China’s New Tack on Rescue: High Profile, Open and Aggressive
“…The government in Beijing has mounted an aggressive rescue effort, dispatching tens of thousands of troops from across the country and promptly sending Prime Minister Wen Jiabao to the disaster zone, accompanied by reporters…”
By Andrew Jacobs
Source: International Herald Tribune
Mothers wailing over the bodies of their children. Emergency workers scrambling across pancaked buildings. A grim-faced political leader comforting the stricken and reassuring a worried nation.
While such scenes are a staple of disasters in much of the world, the rescue effort playing nonstop on Chinese television is remarkable for a country that has a history of concealing the scope of natural disasters and then bungling its responses.
The earthquake that flattened a swath of Sichuan Province on Monday killed nearly 15,000 people, and thousands more are buried beneath rubble.
The government in Beijing has mounted an aggressive rescue effort, dispatching tens of thousands of troops from across the country and promptly sending Prime Minister Wen Jiabao to the disaster zone, accompanied by reporters.
With a hard hat on his head and a bullhorn in his hand, he ducked into the wreckage of a hospital where scores of people were buried and shouted: “Hang on a bit longer. The troops are rescuing you.” Throughout the day, the images of Wen directing disaster relief officials and comforting the injured dominated the airwaves.
With images of the calamitous cyclone in Myanmar still fresh - and the authoritarian government’s languid response earning it international scorn - Wen and his fellow Communist Party leaders are keenly aware that their approach to this earthquake will be closely watched at home and abroad. And after two bruising months of criticism from the West over its handling of unrest in Tibet, the government can ill afford another round of criticism as it prepares for the Olympic Games in August.
Although it is still too early to know for sure, those who follow China’s zigzag between change and authoritarianism say the past few months are beginning to resemble a defining moment in what is shaping up to be a watershed year. Its harsh response against discontented Tibetans bore the hallmarks of Beijing’s hard-line impulses. But its decision Tuesday to downscale the torch relay’s route through quake-battered Sichuan - a reaction to the flood of Internet protests calling the original plan insensitive - was a sign that officials are not deaf to public sentiment.
Shi Anbin, a professor of media studies at Tsinghua University in Beijing, said he thought the international uproar after the crackdown in Tibet was having an effect on the country’s Communist Party.
“My judgment is that the government has drawn some lessons from negative feedback,” he said. “I think it reflects a trend of Chinese openness and reform.”
So far, the tactic appears to be paying off. Commentary on Chinese Web sites and chat rooms has been full of praise for the government’s emergency response. On Tianya, a popular forum where anti-government postings often find a home, users have been quick to shout down people who criticized Wen and the military’s delay in reaching some quake victims.
“Those who can only do mouth work, please shut up at this key moment,” said one posting. Another writer praised the People’s Liberation Army, saying “Whenever there’s a life-or-death crisis, they’re the ones on the front line. We certainly can overcome this catastrophe because we have them.”
Dali Yang, the director of the East Asian Institute in Singapore, said he thought the government might have come to the realization that openness and accountability could bolster its legitimacy and counter growing anger over corruption, rising inflation and the disparity between the urban rich and the rural poor.
“I think their response to this disaster shows they can act and they can care,” he said. “They seem to be aware that a disaster like this can pull the country together and bring them support.”
Their response since Monday stands in stark contrast to efforts during China’s last major earthquake, in 1976, when more than 240,000 people perished in the eastern city of Tangshan. The lessons from that disaster have undoubtedly been imprinted on the minds of the men who govern from Beijing. In the days that followed the quake, the ruling Gang of Four played down the disaster and rebuffed offers of help from the outside world, leaving rescue efforts to poorly equipped soldiers.
Hua Guofeng, the chosen successor of Mao Zedong who was then out of favor, visited Tangshan a few days after the quake.
That act of good will bolstered his power and enabled him to arrest the Gang of Four, effectively ending the chaotic decade of the Cultural Revolution and ushering in leaders who introduced the economic reforms that continue to transform China.
But the Communist Party appeared to have forgotten the lessons of Tangshan in recent years. Repeated flooding on the Yangtze River - partly caused by government inaction - has killed thousands. The SARS epidemic of 2003, which officials sought to cover up, brought accusations that the party was unconcerned with the public good.
Last winter, Wen found himself facing thousands of angry travelers who were stranded by a snowstorm that crippled the nation’s railroad system during the annual Lunar New Year holiday. And last month, the derailment of two passenger trains in Shandong Province killed 72 people, injured 400 and laid bare the failure of transportation officials to communicate a go-slow order on a stretch of track that was under construction.
In contrast to that disaster - information was tightly controlled and foreign reporters were kept at bay - coverage of the Sichuan earthquake has been unfettered. Scores of Chinese reporters have been providing live broadcasts from across the quake zone and, so far at least, foreign correspondents have been given unrestricted access.
Just hours after the quake, Wen was on a plane, broadcasting his pledge to spare no effort in saving lives. Throughout the day, official news outlets ran frequent updates of the death toll.
Web sites, which are often censored by the authorities, have been filled with cellphone videos of the quake and commentary - most of it laudatory, but some of it criticizing the military’s failure to quickly reach some quake victims. A few postings have given life to a rumor that officials in Sichuan knew the quake was imminent and failed to act.
Shi, the media studies professor at Tsinghua University, said he has been astounded by the candor of the government and the vigor of the state-run Chinese press. He attributed some of the openness to a recent law that requires public officials to provide information to the media. But like many experts, he said the Olympics were having a profound impact on a government eager to embrace the world.
“This is the first time the Chinese media have lived up to international standards,” he said, adding: “I think the government is learning some lessons from the past.”
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