Hysteria stirs storm in a teacup

China and neighbors Japan and South Korea are facing off in a diplomatic spat.

As the international community is still learning to live with Covid, such occasional disagreements are probably inevitable.

But this one is a storm in a teacup that could have been avoided.

Chinese state media Global Times blamed "political manipulation" for the new travel restrictions imposed by "some countries."

But raising the issue to the level of political conspiracy only serves to escalate the tension rather than improve it.

Beijing's retaliatory move of suspending issuing visas to most South Koreans and Japanese may be controversial.

However, it is not difficult to understand because, for example, Seoul's earlier decision to stop issuing most visas to mainland Chinese until end of January was controversial in the first place.

More than a dozen governments have imposed restrictions on travelers from China - and Seoul is probably the strictest of all.

To be fair, restrictions on travelers from China introduced by Tokyo were less strict than those slapped on by Seoul.

On one hand, the visa suspension retaliation is a tit-for-tat reply from Beijing. Leaders are not only pinning hopes on moving quickly past the tsunami of infections but are also under pressure to pacify an angry population scrambling to find medicines.

After social media posts showed inflammatory videos of special lanes being coordinated by soldiers in uniform for Chinese travelers flying into South Korea, newly installed Foreign Minister Qin Gang had to react strongly to the unpleasant scenes.

Indeed, the tension boils down to a lack of public data that would help the outside world understand the massive outbreaks in the mainland.

Many countries may have been reacting in a panic to China's abrupt U-turn on its long-standing zero-Covid policy.

Unless repeated calls from the World Health Organization for the Chinese government to supply information on the mainland pandemic situation are answered, a lack of information will only intensify the panic.

It is common sense that the best means to deal with fear is through the provision of sufficient information, the more the better, so that people - whether from China or elsewhere - know what is going on.

The Hong Kong government has set an impressive example in this regard, with health authorities highly transparent about their data throughout the pandemic.

As a result, Hongkongers are learning to live with Covid and it is regrettable that they are caught in the crossfire.

For the past month, mainland health authorities have been reporting five or fewer deaths a day.

Were these figures credible? At the very least, they were inconsistent with the long queues seen at funeral parlors.

Then on Tuesday, the mainland stopped reporting Covid deaths.

Everyone has to approach the pandemic from a scientific standpoint.

On one hand, other governments should handle arrivals from China with a scientific approach. On the other hand, China has to be scientific with its data and share the results with others.

That would end the hysteria.