Paul McCartney Targets Chinese Wet Markets for Pandemic

Australia’s prime minister has described as “unfathomable” the World Health Organization’s support for the reopening of markets where live animals are butchered in Wuhan, the Chinese city at the center of the coronavirus pandemic.

“We need to protect the world against potential sources of outbreaks of these types of viruses. It’s happened too many times. I’m totally puzzled by this decision,” Prime Minister Scott Morrison told Nine Network television on Tuesday. “I think that’s unfathomable, frankly.”



Health Minister Greg Hunt said he was unsettled by the reopening of the “wet markets” in Wuhan, which has been under a months-long lockdown. Some scientists believe the virus came from wild animals at a wet market, where many kinds of live mammals, poultry, fish and reptiles are kept and then butchered when they are sold.

“There is a very real likelihood that this disease arose from a wet market in Wuhan -- it’s clear that these are dangerous vectors,” Hunt told Australian Broadcasting Corp. “I would imagine that around the world, the vast majority of people would have a similar view.”

WHO said in a statement that wet markets should not be allowed to sell illegal wildlife for food and authorities should enforce food safety and hygiene regulations. But it said “wet markets and other food markets do not need to be closed down.”

China temporarily shut wet markets after the outbreak and suspended the sale of some kinds of wildlife. Local media say the markets are being reopened to alleviate the economic difficulties of shopkeepers.



In other developments in the Asia-Pacific region:

— INDIA’S LOCKDOWN EXTENDED: The world’s largest lockdown has been extended to May 3. Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi said restrictions may be eased after one week to help daily wage earners and those working in agriculture. Modi said the lockdown will be eased only in areas where the virus situation doesn’t deteriorate. Hundreds of jobless migrant workers crowded a railway station in Mumbai to protest the decision and demand that they be allowed to return to their home villages. Police charged at the protesters with batons and forced them back to the nearby slums where they live.

— ASEAN MEETS ON VIDEO: Southeast Asian leaders linked up by video to plot their moves against the virus that threatens their economies and binds millions of people to their homes under lockdowns. Vietnamese Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc said in an opening speech that containment efforts were working but warned against complacency.

— NO OLYMPIC ‘PLAN B’: Tokyo organizers said they have no “Plan B” in case the Olympics needs to be postponed again because of the coronavirus. They said they are proceeding under the assumption the Olympics will open on July 23, 2021. The date was set last month by the International Olympic Committee and Japanese officials after the pandemic made it clear the Olympics could not be held as scheduled this summer.

— JAPAN’S CASES RISE: Japan’s health ministry reported 390 new cases of the virus for a domestic total of 7,645. The country was put under a state of emergency last week, but many people were still seen queuing up at grocery stores and crowding shopping arcades in parts of downtown Tokyo to stock up on necessities.

China’s wet markets, explained
Let’s get two things straight up front. First, wet markets aren’t unique to China. They’re common in many parts of the world, including several Asian, African, and Latin American countries. But because the coronavirus originated in China, we’ll focus on the markets there.



Second, wet markets and wildlife markets aren’t synonymous, though they’re often used interchangeably. This semantic slippage is actually driving a lot of the confusion in the debate about whether to ban all wet markets.

One recent study offered this very clear definition of wet markets: “A typical wet market is a partially open commercial complex with vending stalls organized in rows; they often have slippery floors and narrow aisles along which independent vendors primarily sell ‘wet’ items such as meat, poultry, seafood, vegetables, and fruits.”

Note that there’s nothing about wildlife in this definition. That’s because a wet market doesn’t necessarily include “exotic” wild animals. According to Christos Lynteris and Lyle Fearnley, two anthropologists who study disease in China, the disproportionate focus on “exotic” food consumption is often tinged with Orientalism and anti-Chinese sentiment:

In Western media, “wet markets” are portrayed as emblems of Chinese otherness: chaotic versions of oriental bazaars, lawless areas where animals that should not be eaten are sold as food, and where what should not be mingled comes together (seafood and poultry, serpents and cattle). This fuels Sinophobia.

In reality, most seafood, live animal and wholesale markets in China contain far less exotic fare. An enormous variety of different kinds of market are confusingly lumped within the term “wet market,” a term that originated in Hong Kong and Singapore English to distinguish markets selling fresh meat and produce from “dry” markets selling packaged and durable goods such as textiles.

Among today’s wet markets, you’ll find some that sell no live animals whatsoever, just slaughtered animals and produce; some that carry common live animals like chickens or fish; and some that sell wildlife like bats and snakes.

While US lawmakers and other public figures talk about wanting to ban wet markets writ large, what they seem to really want to ban is the sale of wild animals — or perhaps any live animals — that sometimes occurs there. (Presumably they would have no problem with the wet markets that carry only slaughtered meat and produce; after all, the US is full of such markets.)



Will China keep its ban on wildlife sales?
The sale of wildlife in wet markets creates a serious risk of pandemics because it forces together animal species that would not encounter each other under ordinary circumstances, and then puts human beings in contact with these animals’ pathogens, to which we haven’t had the chance to develop any immunity. Many experts and even wet market aficionados now agree that the risk to human health is just too great.

In theory, it should be possible for China to permanently ban the sale of wildlife in wet markets without endangering many people’s food security, income security, and valued culinary culture by banning wet markets altogether.

But that would require the government to stop kowtowing to the wildlife farming industry, which has immense lobbying power, Li said.

For now, China is still banning sales of wildlife, with the exception of sales for medicinal purposes. What remains to be seen is whether, as in the case of the SARS outbreak, the government will lift this restriction after the world gets Covid-19 under control — or whether it will finally learn its lesson.


Constructing freshness: the vitality of wet markets in urban China

Abstract
Wet markets, a ‘traditional’ form of food retail, have maintained their popularity in urban China despite the rapid expansion of ‘modern’ supermarket chains. Their continued popularity rests in the freshness of their food. Chinese consumers regard freshness as the most important aspect of food they buy, but what constitutes ‘freshness’ in produce is not simply a given. Freshness is actively produced by a range of actors including wholesalers, vendors as well as consumers. The paper examines what fresh food means to consumers in the Chinese market. It argues that wet markets create a sense of freshness that resonates with this culinary culture through their sensoria, atmosphere, and trust between food vendors and consumers. Together these respond to desires for and reproduce criteria used to evaluate freshness. Within a fragmented food trade system, wet market vendors have an advantage in offering ‘freshness’ through their ability to connect various wholesalers, agencies, and middlemen, and shorten supply chains. The paper is based on participatory observation, a consumer survey and in-depth interviews of various stakeholders in southern China, especially Sanya in Hainan and Guangzhou in Guangdong. This study suggests that this cultural construction of freshness creates a niche for small-scale players and ‘traditional’ markets in an increasingly concentrated global food system.

link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10460-019-09987-2