Earthquake's don't
destroy strong, well-built buildings, they destroy weak ones. As China
reels from its biggest earthquake in 30 years, public anger is
mounting. A third of the 20,069 confirmed dead (the number is expected
to rise to 50,000) were children trapped in the 6,900 classrooms that
the government says were destroyed - weaker than other buildings in
withstanding the shock. It has also said that as many as 390 dams could
be at risk.
The danger for the Communist government is obvious. China is earthquake
prone, Sichuan in particular experiencing a similar scale earthquake in
1933. China's geologists had warned there was a one-in-10 chance of a
recurrence within 50 years and buildings and dams should have been
built to strict regulatory standards. They weren't, especially those
built most recently. This is not just corner cutting in the quest for
fast growth, or the kind of loose practice that comes to light after
disasters everywhere. It is the consequence of systemic non-enforcement
of regulations in return for bribes - and everyone in China knows it.
The heartbreaking scenes have transfixed China and the world. Popular
revulsion at avoidable deaths, especially when so many are children,
could easily become overwhelming. China has been applauded for its fast
and open reaction compared to the Burmese generals' stubborn refusal to
mobilise domestic and international support in the aftermath of the
cyclone - but self-preservation as much as humanitarian concern is
driving the Communist party's actions.
After all, it has not been a good year. Inflation is at a 12-year high,
the rail system is breaking down during snow storms and then there is
Tibet. And now this. State Premier Wen Jiabao went to the disaster area
the following day to make his concern visible, shouting to survivors
that help was at hand and ordering action. 'Grandpa' Wen has become
something of a national hero. President Hu Jintao followed him on
Friday. But both needed to show from the beginning that whatever the
shortcomings of local officials, the Beijing leadership, as it always
likes to position itself, was on ordinary villagers' side.
The comments from local people showed how much it is needed. One mother
told the Guardian: 'Chinese officials are too corrupt and bad ... They
have money for prostitutes and second wives but they don't have money
for our children.' It is the same story when it comes to food safety,
drug standards or environmental regulations, of which only 10 per cent
are enforced. Corruption is ubiquitous, which is why so many buildings
were deathtraps. Another woman drew attention to the government and
party buildings that remained standing, plainly built to the right
specifications. The Politburo could anticipate what was going to be
said; fast, open and effective action was its best riposte.
The government has announced an investigation into why so many
classrooms collapsed, but the answer is already known. People want the
government to maintain the pace of development but increasingly do not
accept that the price has to be corruption. The government agrees and
launches unsuccessful anti-corruption drives. The problem is that local
officials have unchecked, unaccountable power and have no compunction,
given the loss of the belief that they are building a communist utopia,
in helping themselves to cash on an ever grander scale. Professor Hu
Angang, an economist at Tsinghua university, estimates that one yuan in
six is, in effect, corrupt. Even army officers buy their rank.
This comes back to the weakness of China's civil society; it is not
just that the courts and police are rigged, but there are few strong
self-help groups and associations to hold officials to account. This
lack is more obvious than ever during a disaster. Organisations like
the Red Cross, Salvation Army, groups of amateur radio hams, churches,
sports clubs, associations for the relief of the poor, missing persons
groups, independent hospitals and all the others who might help are
conspicuous by their absence. If they do exist they are tightly
controlled and monitored by the party.
The state and the party are all there are, and at times like these they
are very exposed. Party ideologists like to criticise democracy for its
inefficiency, but vehicles where dissent can be openly expressed are a
vital safety valve and a way of improving government effectiveness. The
US government's reaction to Hurricane Katrina was cruelly inadequate,
but there were avenues and mechanisms for the US's dense network of
outraged institutions in civil society to propose fundamental change
for next time. Complex societies need active civil society institutions
to help manage them. China is the weaker for their absence - and for a
system through which they can express themselves.
In effect, the one party state is on trial. So far it has hardly put a
foot wrong. The contrast both with Burma and with China's last big
earthquake in 1976 could hardly be more marked. But importantly it had
no choice.
The party's first instinct was to try to prevent massive media
coverage, but to refuse China's now enormous domestic media - and
international news organisations - the opportunity to report a
humanitarian disaster months away from the Olympics would have been
political suicide. Even more important, as China gets richer and more
wired, the government finds itself having to be more responsive to
public opinion. Whatever its impressive reaction to date, Chinese
people are suspending judgment. So far so good. But will corruption dog
the relief effort? And will anything ever change, whatever government
inquiries may find, as long as the state remains controlled by one
party and civil society is kept weak?
China is at a crossroads. The pressures on the one party state are
becoming immense - and one obvious response is to harness China's
passionate nationalist sense of injustice to its cause, as it has over
Tibet, and to become a nationalist authoritarian state. But Sichuan
shows other forces at work: the widespread resentment at corruption;
the demand to hold the government to account and the growing capacity
to do so. The rest of Asia is finding its way to democracy, and
refuseniks like Burma are pariahs. China, I am sure, will one day find
its way to democracy too - and events last week will prove one more
small part of the story.
· The Writing on the Wall, Will Hutton's book on China, is
published by Little, Brown at £9.99
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2008/may/18/chinaearthquake.china
guardian.co.uk © Guardian News
and Media Limited 2008
