Wenchuan and other tremors – 17 May 2008
An earthquake of magnitude 7.8 hit Wenchuan County in Sichuan Province on Monday 12 May at 14:30 local time. Six days later, the death toll stands at more than 20,000, with 50,000 people missing.
It wasn’t until I saw the photo on the front page of the South China Morning Post (Wednesday 14 May) that the full force of the disaster hit me. The photo showed rescuers unearthing the curiously intact corpses of children who had been crushed and buried in the rubble of their primary school classroom in Dujiangyan. They slumped together in a pile, faces and school uniforms lightly coated in a fine layer of white dust, eyes gently closed. Accompanying articles described how the wails of stricken parents pierced the air, and how a heavy pall of smoke hung in the sky over the school – from the piles of paper money they had burnt to send after their children into the afterlife.
In one county, a reported 80% of all buildings were destroyed. There also appear to have been many school collapses, not just the Dujiangyan incident. Given that many parents have lost their only child, grief has already started to turn into anger. Articles from the South China Morning Post and BBC (among others) claim that Chinese construction firms have skimped on safety when building schools. Given the breakneck speed at which the country has developed, this would hardly be surprising. When the bodies have been counted, expect a righteous backlash against the developers and construction firms involved.
This disaster has overtones of other recent Asian earthquakes. In the aftermath of the Taiwan 921 earthquake (1999), many were shocked to find that building codes had been flagrantly ignored, in some cases by stuffing layers of breeze blocks with plastic drinks bottles. This compromised the structural integrity of buildings, leading to more building collapses and deaths. In the Japanese ‘Aneha Scandal’ (which broke in November 2005), it was discovered that architectural and construction firms had been cutting costs by skimping on the requisite number of iron rebars when building hotels and condos, violating strict earthquake-resistance standards. The bureaucracy saw fit to tighten up construction regulations in August 2007. (This led housing starts to drop by 45% in the summer of 2007, which was meant to have shaved around one percentage point off GDP growth in Japan in 2007.)
What are the likely ramifications of the Wenchuan earthquake? It is worth noting that the worst damage appears to have hit the rural areas, with cities like Chengdu getting away relatively unscathed. First, earthquake damage is apparently covered by insurance in China, so those with insurance cover will be able to claim and start to piece their lives back together. It is as yet unclear what happens to those with no cover… Second, although Sichuan only accounts for 4% of national GDP, it does make a larger contribution (at 6%) to total national value-added agri output (accounting for 5.8% of China’s grain production, and 11% of national pork production). It is thus likely that the quake will exacerbate food price inflation. Third, more bank lending will be necessary in Sichuan to provide loans to clear up the damage. However, given national bank loan quotas in force, this will likely be at the expense of bank lending elsewhere in China (just as was the case after the snowstorms of February this year).
The Wenchuan Earthquake is the biggest since Tangshan in 1976; more than 240,000 people died in that disaster. 1976 was a year of great change in China, witnessing the deaths of Zhou Enlai and Mao Zedong. It was also the also the year when the Gang of Four fell from grace; this was in no small part due to their reaction to the earthquake. Jiang Qing (quoted in Wild Swans) allegedly made the following comments in relation to Tangshan: “There were merely several hundred thousand deaths. So what? Denouncing Deng Xiaoping concerns 800 million people.” In contrast, Hua Guofeng, who was to arrest the Gang of Four only two months later, made a point of visiting the site of the Tangshan earthquake only days after it happened.
Ever since the Zhou dynasty displaced the Shang, the concept of the ‘Mandate of Heaven’ (天命) has been invoked to legitimize the rule of a sovereign. Heaven approves of a just ruler and grants a long tenure, but it sends natural disaster to show its displeasure at abuses of power. Such portents would traditionally indicate that the mandate of heaven has been revoked, and that it is justifiable for the people to rise up and replace the unjust incumbents. Such moral exegeses were embraced by Chinese philosophical luminaries such as Mencius.
The current leadership of China, only too aware of the historical overtones of such a destructive earthquake, is pulling out all the stops. Premier Wen Jiabao has already flown to Sichuan to preside over relief efforts and be photographed with survivors. President Hu Jintao has followed in his wake. They wasted no time in declaring the earthquake a national disaster and mobilizing the PLA. However, the CCP seems to be concerned that it were unable to exercise its usual level of control over the media portrayal of the earthquake. According to the Financial Times, one local Sichuan channel broadcasting gritty coverage of the disaster went off the air on Wednesday. Since then, senior propaganda officials having been stressing the “correct guidance of public opinion”.
Now there will have to be some serious gestures to assuage the justifiable grief and anger felt by the people. This morning there was already news that an investigation has been launched into the massive number of school collapses. Going forward, expect scapegoats to be named, blamed, and even executed. This year is already shaping up to be an eventful one for China…
