Chinese-Mexican relations took a few shots on the chin over the weekend over the Asian country’s dealing with the Swine Flu threat. In China, where the memory of SARS looms large, Mexican citizens have been quarantined based on nationality and flights between the countries have been suspended. Mexican Foreign Minister Patricia Espinosa criticized China for what she called a discriminatory quarantine set up in Hong Kong as well.

I was off gallivanting in Trujillo, in Northern Peru this weekend, and am only now getting caught up to speed. Luckily, the venerable James Fallows has followed the story and has predictably added a few great insights. He relays a Wall Street Journal report filed over the weekend of Mexican citizens in Beijing also forced into quarantine:

According to accounts from Mexicans in the hotel, Mexican travelers arriving on various flights from Mexico and the U.S. were singled out by health officials who boarded the aircraft wearing white protective suits, masks and rubber gloves. They led away Mexican passport holders. Several travelers said Chinese television camera crews surprised them at the doors of their aircraft as they emerged. They said the filming continued through the windows of an isolation ward at the Beijing Ditan infectious diseases hospital.

“We felt like we were in a zoo,” said Angel Yamil Silum, a 27-year-old business student, who arrived in Beijing with his girlfriend Saturday en route to Bangkok for a holiday, and ended up at Ditan and then the Guo Men Hotel.

I think the above quote best captures the real danger of this situation: How the detainees were detained. Families were paraded out of airplanes as fellow passengers openly gawked. Business men were woken up with flashlights from their hotel beds. The conditions of the hotels used for quarantines have been described as “fairly rundown,” serving such appetizing meals as this. John Pomfret of The Washington Post wonders whether or not China would have treated people from developed countries in the same way.

I think most reasonable people are willing to put up with some amount of discomfort and illogic (ie. detainment based on one’s passport) in the face of an unfamiliar epidemic. Certainly no one would expect a stay in the Four Seasons during a quarantine, but can’t China do a little better than this? If SARS taught the country anything, shouldn’t it have been how to quarantine someone with an amount of open communication and decency?

Stop press: Just as I was set to publish this, I came across this dispatch from the Metropark Hotel in Hong Kong (quarantine site). In fairness, it looks like some of the conditions are improving there. Let’s hope they continue to do so.

Image: The Daily Mail