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I retract my previous statement in which I dismissed the earthquake as something that happens all the time. I know little about earthquakes and didn’t quite realize the significance of a 7.8 earthquake. I made a premature assumption that people were getting excessively paranoid, which was the case when people were talking about everyone in the west being involved in a conspiracy against China and that the train accident was just the beginning of multiple terrorist attacks by Xinjiang separatists.
Over nine thousand people have died so far and they’re still digging people out of the rubble. They haven’t even reached the rural areas where entire villages might be burried by landslides. Entire schools collapsed, cities disappearing…
I hate to talk about politics when so many lives are lost, but just like the Olympics, disasters are filled with politics. How well did each local official respond to the disaster? How much did Wen Jiabao seem to sincerely care about the people under the rubble? What was Hu Jintao doing about all this? How fast is the government reacting?
And then there’s the possible reconciliation with the west. An idealistic thought would be that whenever lives are lost due to forces beyond the control of man, the sense of vulnerability tends to cross borders and cultures. However, I don’t necessarily think this is the case. Personal beliefs of a country will not change just because a disaster took place, but it does force them to take a more conciliatory tone. Stuff like “Every dead Chinaman leads to a free Tibetan” is no longer acceptable and conspiracy theories like “The West created this earthquake to hurt China’s national pride” is seen as nuts. By most people, not all (especially since the anonymity of the web allows people to say whatever they damn well please).
Disasters are political. Burma didn’t want foreign aid workers for political reasons. China is allowing free (mostly) access to the region for political reasons. Yes, the number one goal of course would be to save lives. The common people don’t care if it’s Wen Jiabao or Jack Cafferty who pulls their loved ones from the rubble, but the governments do. If there is little to no political or personal gain for saving people’s lives, I just don’t think any government would do anything about it.
Luckily, in this case, each person saved would lead to increased political prestige for the Chinese local and central government as well as foreign countries. The interests of the people and the politicians are aligned. Full mobilization of the government’s resources as well as foreign aid and support from the people can do a lot of good.
Peace be with those who are suffering. There is nothing I can do but write useless words on a blog, but I sincerely hope that the number of dead doesn’t go up much higher…
I’m not sure why you think governments wouldn’t help if they didn’t gain from it. First, what do they gain? People not hating them? Second, what I find amazing is the Burmese government apparent neglect of its citizens. If a large-scale disaster happens, I assume normally no official asks whether or not to help. They only ask how to help. So even if the government does benefit, I’m not sure any one acts because of that. I hope I’m not overly naive; certainly, this is more your area of expertise and I don’t know any specific examples.
However I do think it is interesting to learn about the politics of such disasters. I just don’t know enough to offer my own view. That’s why I read your blog.
Count me too as one what wishes to hear more on you point. I’m happy to see the government’s quick response earns them some political gains, but I’m not sure how much of the response is driven by the politics.
I think politics can wait. There’ll be plenty of time for discussion of what all this means. Right now it’s a tragedy first and last.
Good posts.
Well put — I was thinking the same thing when the magnitude of the Sichuan earthquake really sunk in. I hope at the same time that everyone will not forget about Burma.
@Shao Ping – I think each individual politician would definitely be saddened by the event, but the political entity as a whole must act to the disaster in a way which benefits them. And yeah, people not hating them would definitely be a plus. I mean back during the snow storms, there were all these videos of government officials and soldiers working overtime with sappy music being played in the background.
@Wood – I’m not so cynical as to believe that the politicians wouldn’t do anything at all if they can’t benefit from it. However, I think it only makes sense if they want to maximize their political gains while helping people at the same time.
@Old Tales Retold – Yeah, writing about politics at a time like this left a bad taste in my mouth, but there’s only so much one can say about how big of a tragedy this earthquake was. I guess I just wanted to talk about something else…
@Jaimesourire – Yeah, China would have been a big contributer to aid in Burma and I assume that with the earthquake, a lot of that aid would be cut back for domestic use…
You make things too complicated. Have you voluntary to do anything in your life?
I believe Wen Jiabao will benefit from the work he did in this earthquake. If it happen, he deserve this credit.
But he still have to have the ability, capability and willingness to lead the local official respond to the disaster.
If Wen was not arrived the scene in 5 hour, the local official respond time will be sure much longer than this. Wen’s present, overrided the normal procedure between different government departments.
Why are you so mean to the credit Wen will take? He has to earn it with his hard work.
@Andy – Yeah, I have volunteered before, but there was a personal gain in that as well: satisfaction that I did something good. I think there’s a bias against incentives in general. People think that good things should be done only out of the kindness of one’s own heart. I think that good deeds are good deeds, may they have done it for political gain, money, to go to heaven after they die, or just to get a good feeling.
And I kinda like Wen Jiabao ever since he was hanging around Tiananmen with the students and Zhao Ziyang back in the day. I think it’s good that he showed up so quickly to spur the people on too. Sorry if it seemed like I was singling him out.
It is always political – not only in China. The handling of a natural disaster in Germany helped to get former chancellor Schroeder re-elected, and hurricane Katrina made the Bush administration look bad (but local authoirities, too). Even if there is no want to politicise things, they are political. But I see no need to over-politicise them. If there is a rapid and efficient response to disaster, that’s good news in itself. Burma shows how bad the news can be, if politics is completely rotten.