China's Earthquake: Tragedy, Test

Patrick Doherty — Mon, 12 May 2008 18:48:00 -0400

Today's news that Sichuan Province suffered an earthquake measuring 7.9 is not welcome news. Any region of the world would suffer significant loss of life after a tremblor of that degree and I fear the early numbers of casualties will only increase. Our sympathies go out to the Chinese victims and their families.

The strategic question is, what impact will the quake have on China going forward? Politically, the Chinese Government is under pressure to show they learned the lesson of this year's winter snowstorms that paralyzed the nation and demonstrated organizational weakness. If they don't demonstrate improved preparedness and effective rescue operations, the central government in Beijing will be weakened as the provincial governments adapt to deal with the anxiety of a massive population moving inexorably into closer, more interdependent quarters. New America Foundation out-going chairman, James Fallows, writing from Beijing, begins to examine the PR response of Beijing. I've attached it below.

If the loss of life is grave, however, the pressure to reform will extend beyond preparedness to prevention. This is what happened as far back as the great fire of London in 1666 and as recently as the Kobe earthquake a decade ago. The McKinsey Global Institute's recent report on China talks about China's cities holding 1 billion people by 2030. Prevention will mean the adoption of stricter building code standards and increased code enforcement, slowing down the engine of Chinese growth--which has so far had a decidedly dubious record in terms of public and environmental safety.

Hopefully, the numbers of people hurt by this tragedy will be few. But developing countries, even ones as big and sophisticated as China, generally trade off consumer and public safety for speed and profit.

***Update--5/13***

It looks like my fears have been born out. This morning's reports say at least 12,000 are feared dead and 18,000 more unaccounted for in the city of Mianzhu. This is the worst natural disaster in China for three decades. This is definitely a test for Beijing, much bigger than the winter snows. Let us hope it does not come near the 1976 earthquake when at least 240,000 people perished when the city of Tangshan collapsed in an earthquake of similar magnitude, which had its own grave political aftershocks.

Will the Hu/Wen government use the crisis to call for a new era of urban planning as McKinsey recommends? The Bush administration was unable to muster the will to use the devastation of Hurricane Katrina to deal with our own urban vulnerabilities. Hopefully the Chinese will see the opportunity to not only prevent future loss of life, but also to give the Bush administration a lesson in long-term disaster mitigation.

Earthquake coverage on Chinese TV

12 May 2008 11:20 am

Most of the channels on the (state controlled) CCTV are running the normal game shows, Olympic warmups (especially torch-relay updates), teen music shows, etc. But the CCTV-1 news channel is having all-out coverage of the earthquake in Sichuan province. Brief cultural notes:

- The coverage included a long segment of premier Wen Jiabao reading a speech about his deep concern for the people of Sichuan, from aboard an airplane en route to the disaster scene. Background: after the country was paralyzed by unexpected snow storms in February, the leadership was criticized for a Katrina-like slowness in dealing with the problem. Prominent coverage now of the main officials responding immediately to this disaster.

- News channels from Taiwan, which we are watching in alternation with the mainland coverage on CCTV, have extensive video footage from Chengdu, estimates of casualties, etc. So far no on-scene video footage that I've seen on CCTV-1, and no casualty figures. (The state news agency, Xinhua, is saying that 7600 people, or more, may have died.) Channel-surfing, we see that the German, Japanese, and Korean networks are also running Chengdu footage. It could have been on CCTV when I wasn't watching, but it's certainly not featured. CCTV is mainly running telephone interviews with correspondents in Sichuan and talking-head analyses in the studio. Possible background: controlling coverage within China until being sure exactly how the story should be presented. (Update: just saw a 20-second video clip from Chengdu on CCTV.)

- To help place this disaster: it is in almost exactly the same area I described in this article about the Wolong Panda Reserve, northwest of Chengdu, and this slide show about the reserve. A long, twisty road from Chengdu to Wolong, which had been undergoing years of reconstruction, passes right through the earthquake area. I assume it could be a long time before it is restored to even its perilous previous condition.

Good luck to all in Sichuan, including Dr. Tang Chunxiang and his colleagues in Wolong.

Disaster

China's Earthquake: Tragedy, Test