(3 of 5)
The depth of the misinformation campaign became clear in early April, when Health Minister Zhang Wenkang scoffed at WHO warnings against travel to southern China and declared, "It is perfectly safe" to visit the country. An official familiar with leadership briefings says senior leaders must have known they were spreading false assurances, but "the pressure to say everything is under control is enormous." Still, the veil of secrecy unraveled. In mid-April, as the government stuck to its claims that the disease was under control, current and former health professionals in China revealed to TIME that authorities were suppressing the number of suspected cases and had ordered doctors to adhere to requirements for diagnosing SARS that are more stringent than those applied anywhere else in the world. As TIME reported in its April 28 issue, state-run hospitals in Beijing moved dozens of SARS patients out of wards just before WHO inspectors arrived. In one situation, 31 patients at the China-Japan Friendship Hospital were loaded into ambulances and taken for a tour of the capital; WHO experts who visited the hospital were then told it had only two suspected SARS cases.
Stung by the torrent of criticism of his government, Hu finally decided to act. He and Premier Wen Jiabao warned their satraps to report SARS cases factually or face punishment, and authorized a massive media campaign to educate the masses about the disease--an almost revolutionary policy shift for a leadership structure that feels more comfortable with obfuscation than openness. On Wednesday, Hu appointed Wu Yi, a tough-talking former Trade Minister, to take over responsibility for the government's fight against SARS. Some China watchers believe that the public clamor for transparency may create an opportunity for Hu, a career bureaucrat with liberal tendencies, to push for the kinds of sweeping political reforms that party elders have long resisted. "This is his chance to grab the support of the people and stand up on his own," says Bao Tong, a former senior party official who was purged after the Tiananmen Square uprising in 1989. "China can keep living in a black box, or it can live in the sunshine. If he can't take advantage of this situation and move into the sun now, then when?"