the term "export subsidy", but in the speech as delivered it was cut. Back home, the excision served to underline the point rather than erase it.) 

Sure enough, the new China-bashing law follows Mr Bergsten's advice. China, it says, is an economic outlaw and must be brought to book.

So much is wrong with this approach that it is hard to know where to start. To begin with, an aggressive posture is unlikely to force China to change. The best argument for a moderate appreciation of the renminbi is that it would serve China's interests. If China's leaders are not persuaded of that, intemperate foreign demands are unlikely to change their minds.

Put that aside, though, and suppose that China did capitulate and let the renminbi appreciate briskly. What would that do to America's current account deficit? The answer is: not much. Morris Goldstein, another Peterson Institute hawk on China, acknowledges in a recent working paper* that the US economy is running at full employment, so if China's manipulated currency is exporting unemployment, those particular exports must be going somewhere else. Moreover, as Mr Goldstein points out, the renminbi's weight in the trade-weighted dollar index is just 15 per cent. A 20 per cent, appreciation would provide a meagre 3 per cent devaluation of the trade-weighted dollar. That would improve the US current account deficit, which was $850bn last year, by maybe $50bn.

Mr Goldstein says an appreciation of the renminbi might pull some other Asian exchange rates with it. That would help. A 25 per cent real appreciation against the dollar in China, Japan and the rest of emerging Asia "would probably improve the US current account position by roughly $130bn to $180bn". Suppose, then, that all this happened. Even under all Mr Goldstein's favourable assumptions America's current account deficit would be trimmed to between $670bn and $720bn. The problem is not exactly solved.

Mr Bergsten, Mr Goldstein and every other competent analyst note that a meaningful improvement in the US current account deficit will require higher private saving and a smaller budget deficit at home – variables that, unlike China's currency policy, are under the control of the US Congress. Why then give so much greater emphasis to what China needs to do? Perhaps the China-bashers think that Beijing is more susceptible to US threats than Congress is to elementary economics. Come to think of it, that might be a close call.

A quite different argument is often advanced for increasing pressure on China: that the US public will turn protectionist otherwise. Unless China is perceived to be playing fair in international trade, it is said, public opinion will demand new import barriers. For the sake of liberal trade, in other words, it is necessary to threaten China with antidumping duties and quite possibly to impose them.

At the very least, this is a paradoxical point of view – like advocating gin to curb one's appetite for alcohol. In fact it is even more absurd than it seems. Protectionist sentiment in the US is driven, in part, by the current account deficit, so it is true that measures that reduce the deficit, including an appreciation of the renminbi, would lessen the demand for import barriers. However, protectionist sentiment is also fuelled, in a far more direct way, by the account of the economy that the political class feeds to voters. What this bill tells the US public is that the flood of imports, the external deficit and the resulting downward pressure on wages in some industries (no need to dwell on the downward pressure on prices and the improvement in overall living standards that those imports also provide) are mainly China's fault.

One reason to contradict this account is that it is wrong. Another reason, for those who need another, is that leaving it unchallenged – let alone affirming it – will indeed make a turn towards protectionism more likely.

* A (Lack of) Progress Report on China's Exchange Rate Policies. www.petersoninstitute.org

Darfur Activists Prepare For Possible Beijing Olympics Boycott

Human rights activists are asking China to become more involved in Darfur peace efforts ahead of next year's Beijing Olympics

China is taking steps to avoid the possibility of an international boycott of the 2008 Olympic Games in Beijing by becoming increasingly involved in efforts to gain peace in Darfur. Human rights activists accuse China of fomenting the violence in the region, by selling weapons and ammunition to the Sudanese government, and buying oil produced by Khartoum. Peace advocates say the government of Sudan is committing genocide in Darfur, in a calculated campaign to "exterminate" the black ethnic groups that live in the region. Activists say they'll call for a global boycott of China's Olympics, if the Far Eastern giant does not put more pressure on Sudan to stop the killings. In the fourth part of a series on China's role in Darfur, VOA's Darren Taylor examines the potential for the calls for a Games boycott to become a separate campaign around the Darfur issue.

Although analysts and activists are divided as to the possibility of calls for an international boycott meeting with success, most agree that the moves towards punitive action against China have added an important element of pressure on Beijing to achieve a durable peace in Darfur.   

"I don't think there's going to be much success in getting a boycott, but I also think that the specter of protests and calls for a boycott has gotten Chinese attention in the last couple of months in a very significant way. The threat of a boycott or a disruption of the Olympics has contributed to some of the steps that China has taken (recently)," says Stephen Morrison, the head of the Africa Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a Washington D.C.-based think tank.    

Amongst other efforts that have indicated a change in Beijing's policies with regard to Sudan, President Hu Jintao recently dispatched his senior Africa policy maker to Darfur – a move Morrison describes as "fairly bold."

China is also participating in high-level crisis talks about the issue in Paris this week.

But this isn't enough for activists. They want China to do more to stop the violence in Darfur, where people continue to die every day. And the peace advocates want quick results – something that Morrison feels isn't feasible. 

"It's a very fragile international peacekeeping operation, and clearly there'll be a very slow political settlement and in getting a peace operation to function in Darfur. And that (slow movement towards peace) will provide impetus to calls for either protests around the Olympics, or a boycott."

According to Morrison, while a full-scale, official campaign to boycott the Chinese Olympics is unlikely, calls for it to happen will indeed grow in the months ahead, and they'll be concentrated in the United States, and, maybe, in parts of Europe.  

"Most of those calls…. are not going to be echoed in Asia or Africa. They may be echoed in places like France, where newly-elected President (Nicolas) Sarkozy has called for a boycott of the Olympics if there's no progress, and now he's been joined by his foreign minister, Bernard Kouchner."

But Joey Cheek, American Olympic Gold Medalist speed skater, says he intends to "travel the world" ahead of the 2008 Games to "recruit athletes from all over, including Africa, to try to stop the genocide in Darfur."

He hopes that peace is secured in Darfur, and that China and other powers live up to their pledges in this regard, so that a Games boycott will be avoided. But, Cheek says, if the politicians don't deliver, then the "athletes of the world will have to take a lead in that respect."    

The major advocacy groups around the Darfur issue are already recruiting high-profile Africans to mobilize ahead of a possible official call on the international community – including athletes and sponsors – for a full-scale global boycott.

Kenyan Olympian and marathon world-record holder, Tegla Lourope, recently testified before a special US Congress hearing called to debate the possibility of a boycott. She says Africans must support all measures designed to stop the human rights violations in Darfur. Lourope's is a powerful voice on the issue, given her painful past.   

"I want to inform you that I come from a conflict place, close to Uganda. I have witnessed when people are dying," she told the US lawmakers. "We used to run away from school, and when I compare what's going on with Sudan, I know what it means…. The Darfur crisis is a very painful issue for the people of the continent of Africa…. There are so many children, many boys and girls – many Olympians – are losing their lives."      

Anita Sharma, spokesperson for the Enough Campaign, is convinced that the potential for an international anti-Olympics campaign is "very real." 

"If three months, six months, eight months go by and still nothing has changed (in Darfur), I can imagine that you would see the activist community saying, Okay; enough is enough; the time has come to really put the pressure on the Chinese government, and then maybe stepping up the calls for the boycott. And that boycott could potentially be with (the cooperation of) athletes or with sponsors – such as Coca Cola, for example, who is going to be investing heavily in the games."        

Morrison, though, says his guess will be that there will be "hesitation" from most quarters to support a major international boycott.

"This is unlike the issue of the Soviet Union invading Afghanistan just prior to the Moscow Olympics in 1980. Here (with regard to Darfur) you're talking about using a boycott as a means of pressure." 

In 1980, the US led a boycott by 64 countries of the Moscow Olympics in protest against the 1979 Soviet invasion of Afghanistan.

"The 1980 boycott was a reaction to a very dramatic, intimate and immediate action that Moscow took, and it had resonance around the world – not just in the US and some parts of Europe, which is where the activism around the Darfur issue is largely confined," Morrison explains.     

But Larry Rossin, a former US ambassador and presently a senior official with the Save Darfur Coalition, says "in some senses" the calls to boycott the Beijing Games have already become a separate campaign.

"Our organization is supportive of the campaign to link the Olympics and Darfur in a way to try to change Chinese government positions and behavior. But that movement is not controlled by our organization and is being pushed by other individuals. So I think it's very likely that you're going to see self-standing organizations on this theme, but they'll continue to have a close relationship with ourselves and other elements of the global Darfur movement - because it really is one component of an effort on all fronts to try and bring relief to the people of Darfur and an end to their agony," says Rossin.  

Sudan's ambassador to the US, Salah Elguneid, says the rally to boycott the Olympics because of Darfur is "mischievous," and will not succeed.  

"Boycotts, sanctions and all these things are not conducive to any dialogue or positive engagement with which we could reach agreements and concrete results. Dialogue…. is the only way that people can come to reach agreements. But boycotts and sanctions and all these things are not conducive to anything. And this is the (international) experience, that sanctions (or boycotts) have never solved any problem."

The Chinese Embassy in Washington D.C. did not respond to requests for a response to the possibility of a boycott of the Beijing Games.

Hong Kong Marks Decade Under 'One Country, Two Systems'

Hong Kong this week prepares to celebrate the 10th anniversary of its return to Chinese sovereignty, July 1. Ten years ago, many feared Beijing would renege on its pledge to allow Hong Kong to retain its capitalist system and its autonomy. But those fears did not materialize. VOA's Heda Bayron in Hong Kong looks back at the first decade under the "one country, two systems" arrangement and the challenges ahead.

China's People's Liberation Army (PLA) soldiers line up during rehearsal on eve of parade to be staged in run-up to 10th anniversary of the city's return to Chinese rule, 25 Jun 2007

When the British flag was lowered in Hong Kong on July 1, 1997, the former colony was anxious about its future under communist China.

Yet for most people, little has changed. Under China's "one country, two systems" policy, Hong Kong remains a capitalist economy. It retains its political autonomy and its people continue to enjoy wide-ranging freedoms not found in the rest of China.

But Hong Kong's fortunes did change after its return to China. The Asian financial crisis, which began in July 1997, sent the city into a long recession.

Then in December 1997, Hong Kong recorded the world's first human deaths from bird flu, leading the government to slaughter all poultry in the territory. Six years later, the outbreak of Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) killed almost 300 people in the city and further crippled the economy.

Ming Chan, a Hong Kong expert at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University, says the problems did not arise from Chinese control.

Ming Chan

"Hong Kong's worst fears did not materialize," Chan says." Hong Kong survived the initial shock of a shift to a different system. But then Hong Kong's challenge did not come from the functional area, did not come from the political attack but rather from the economic downturn."

Those events proved daunting for the government of Tung Chee-hwa, the city's chief executive, handpicked by Beijing. Many considered Mr. Tung, an industrialist with no political experience, an indecisive leader out of touch with ordinary citizens.

Political analysts say Beijing took a loose approach on Hong Kong in the first few years after the handover. They say Beijing was afraid too much control would kill its "one country, two systems" policy, which is meant to be a model for Taiwan's eventual peaceful reunification with China.

But some analysts say giving Mr. Tung too much of a free hand led to headaches for Beijing.

On July 1, 2003, half a million Hong Kong residents, already angry over Mr. Tung's handling of the SARS outbreak and the economy, rallied to protest a proposed law that could have curtailed civil liberties. The demonstrators demanded the right to directly elect their leader.

Only a group of 800 largely pro-Beijing business and political leaders are allowed to vote for Hong Kong's chief executive. Only half the legislature is directly elected.

Ma Ngok, a politics professor at the Chinese University of Hong Kong, says the protest was a turning point in Beijing's administration.

"After the July 1 march, they (Beijing) adopted a more proactive attitude both economically and politically to handle the affairs of Hong Kong," Ma notes.

China tried to boost the economy by adopting a free trade pact with Hong Kong, allowing Hong Kong banks to do Chinese currency transactions, and allowing more Chinese tourists to visit.

But the pressure on Mr. Tung continued and he stepped down in 2005. Donald Tsang, the city's well-regarded top civil servant, took over.

Since then, Hong Kong has snapped out of its slump. The economy has recovered and this year, the government posted a budget surplus, enabling it to cut taxes.

But prosperity has not eased public demands for a greater say in their government. This man says economic health is not enough for the city.

"I'm a little bit disappointed about political reform. I think we need more democracy, universal suffrage," he says.

But China has ruled out direct elections for the next several years, even though the concept is enshrined in Hong Kong's Basic Law.

On July 1, while local and mainland officials celebrate the unification anniversary, activists are expected to march again to demand universal suffrage.

Albert Ho

Albert Ho, chairman of the opposition Democratic Party, says the prospect of achieving democracy is "very, very difficult". But he says without democracy, Hong Kong people could easily lose the freedoms and rights they are enjoying now.

"The rule of law tradition as well as the system of independence of judiciary can be very fragile," says Ho. " The high degree of autonomy and rule of law in Hong Kong can be eroded very quickly and can even be taken away overnight."

Democracy advocates say a greater public voice in the city's government will only help Hong Kong face any new challenges that may come in the next decade.