May 4th Revolution or ‘54 Movement’ is being celebrated in China for its 100th anniversary. There is no doubt that after China had toppled the corrupt and ultra conservative Qing Dynasty (Sun Yat Sen’s revolution in 1911), the first largest student uproar in Beijing on May 4th, 1919 marked the peak of Chinese ‘mind revolution’ protesting not just the unstable and weak government but also the Chinese system, its culture, language, literature and most critically its thinking process. Thus the ‘mind revolution’ is a very appropriate term to describe it. The WW I ended in 1919, a peace conference was convened in Paris, China as a victory nation hoped to get the Western powers to remove all the unequal treaties China was forced to sign under the weak Qing Dynasty (through 1842 to 1910), the Western powers flatly refused to do that instead awarded the Chinese territories occupied by Germany (defeated in WW I) to Japan (won the Sino-Japanese War (1894-5) and looted the Taiwan Island, receiving war reparation equivalent to six years of Japan’s annual budget). Thousands of students from more than ten colleges and schools protested at the Embassy District in Beijing and later burned the house of Tsao Ru Ling, the official who negotiated the unequal treaty with Japan. To the West and Japan, this student uproar did not meant much other than China eventually refused to sign the Paris peace treaty, but to the Chinese, it had cumulated the awakening process started prior to the Chinese Revolution (1911) to a new peak. Some intellects believed that Chinese had to begin a mind revolution to get rid of their ‘old baggage’ and embrace new thinking through education, language, science, democracy and even religion.
 
Today, China is a very different country. She has developed herself into the second if not the largest economy. She has lifted hundreds of millions of people above poverty having the highest number of citizens going abroad as tourists annually. Most Western countries including Russia and Japan, China’s neighbors, are bewildered and caught by surprise: how could China accomplish this in a few decades from the poorest nation in the world suffering from foreign invasion and brutal wars to the second strongest country in the world? Many scholars and historians are wrestling with the above question. This author was puzzled as well until restudied the events happened before and after the ’54 Movement’ carefully. I am happy to report that there is really little mystery; actually one can use a simple logic to explain why China was down so low before and is up now. No, it is not, “Stupid! It’s the Economy!”, the famous quote in politics. Rather, it is, “Stupid! It’s the Education!”. Education has transformed China and the May 4th “Mind Revolution” was the agent that changed China’s education system and availability making her successful today. In the following, I will present arguments to prove this point.
 
First, let’s rewind the time back to Qing Dynasty. The Manchurians who invaded and conquered China had decided to inherit the Chinese systems, the language, the culture, laws and governance. However, out of insecurity, the Qing Emperors did not want a sound education system; in fact, they somewhat deliberately discouraged Chinese citizens, largely peasants, to study or get educated. It was fine until the turn of 19th century when the world has gone through an industrial revolution (1764-1840). Later, Japan changed to learn and copy everything from the West (Meiji Reform 1868-1912), but Qing, once the largest economy in the world, still naively maintained its national education system producing few scholars conditioned by an outdated government exam system, keeping 90% or more of her citizens being illiterate. Back in seventeen century, Taiwan was captured by Dutch sailors who had big canons, a Ming General, Zheng Cheng Gong who was defeated by Qing and retreated to Xiamen across from the Taiwan Strait. He took the suggestion from Taiwan’s resistance force to fight the Dutch. He eventually won the fight not by his smaller gun boats but simply by cutting off food supplies to the Dutch. He then captured the big Dutch gun boats, but he soon died and his son lost the war to Qing. So Qing had captured all the Dutch gun boats. However, Qing Dynasty was not interested in how powerful the bigger gun boats could be and why they could be fired more accurately than Qing’s little boats. This story simply explained Qing’s stupidity.
 
We all knew that the West (Marco Polo 14th Century) had come to China and brought back knowledge and things to Europe, but Qing never was interested in getting her people to learn calculus and Newton’s theory (Issac Newton, 1643-1727) even later when Japan was rising up as an Imperial power through Meiji Reform. Qing had ignored the Industry Revolution entirely. Then Qing Dynasty was bullied with scores of unequal treaties from UK starting 1842, 1843, the U.S. and France, 1844, Sweden and Norway, 1847, Russia, 1858, Portugal, 1887, Japan, 1895, 1931, Germany, Italy, Austria-Hungarian, Belgium, Spain and Netherlands, 1901 and extended to 1945 and beyond. Qing’s national illiteracy stood above 90%. When scholars such as Kang Yong Wei (1858-1927) and Liang Qi Chao (1873-1929) pushed for government reform, education reform was minimal. The first batch of Chinese foreign students was sent to the U.S. in 1872 and the program got cancelled. The 1911 ‘54 revolution’ generated a nationwide awareness of the necessity of reform. Some went to the extreme rejecting everything from ancient China; some would blame the culture, some would blame the language and some even blame the Chinese nature (in today’s terms, the genes). However, there were some still defending the old Chinese literature and theorems pointing out that ancient China had embraced science, technology and voting system. The key reform ought to be in education, not only changing the system but also letting people open their minds.
 
As we know that from 1919 to 1949 China was struggling to fend off invaders and colonial powers. The ending of WWII (1945) finally gave China a chance to establish a republic nation without foreign power stationed on her soil. The current division of China into Mainland and Taiwan, although resulted from an unfortunate internal squabble, in fact do land evidence to support my claim: The successful changes in both Mainland China and Taiwan are due to their education reform and Chinese culture valuing education. From 1949 onward, Taiwan government has emphasized education setting a goal to offer six years of compulsory education then extending to nine years. The government also focused on teacher university, land reform and industrialization policies, but it is the education system that propelled Taiwan to become a dragon in Asia economically. Likewise, starting from a very poor state, Mainland China also put emphasis on education. With its one child policy to get out of poverty, the single child received all the attention from not only the parents but also the grandparents in his or her upbringing. China produced 77.6 million college graduates in 2016 compared to 67.4 million in the U.S. Science, technology, engineer and mathematics (known as STEM) graduates have a strong correlation with a nation’s economic performance; 4.7 million STEM graduates were produced in China versus 2.6 m in India and 0.568 m in the U.S. Clearly, the China Rise is no accident but because of her successful education system along with good economic policies. Bringing a country with near 90% illiteracy to her current status of building one university a week to educate her citizens explains a lot about China’s success.
 
All the rhetoric we see or hear in the media about China threat, unfair competition and stealing jobs and technologies from the U.S. are all nonsense. I will repeat, “Stupid, it’s Education!” We must ask the following questions, why do we spend more dollars per student per year and get less graduation rate? Why our students shy away from STEMS while the Chinese students compete fiercely to get into STEMS? Recently, I was asked by a friend, how does one get a drone pilot license in the U.S. Honestly, I don’t know, it never has occurred to me to get a drone pilot license. My friend said he saw a peasant in China operating a drone to fertilize his farm. The farmer told him, there were at least 40,000 drone pilot licenses issued in China. I suspect, they are more used for productivity than pleasure. I used to think delivering baozi (a bun filled with meat or vegetable) by drone was a joke or propaganda, now I believe I could picture pizza or scallion pancake being delivered by drone in China!
 
On the 100th Anniversary of “54 Revolution”, I must say that the 3000 students who protested in Beijing 100 years ago are true Chinese heroes deserving to be honored! Today’s students should know how to tell the significance and impact of the 54 movement!.

  
A recent article written by Prof. Robert Peckham, an author of the book, Epidemics in Modern China, and a MB Lee Professor in the Humanities and Medicine at the University of Hong Kong (HKU), has caught my attention. His article is entitled, Past Pandemics Exposed China’s Weakness - The current one highlights its strength, appeared in Foreign Affairs (3-27-2020). As a director and founder of the multi-disciplinary Center for the Humanities and Medicine (CHM), he oversees a programme of research involving a wide range of disciplines networked to national and international institutions. Also as a professor in the Department of History, his research focuses on histories of infectious disease, epidemics, and global pandemic threats. Prof. Peckham’s article comes as a timely dissertation on an important topic - management of pandemic. However, the article seemed to be tailored for Foreign Affairs’ political agenda, the discussion is miles high in the political cloud than on the ground of pandemic disease management (rather disappointing).
 
Pandemic management is such an important topic; it deserves serious discussion, especially when the entire world is facing the challenge of COVID-19. Hence, I hope Peckham’s article will stimulate discussion on China’s weakness and strength in pandemic management from the past to present. First, I agree with his point on not politicizing pandemic and his conclusion on government efficiency, but his political arguments on relating weakness in disease management to government structure (China) was based on little concrete evidence. China was very weak in 19th and early 20th century in her governance (diplomacy, defense, industrialization, etc.) due to poor leadership (emperor) and foreign powers’ interference and control, therefore, China’s healthcare was weak as well. Peckham reviewed pandemic history from plague, to HIV/AIDS, to SARS and COVID-19 but he had no factual case discussion for China other than blaming her for lack of political and economic openness. China was shut out of global fair interaction and forced into isolation in most part of that history. As a historian, Peckham's view is too simplistic in painting China being weak and opaque in pandemic management for that period of time.
 
Professor Peckham first quoted Bruce Aylward, who led the joint mission of WHO with China on fighting COVID-19, in praising China: “probably the most ambitious, and I would say, agile and aggressive disease-containment effort in history.” In contrast, Peckham cited the infamous Wall Street Journal article entitled, “China is the sick man of Asia” which the Secretary of State, Mike Pompeo, made an improper defense of it as free press. Peckham gave a historical origin of “China as a sick man” coming from Chinese patriotic scholars’ outcry of China and Chinese people being sadly bullied by the Western Powers (especially 1890’s). The intellectuals in China during the late 19th and early 20th century used sick man and sick nation to shame themselves and to motivate their fellow countrymen to reform, to revolt and to rebuild China. When the world is now facing the challenge of COVID-19 together, such derogatory article in WSJ is not a display of freedom of speech but a shameful discrimination. Peckham clearly has a purpose of citing the WSJ article. He went on to say that the rapid politicization of the new coronavirus, and particularly of China’s role in containing it, has historical precedents.
 
Peckham then reviewed the impact of plague, both bubonic and pneumonic types, in China and how they were managed by Chinese ‘authorities’. Extending to China’s Republic Period (1911-1949) and the People’s Republic of China (1949-1970), Professor Peckham made glossary linkage of disease control and China’s political environment. This glossary discussion was unfortunately lack of facts and clear evidence on either the weak disease management or the complex political structure during that period of time. It is a good topic for PhD research but it may be too difficult to find detailed citizen’s healthcare information from that period of China. Hence one can not take Peckham’s remarks seriously, for example, on relating disease management to Mao’s cultural revolution or claiming that “disease had revealed China’s political system for what it was and in need of fundamental reform”. The revolution and political reform was far more motivated by the ‘sick man feeling’ caused by interference and invasion from the foreign powers striping Chinese people’s dignity than from the plague or any other disease.
 
Peckham’s idea that the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) looks at pandemic from a statisticians  lens is an important topic worthy discussion but he did not elaborate. His remark that the disease justifies one party rule had no clear arguments. He credited Mao’s ‘barefoot doctor’ and community healthcare program, a vision of from-the-ground-up healthcare, “helped inspire a global shift: in 1978, …. the WHO International Conference on Primary Health Care adopted the Declaration of Alma-Ata, which upheld health as a basic human right and emphasized community-based health care for all”. In China’s open and reform period, healthcare was a number one priority that offered China a strong base for handling HIV/AIDS and SARS pandemic. Peckham hinted that there was a pattern in China’s pandemic management having leaked information, cover-ups, and crackdowns. He cited journalist Susan Jakes' searing exposé in Time magazine, based on a signed statement by a whistle-blower Dr. Jiang, under the headline, “Beijing’s SARS Attack” which “catalyzed a policy U-turn in China”... “The mayor of Beijing and the minister of public health resigned, and the government embarked on a concerted and much-publicized campaign to contain the epidemic.”
 
China successfully contained SARS. In Peckham’s view, China has learned a good lesson from SARS that is used in the COVID-19 pandemic; XI’s campaign in fighting the Coronavirus is strikingly similar to what was used against SARS. The Chinese government successfully marshaled tens of thousands of health-care workers and military personnel to support Wuhan where the Coronavirus first broke out. Xi described the pandemic as a “total war” taking stringent measures of closing down the 14 million residents city and applying nation-wide testing and quarantine practice. Now, China has contained the pandemic with zero new case occurring; the city Wuhan is now open to visitors and the industries are gradually returning to pre-COVID-19 operations. China has essentially won the COVID-19 pandemic war. Peckham reiterated media's speculation of “the scenario of leaked information, cover-up and crackdown” repeated in COVID-19 pandemic. Personally, I would not give much value to that kind of story. In the very beginning of a disease, before knowing whether or not it is pandemic, the information management is in a gray area between privacy and public concern and between causing panic and reaching only to the right professionals to make critical decisions. In Wuhan’s case, the delay was short and measures were swift, the success of containing the pandemic speaks for itself.
 
Peckham’s conclusion states that China has shared its expertise with the European Union, (I may add, Trump said he had learned a lot from Xi in their one hour phone discussion) and pledged $20 million to WHO in its fight against the virus, dispatched medical teams and supplies to Iran, Iraq, Italy, UK and Serbia, and promised to help African countries meet the crisis.(China donated ventilators to NY State). Xi has begun to look more like a global leader committed to health for all, while the Western states appear to be improvising with difficulties. Perhaps for the readers of Foreign Affairs, Peckham draws attention of strongman leadership versus incompetency within the democracies in dealing with the pandemic. Although, I agree with Peckham’s implication that an authoritarian government is more efficient in handling the pandemic, but in my opinion, learning from experience is extremely important. China learned well from SARS that helped contain COVID19 pandemic. Now the world should be humble to learn from China to deal with the pandemic.
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Ifay Chang. Ph.D., Inventor, Author, TV Game Show Host and Columnist (www.us-chinaforum.org) as well as serving as Trustee, Somers Central School District.
 

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The coronavirus (2019-nCoV, CV in short in this article) discovered in Wuhan City of 14 million people is a new virus causing over one thousand death and spreading with RO (basic reproductive number of infectious case) greater than 2 but the scientists are closing in on precisely identifying it, discovering curing medicine and developing vaccine preventing it to become epidemic or to reoccur. The world-wide media are covering coronavirus as a sensational news with typical exaggeration, rumors, sarcastic remarks, racial prejudice, and criticisms with some good and some bad intentions. In this article, we will, report only the facts and scientific knowledge to correct fake news and to reduce fear, panic and prejudice, such as headlines discriminating Chinese people on Wall Street Journal.
 
First, we start with the WHO Geneva conference (Feb 6 2020,https://www.who.int/news-room/detail/06-02-2020-who-to-accelerate-research-and-innovation-for-new-coronavirus). Scientists now have identified CV as a close cousin of viruses that infect bats jumping from unconfirmed wild bats to intermediate host, possibly pangolins or other small mammals sold in Wuhan food market. Unfortunately, the rapid action of closing the Wuhan animal food market cut off the opportunity for scientists to collect more samples and observe more transmission cases to characterize more precisely what is the CV’s origin, intermediate host and incubation process. From DNA or RNA studies, the scientists now know CV’s RNA has only 80% similarity with SARS virus (2003) but has closer similarity with virus found in bats in Zhoushan (舟山 90%）and Yunan （雲南96%). The 4% difference is still a big deal since we know human DNA has 98% similarity with Ape’s DNA. However, with today’s scientific research capability, CV’s ID will soon be ascertained. We should be hopeful that cure and vaccine will come soon.
 
From epidemiology point of view, lethality, means of transmission and speed of spread (RO: the number of people infected from one virus carrier) are key information to estimate the impact, to devise prevention measures and to adopt a plan for handling the worst scenario. We already know that CV could have more impact on older and weaker people and nearly none on children (stronger natural immune system). From lethality data, we know fatality with early hospitalized CV patients was 15%, considering only severe cases, the fatality was as high as 30%, higher than the 10% cited for SARS in 2003 but less than 35% cited for MERS in 2012. If we include light cases of CV, the fatality drops to about 3%. If including no-symptom cases, the rate is even less.
 
Scientists have essentially understood the transmission means of CV through past experience and current studies of its molecular nature. Close contacts (about 6 feet) between person-to-person allow spread via respiratory droplets produced by an infected person from coughs or sneezes, making droplets to land in people's mouths or noses or eyes or possibly be inhaled into their lungs. Touching a surface or object having CV virus on it can transmit into one’s own mouth, nose, or eyes, but the virus has a short lifespan (minutes) when ambient temperature is higher than 15 degree C or the object surface was sprayed with disinfectant. Based on the initial data, the RO range of CV is 1.4-2.5 (Jan 23, 2020 estimate which is being reduced as people separation and closing of cities took effect) comparing to missiles 12-18, smallpox 3.5-7, SARS 2-5 and flu 1.2-2.4. Hence, paying attention to disinfection, wearing mask and staying away from the sick and the crowd would be quite effective to prevent being infected.
 
Professor of Hygiene, Robert Koch (born 12-11-1843), a German scientist, had defined a standard for infectious virus: 1. Large number in patient; 2. Can be extracted out; 3. Can put in healthy person to cause sickness; and 4. Can find them in new patient. Rule 1 and 2 have been verified for CV by scientists with electronic microscope and DNA studies. (Zhu N et al, NEJM 2020, rule 1 and 2, and Huang C et al, Lancet 2020, rule 1), Rule 3 and 4 are partially proven by mice experiment (Zhou P et al, bioRxiv, 2020). Scientists knew that SARS came from bats (origin) through civet cats (middle host) and MERS from camel (Kau B et al, J. Virol 2005 and Samir JSM et al Science 2015), thus it is hopeful that soon the carriers of 2019-nCoV will be identified. Quick closing of Wuhan animal market did help stopping the spread of virus but also cut off its middle host trail unfortunately. However, scientists do know that CV did not come directly from bats (Huang C et al, Lancet, 2020).
 
The public reaction to the 2019-nCoV is quite varied; a large population were influenced by mass media and also by considerable information, correct or not, real or fake, and positive or negative discussions from the Internet. There are very wide range of sentiment towards the Wuhan outbreak of Coronavirus. Among China’s close neighbors, the timely and sincere support came from Cambodia whose Prime Minister even visited Wuhan and Japan who had sent medical supplies despite of a number of Japanese citizens were diagnosed with CV on a cruise ship now being quarantined in Yokohama. The remote countries like Australia and the U.S. seemed to be far more nervous championing early drastic measures and contemplating evacuating American citizens from China and stopping all travels to China despite of WHO’s advice not to do so. The UN team did declare Wuhan as an emergency case but praised China’s effective effort in containing the spread and her efficient actions in providing medical care, including building several hospitals with thousands of beds in a matter of ten days as well as mobilizing hundreds of thousands of voluntary medical professionals nationwide to join Wuhan and Hubei Province to battle the viral disease.
 
Among many criticisms, few are valid or reasonable. One fair criticism is that the early action of the officials in Wuhan as well as people in the know (as Wuhan’s direct superiors or relevant health, medical and scientific professionals) are not excusable in not immediately recognizing the danger of this coronavirus. Over concern of early disclosure of information, which may cause public panic, might have delayed finding more effective measures in dealing with CV. For example, quarantining the Wuhan animal food market instead of just shut it completely down may be a smarter action allowing valuable leads to scientific research for understanding, cure and prevention of CV.
 
Judging from the many scientific publications by the Chinese scientists in the various prestigious international journals such as Nature, NEJM, J. of Virology, etc., one can appreciate the amount of hard work the scientific teams devoted to CV. However, in the situation of potential epidemic, possibly pandemic, disease, time and knowledge are the essence in solving the problem. The archaic publication rules of most prestigious journals - only accepting and publishing firsthand, original, complete and 'expert refereed' articles are the culprit for delaying vital information to be disseminated and shared. These rules may be useful for Nobel Prize Winner determination years down the road but they are destroying the scientific and medical community’s opportunity to share early information and work collaboratively to save the society and thousands of lives. After all, saving human lives must be more valuable than winning a Nobel Prize.