Deaths of Distrust

Did a lack of trust in governments exacerbate COVID-19 deaths?

'Hogwash', is my first response.

A bit of context here. What am I really responding to and where did it come from?

Former Singapore diplomat and academic Kishore Mahbubani misses few opportunities to spruik Oriental supremacy in his essay anthology "The Asian 21st Century".

Here are some bombastic gems: 

One reason why casualties from Covid-19 have been much higher in many Western countries is that citizens emphasize their “right” not to wear masks while never mentioning their “responsibility” to wear masks to save lives of fellow citizens. Fortunately, in most Asian societies, there is a greater acceptance of such responsibilities.

Translation: Asians are better because they know their place, like Italian fascists, Soviet Communists, and the British classes.

OK so my ancestors struck out from Qing-dynasty Fujian not out of individualistic opportunism, but because of a deep reverence for the Confucian status quo. Got it. Orientalism is easier to swallow when someone brown is saying it.

Here's another claim:

The level of confidence that American people have in their key institutions has been declining.

This is allegedly because:

... functionally America has become a plutocracy.

In contrast, 

East Asian societies, on the other hand, retain a strong and deeply-held belief in good governance, reflecting the traditional Asian respect for institutions of authority.

Work ethic, social consciousness, and belief in institutions are key elements of East Asia’s “edge”.  This edge was strikingly illustrated during the Covid-19 pandemic when East Asian countries responded far better to the virus than its Western counterparts.

Yeeeah, implying causality is where we fact-check.

The virus cares more about biology than politics. It claimed primarily the old and the sick. Asia may or may not be less self-centered than the West, but it's definitely younger.

Let's look at three datasets:

• Trust in government (OECD) 2018-2022. And for simplicity, of the OECD countries:
• Median Age (2018);
• Pandemic death rates.

Charting Trust against Death rates:

So Kishore-ji was right. Kind of.

But the results of even that superficial analysis should give pause to sweeping statements.

The correlation between trust and death rate in OECD countries was -0.57. Weaker than moderate, but still stronger than that between death rate and age (0.35). Older societies are not more or less distrustful of their governments (correlation: 0.02).

It remains dangerous to conclude that Asian values around governance saved lives from COVID-19 because:

• Causation could go the other way: Confidence in government may result from COVID outcomes, not influence them.
• Japan and Korea, both 'Asian', profess low trust in their governments yet enjoyed relatively low death rates.
• Even if death rates and trust in government go hand-in-hand, Germany, Ireland, and New Zealand show success is not exclusively 'Asian'.

Perhaps then my criticism of hackneyed Asian exceptionalism is not that it is grandiose or exaggerated, but that it is vagueness expressed as certainty. 'Trust', 'confidence', and 'respect' are nebulous and overlapping, as are 'East', 'West', and 'Asia'.

If the U.S. is a plutocracy, well it is no more unequal than Malaysia and the Philippines, suddenly egalitarian by their association with 'Asia'.

Asian pride is animating me to crunch the numbers and write this post. Instead of tit-for-tatting white supremacists with equally grand claims, I know that we are capable of more nuance and more rigour. 'Asian' humility dictates that if I were unable to deliver, then I should diam - Malay: 'sit down and shut up' - instead of shoot my mouth off first and ask questions later.

I guess I'm just mad that one of our own is choosing otherwise.