China's 911

This year is obviously not China's year. First, there was the unexpected and devastating snow storm in Hunan province. One month later, the riots in Tibet and the Chinese government's failure to handle the western media led to a global backlash. This negative publicity and the international outcry came at the back of earlier criticism of Chinese government's support of the Sudanese government which was supposedly carrying out genocide and made China look like the new evil empire that the Soviet Union was once painted to be. Then there was the Hand, Foot and Mouth Disease in southern China and finally, the Sichuan earthquake which had to date killed more than 30,000 people.


The destruction in lives and properties far exceeded the 911 incident of USA. Though there was massive coverage of the tragedies and the valiant efforts of the rescuers by Chinese language media in the aftermath of the earthquake, I doubt that there was that kind of extensive coverage by the global media (which just means the western media of USA and Britain) which was given to the aftermath of the 911 incident. There was no global mourning or outpouring of grief and sympathies of the kind that followd the 911 incident. I wonder how many people in the West actually secretly thought that China deserved it. But no matter how callous or unsympathetic the West might be, no one is going to bring up the Tibet incident or the boycott of the Olympics for this week. It was ironic that for all the Chinese government's PR offensive, what finally shut the West up was a natural calamity. This was surely too high a price to pay.


Just as the Olympic torch relay protest fuelled mainlanders' nationalism, the recent Sichuan tragedy also had the effect of binding Chinese together and this time the impact was even greater. Within days of the disaster, the Hong Kong show biz launched a massive campaign to raise funds and supplies. I also learnt that Jackie Chan negotiated with the Chinese government to allow him to fly in on his private plane to deliver supplies to the devastated province. Taiwan President-designate Ma Ying Jiu also went on TV with the heavyweight show hosts to raise funds.

Every day as I watched the news, I saw scenes that wrought my heart with sadness; like the hundreds of school bags beside the rubble which was once a school, these bags would probably never be claimed again by their little owners. There was also the story of this mother who shielded her baby with her body. When the rescue workers found her, she was long dead and fortunately, the baby was unscathed. In the mother's hand was a mobile phone where she has keyed in the words which went something like "Child, if you survive this, know that I always love you." There were also stories of courage and compassion that moved me. For example, the offers coming from all over China to adopt children who were orphaned by the disaster, of the teacher who saved scores of children by repeatedly rushing back to the building to lead children out and who perished when the building finally collapsed, of the slender lady reporter who crawled into the rubble to save a victim as she was the only person at the scene thin enough to fit in through the cracks. I was also very impressed by Premier Wen Jiabao actions at ground zero. Not only was he at the scene to direct the efforts of the military and paramilitary forces involved in the rescue efforts, he also went to the ground, climbing rubble to shout encouragements to victims trapped underneath and waiting for rescue. By the time, he went back to Beijing, he was at ground zero for three days and nights. Even, if this was some kind of PR effort to boost his popularity, I would say that it was extremely well done. I wondered if any of our own politicians would be prepared to do this but I seriously doubt that our leaders are the type who would risk getting their spotless white shirts and pants dirty.

We can compare the actions of the Chinese government with their friendly neighbour; the military regime of Myanmar. Even with such catastrophic loss of lives, the junta was more concerned with holding a referendum to ensure that Aung San Su Kyi would never be appointed political office and in keeping their iron grip on the people than to save further loss of lives. In fact, from the news coverage, it would seem that other nations are begging the junta to allow their relief teams to enter the country to save their own people. Some American naval commanders even went as far as suggesting that the junta could send their own military officers to monitor and shadow American forces entering Myanmar and promising that American soldiers would leave by nightfall each day. Still, the junta appeared unmoved. Faced with the roadblocks that the junta has put up to allow the international community to save their own people, the UN was even contemplating to pass a resolution that allow international forces to enter Myanmar without the junta's permission to undetake relief operations. This was however blocked by the Chinese government. Again the Chinese government had decided to side with their ally despite the cause for greater good, showing their callousness and placing their political alliance with corrupt regime above the lives of thousands of people. It seems like the sympathies of the CCP lie at most with their own people.