Philippine sinologist Aileen Baviera, dead from coronavirus, had urged recognition of China’s complexity

The well-known expert’s passing was met with tributes and grief from scholars and officials across Asia

Baviera died on March 21 after reportedly contracting Covid-19 at a security conference in Paris

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Dr Aileen Baviera. Photo: Handout / University of the Philippines

Published: 11:00am, 27 Mar 2020Updated: 11:00am, 27 Mar 2020

Academics across Asia have paid tribute to Dr Aileen Baviera, expressing their grief after the well-known Filipino expert on China-Southeast Asia relations died on March 21 from severe pneumonia caused by Covid-19.

Baviera, 60, reportedly contracted the novel coronavirus while attending the First Indo-Pacific Conference at the Ecole Militaire in Paris from March 4 to 11. She arrived in Manila on March 12 and immediately checked herself into Manila’s San Lazaro Hospital, where she remained until her death.

A fellow conference attendee, Dr Alan Ortiz, president of the Philippine Council for Foreign Relations, died in Paris on March 23, according to a Facebook post by his daughter.

“The shocking news [of Baviera’s death] caused deep grief to me,” wrote Qi Huaigao, vice dean of the Institute of International Studies at Fudan University, Shanghai, in a post on the University of the Philippines’ Asian Centre website.

“She knew China very well and had been to many places in China, including border areas such as Xinjiang, Inner Mongolia, and Heilongjiang,” wrote Qi, who recalled meeting her at the university in 2010.

In 2016, they met again during a forum in Fudan where Baviera “suggested China and the Philippines could make joint development and joint conservation possible by setting aside sovereignty disputes”, Qi said, adding that her suggestion proved “farsighted” as evinced by discussions between the two countries during the administration of Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte.

He said young scholars from China and the Philippines should always remember the contents of an essay Baviera wrote last year, in which she advised them to “seek truth from facts in the subject of their study” and “try to maintain objectivity at all times, which can be quite difficult given the state of ties today”.