 |
 |
 |
Business Connections
Connect with Australia China businesses through our online marketplace. Job Connections
A new way for Australians and Chinese to find employment in each others countries.
Events Connections
Click images below for the many EVENTS in China and Australia
Book Connections
The site to find the many books on China.
Back Issues
| Unanswered Questions | | Print | |
| Jul / Aug 2008 | |||
 Willy Lam looks at the political aftershocks of the recent Sichuan quake.Apart from the 70,000 people who perished - and economic losses totalling an estimated 500 billion yuan - the Sichuan earthquake has dealt a frontal blow to the reputation and integrity of the Chinese system. Given the relative wealth of the Chinese government - central coffers took in more than 5 trillion yuan last year in taxation - and unprecedented amounts of donations by Chinese and foreigners, the country can well afford the 300 billion yuan that the Sichuan Academy of Social Sciences deems necessary for a thorough post disaster reconstruction. However, the failings of institutions as well as individual cadres are so serious that the administration under President Hu Jintao has yet to publicly acknowledge them, let alone make a commitment to eradicating these shortcomings. First and foremost is the issue of endemic corruption, which is behind the hundreds of "tofu" - or jerry-built - classroom buildings and dormitories that collapsed even as more sturdy government edifices and luxurious hotels stood by almost unharmed. It is perhaps for this reason that although the Education Ministry and other authorities said a thorough assessment of the structure of all Sichuan schools would soon be conducted, the death toll of students and teachers has not been released. Estimates go from 10,000 (as reported by the New York Times, citing local experts) to some 35,000 (according to researchers of the New York-based watchdog, Human Rights in China.) The big issue, of course, is that Sichuan does not have a monopoly on tofu structures - which include school buildings, cinema houses, bridges, dams and levies. The term "tofu engineering" was coined by former premier Zhu Rongji during the massive Yangtze River flooding in the summer of 1998: many expensive and supposedly impregnable embankments along the mighty waterway gave way as though they were sand castles. Since 1998, however, the scourge of tofu engineering has become much worse. Then there is the issue of the apparent failure of government officials to heed forewarnings about the quake. According to physicists and engineers at the Chengdu University of Technology (CUOT), scholarly articles about impending tremors in Sichuan started to appear five years ago. Professor Li Yong, a CUOT seismologist, published a paper late last year citing the high possibility of a quake of a magnitude of Scale 7 or above in the Wenchuan and Beichuan districts of the provinces, which were worst hit on May 12. A couple of former scientists of the National Earthquake Bureau also issued warnings to Beijing just several weeks before 5/12. Yet the bureau and the provincial government did not appear to have taken immediate action to, for example, organize drills for emergency evacuation. According to a Sichuan geophysicist who requested anonymity, seismologists have also made predictions about huge tremors in nearby areas, including the Three Gorges Dam, which sits on geologically active plates. For understandable reasons, however, the authorities have refused to face the problem head-on. After all, in the late 1980s, some of the nation's most prominent geophysicists had opposed the controversial multi-billion dollar Three Gorges project partly due to the incalculable damage that could take place in the event of a quake. Moreover, the Hu leadership would be in a position to boost public confidence if it were more forthcoming with nature and quantity of military installations that were damaged by the quake. Sichuan is home to a huge number of research facilities and munitions factories under the People's Liberation Army. In the early 1960s, it was Chairman Mao Zedong who started the trend of moving PLA plants and laboratories away from the coast and into the mountainous heartland of Sichuan - so that they might be spared in the event of air-strikes by the United States or the Soviet Union. The city of Mianyang, a stone's throw from the epicentre, is home to a labyrinth of nuclear weapons laboratories, including those under the world-renowned China Academy of Engineering Physics, a top-notch military facility. The PLA, has yet to disclose whether - and how many - weapons such as bombs and missiles might have been buried under the debris. All that the generals have revealed is that military manufacturers suffered a loss of 67 billion yuan in the course of the disaster. To be sure, the Beijing leadership has deserved praise for giving both domestic and foreign reporters relatively free rein in covering the quake - at least during the first 10 days after 5/12. Premier Wen Jiabao has in particular earned plaudits galore for visiting highly dangerous sites on day one - and for displaying admirable leadership by immediately urging civilian and military personnel to leave no stone unturned in rescuing those buried under the wreckage. Unlike his predecessor Zhu, however, Wen has stopped short of publicly scolding officials responsible for tofu constructions. Nor has the "people's premier," a geological engineer by training, made any promises about investigating the degree to which nearby areas - including the Three Gorges Dam - might be susceptible to earthquakes in the near future. These glaring questions about the Chinese system, however, will linger long after those heart-numbing images of parents mourning kids who were crushed by sub-standing buildings have faded from memory. ■
|
 |
 |