Ian Inkster

Opinion | In the battle against the coronavirus, East Asian societies and cultures have the edge

In real numbers, East Asian economies like China and South Korea are handling the crisis better than Western countries, in large part, it would seem, because of their strong traditions of Confucianism and Buddhism and sense of shared responsibility

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People wearing masks wait in line to buy masks in Seoul on February 28. Photo: Reuters

Ian Inkster

Published: 1:00am, 10 Apr 2020Updated: 5:28am, 10 Apr 2020

There is a discernible difference between how the East and West have managed the invasion of Covid-19. The relative anarchy of the West is visible at all levels.

Social distancing rules are being broken in shops, parks and at tourist sites. In Britain, around 1 million small businesses might go under in weeks if the government’s emergency loan scheme cannot deliver funding (because the banking system seems loathe to actually release funds cheaply and quickly).

Britain is now an example to be avoided. The government claims to be following the science while failing to deliver the basics to the active sites of virus management. Doctors and health workers have yet to be tested for the virus or provided with ventilators. Little wonder that Britain’s prime minister, health secretary and chief medical officer all became infected late last month. Is this a cosmic irony or merely a Western one?

At another level, British farmers who might now be delivering fruits and vegetables into the food supply are befuddled by a lack of labour and hoping to import Romanian and other Eastern European crop pickers, despite the potential supply of British students off school.

One estimate is that nearly 100,000 such workers are needed from the European Union or beyond. This is an awful lot of cross-border movement for a nation wishing to control a virus that knows no borders.

As a final vivid indicator, the medical supplies now entering Britain’s National Health Service are coming from East Asia. The founder of JD.com, China’s biggest internet retailer, is sending millions of items to the NHS. Taiwan’s government is donating 10 million masks to countries including Britain and the United States.