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Editorial: China quake cracks party
World response liberating
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More from OpinionThe tragedy of the Chinese earthquake may result in long-term, positive changes in China's civil society. The response to that disaster shows how much prosperity, openness to the outside world and the revolution in communications has diluted the Communist Party's tight control of the populace.
The normal reaction of the leadership is to cover up or downplay national mishaps as it did with the 2002 SARS outbreak and, most egregiously, a 1976 earthquake that killed 240,000 and was treated as a state secret.
But the Sichuan earthquake and its growing death toll — at least 40,000 — have been aggressively and graphically covered nonstop by the state-controlled media. An order from the propaganda department not to send more reporters to the stricken region has simply been ignored. And what little can't be learned from TV and newspapers is available on the Internet.
The party insists the government be in control of everything, including the relief effort nominally under the control of the army and the Young Communists. Private organizations are banned or discouraged.
But private and informal relief groups have sprung up outside official channels to deliver money, food, clothing and medicine to the afflicted region. The outpouring of generosity seems to have astonished even the Chinese themselves, and, it has been pointed out, this is the first time that many Chinese have been prosperous enough to do so.
In an acknowledgment of the mistrust for officialdom, the government has promised public audits of how it distributes relief aid. And officials may have to deal with more consequences of that distrust. Angry parents, backed by harsh newspaper editorials, are openly demanding investigations into the official corruption that resulted in shoddy construction of schools that collapsed, killing thousands of children.
It's possible that this spontaneous instance of ignoring traditional party strictures might be only passing but there's another event coming in China that likely will depart from the party's script — the Summer Olympics come to Beijing in August.
Posted by shaver_one on May 21, 2008 at 9:34 a.m. (Suggest removal)
If only the government of Myanmar would do the same. Many more people would be saved.
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