Fighting COVID-19: East Asian Responses to the Pandemic

Fighting COVID-19: East Asian Responses to the Pandemic POLICY PAPER APRIL 2020 Fighting COVID-19: East Asian Responses to the Pandemic POLICY PAPER – APRIL 2020 ABOUT THE AUTHORS • Mathieu Duchâtel, Director of the Asia Program Dr. Mathieu Duchâtel is Director of the Asia Program at Institut Montaigne since January 2019. Before joining the Institute he was Senior Policy Fellow and Deputy Director of the Asia and China Program at the European Council of Foreign Relations (2015-2018), Senior Researcher and the Representative in Beijing of the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (2011-2015), Research Fellow with Asia Centre in Paris (2007-2011) and Associate Researcher based in Taipei with Asia Centre (2004-2007). He holds a Ph.D in political science from the Institute of Political Studies (Sciences Po, Paris). He has spent a total of nine years in Shanghai (Fudan University), Taipei (National Chengchi University) and Beijing and has been visiting scholar at the School of International Studies of Peking University in 2011/2012 and the Japan Institute of International Affairs in 2015. His latest research note, Europe and 5G: the Huawei Case – part 2, was published in June 2019. There is no desire more natural • François Godement, Senior Advisor for Asia than the desire for knowledge Prof. François Godement is Senior Advisor for Asia to Institut Montaigne, Paris. He is also a non-resident Senior Associate of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace in Washington, D.C., and an external consultant for the Policy Planning Staff of the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Until December 2018, he was the Director of ECFR’s Asia & China Program and a Senior Policy Fellow at ECFR. A long-time profes- sor at France’s National Institute of Oriental Languages and Civilisations and Sciences Po, he created Centre Asie IFRI at the Paris-based Institut Français des Relations Internationales (1985-2005), and in 2005 Asia Centre. He is a graduate of the Ecole Normale Supérieure de la Rue d’Ulm (Paris), where he majored in history, and was a postgraduate student at Harvard University. In 1995 he co-founded the European committee of the Council for Security Cooperation in the Asia-Pacific (CSCAP), which he co-chaired until 2008. His last published book (with Abigael Vasselier) is La Chine à nos portes - une stratégie pour l'Europe, Odile Jacob, 2018. He has in December 2019 an Institut Montaigne study, Digital Privacy, How Can We Win the Battle?. • Viviana Zhu, Policy Officer - Asia Program Viviana Zhu is the Policy Officer for Institut Montaigne’s Asia Program since January 2019. Before joining Institut Montaigne, she worked as Coordinator of the Asia Program of the European Council on Foreign Relations (ECFR). She was responsible for event coordination, reporting, and research support. She is a regular contributor to Institut Montaigne’s quarterly publication, China Trends, as well as its blog. She holds a Master’s degree in International Politics and a Bachelor’s degree in Politics and Economics from the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), University of London, where her primary focus was China and international politics. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS TABLE OF CONTENTS The authors are grateful to Vasudha Rajkumar and Fiona Trichard They provided excellent research assistance and total commitment to this policy paper, even though Introduction . 8 the start of their internship coincided with the general confinement. This publication would not have been possible either without the coordination of Claire Lemoine, who I. Early warning and rapid reaction . 10 also joined the team in this period. We are extremely thankful to her. II. Border controls and entry bans . 13 III. Social behavior measures: from quarantine and social distance to confinement �� 16 IV. The mobilization of industry: masks and beyond . 20 V. Test policies . 24 VI. Digital tools �� 29 The information and views set out in this policy paper are 6 7 those of Institut Montaigne and do not necessarily reflect VII. Economic support measures �� 33 the opinions of the people and institutions mentioned above. China: lockdowns, digital tools and mobilization of industry . 42 Hong Kong: border management, epidemiological tracking and social responsibility �� 59 Japan: self-restraint, path dependence and the shadow of the Olympics �� 75 Singapore: anticipation, swab tests and intrusive contact tracing . 89 South Korea: mass-testing, targeted investigations and the transparency issue . 97 Taiwan: swift, meticulous and digital �� 108 Conclusion . 116 www.institutmontaigne.org/en www.institutmontaigne.org/en INTRODUCTION INTRODUCTION and the experience of SARS only 17 years ago - does help. But border closures, The research for this policy paper is about a moving target. Neither the exact origin of enforced isolation and quarantines, mandatory tracing and tracking are found the coronavirus now designated as COVID-19, nor some of its key features in terms in proportions that do not have much to do with nuances in political systems. of extent, contagiousness, variety of effects on the human being, and response to the preventive methods and barriers put in place are exactly known. In the best of Not all among these six cases were equally endowed in PPEs - personal protective equip- circumstances, neither the number of people contaminated nor even the exact ment as they are now known - or testing capacities after the virus genome became available casualty count are known for sure, so long as complete and reliable testing cannot (from January 7), or ventilators and other hospital equipment. But a common feature is that be performed. In the worst of circumstances - the initial outbreak in Hubei, China and these industrial and trading states have either mobilized existing capacities or its capital city Wuhan, and its ensuing spread across China, there are good reasons developed new ones to fill the gaps in their needs - China and Taiwan emerging as to doubt official figures, also we do not know by how much. global providers of some needed medical supplies, Singapore and South Korea as hubs for tests, and perhaps Japan for a key treatment drug. Of course, this says something about Success is therefore a relative term, which should be followed by the words “so the global industry shift to the East and the corresponding fall in the West’s capacity to far”. There is uncertainty about the number of asymptomatic patients, and a wave of adapt quickly to sudden needs. But none of this has happened effortlessly or in a completely new cases in countries where indeed success seemed to be at hand. To cite just one ordained way. Each of these countries has undergone its own learning curve. of the consequences, countries such as Singapore and Japan, which seemed to have avoided confinement through a combination of preventive methods, are as of April 7 Strikingly, they have hardly relied on each other for solutions to the crisis. On the contrary, having to impose increasingly severe forms of lock-down. partial or complete border closures for travelers have become the norm, and this of course also has an impact on goods and services. Should the pandemic linger on or This research note compares the policy tools used by China, Hong Kong, Japan, recur, these border closures would prove unsustainable for these highly integrated eco- 8 the Republic of Korea, Singapore and Taiwan to fight against the COVID-19 nomies which rely on transnational and intra-firm value chains. The policies we describe 9 pandemic. In spite of the uncertainties mentioned above, the experience of these are emergency responses, and this is another reason to be cautious in trumpeting their countries has much to contribute to a toolbox of prevention policies for Europe - which success. Getting an epidemic’s Ro (number of persons infected by each single patient) has been next in line in the virus’s journey. This is East Asia, and therefore a set of under 1 ensures “flattening” the epidemic curve and containing it. It does not mean developed economies. Even China has reached the level of middle-income countries, eradication. Given the unknowns about the virus, among them the lack of a vaccine and and all the others have a per capita GDP in the range of the 14 wealthiest European the possibility of serious mutations, it is too early for this study to look at post-crisis Union member states. They differ greatly in terms of political systems - China is an policies - whether these relate to post-confinement or to a permanent state of alert. authoritarian

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