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Opinion | Hong Kong must guard against overconfidence and parochialism – pitfalls clearly illustrated by US Covid-19 failures
- The US has learned nothing from the coronavirus successes in the likes of Vietnam and China, and is instead crippled by political polarisation and blinded by past glory. These are the same pitfalls threatening Hong Kong’s ability to negotiate an uncertain future
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More Americans have died from Covid-19 than during the entire Vietnam war, a grim milestone which coincided with Vietnam’s Liberation Day last week.
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For Vietnam, it is quite a different story. At the conclusion of the Resistance War Against America, as it is known in Vietnam, the country had lost, by some estimates, up to 3 million lives. Yet, 45 years later, Vietnam has managed to prevent even a single death from the coronavirus.
Within days of the outbreak being confirmed in China, Vietnam’s leadership put the country on high alert and began a public awareness campaign, including educational videos that went viral.
The seriousness of the virus was never questioned. No uninformed debates were allowed on social media. The leader of the country did not pontificate about untested, potentially dangerous treatments. For a lower-middle income country of nearly 100 million people, it has been a remarkable achievement.
But we have also learned that, sadly, most of America will learn nothing from Vietnam’s success, nor the successes of other countries and territories including Hong Kong. American exceptionalism is not conducive to learning from others. It fosters excuse-making and blaming instead of taking ownership of outcomes.
The final authority in the land, the president himself, has said unequivocally that he takes no responsibility.
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