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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…
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