China: Roused by Disaster

(2 of 2)

This cathartic outpouring of national grief helped put to rest the notion that China lacks civic spirit. Academics have long argued that Confucian ideals, which emphasize duty to family, have mutated over the millenniums into a national mentality that views contributions to nonrelatives as a waste of precious personal resources. This trait was exaggerated by the beggar-thy-neighbor capitalism that has been Chinese society's driving force for the past two decades. Charitable donations from individuals and businesses in China amount to about 0.09% of the gdp, compared with 2% in the U.S.

But in the space of a few weeks, China has shown that not only do its people know how to grieve but they also know how to give. And the charity isn't coming from just private companies and wealthy citizens; many of those donating are poor Chinese making enormous sacrifices. Waiting patiently in line at the Red Cross Society of China office in Beijing on May 19 was Liang Baoying, a 63-year-old retired teacher. Clutching an envelope containing the equivalent of $287--her monthly pension--Liang tearfully said she could no longer watch news of the quake on TV because it was too sad. "I believe this is a national tragedy, so we have no choice but to give. I'm sure the Red Cross will use the donation properly."

Thousands are doing even more. The China Youth Daily reported that an estimated 200,000 citizen volunteers from all over China have descended on the quake zone, providing food, shelter and medical treatment, their convoys of vehicles sometimes causing traffic jams on the narrow mountains roads of Sichuan province. Private aid takes many forms--beef trucked from Inner Mongolia, sleeping bags shipped from Shenzhen, building materials from Chongqing, millions of bottles of water and packets of instant noodles. Volunteers are working in areas overlooked by government relief efforts. In the village of Yongan, south of the devastated city of Beichuan, quake victims, from the very young to the very old, line the road, waiting for the citizen cavalry to arrive. "We're counting on volunteers to bring us food," says Wang Shaoqing, 82. As he speaks, children run up to the cars of volunteers, who stop and hand them food and water bottles through the windows.

The dedication of the volunteers has been covered in the state media with almost the same enthusiasm that's been given to the performance of the 120,000 People's Liberation Army troops and paramilitary police officers in the disaster area. The normally muzzled Chinese press has been freed by the information ministry to saturate the airwaves with quake coverage. The leash on the Internet was also loosened. Popular blogs have been uncensored; commentators posting to mainstream discussion forums were even allowed to criticize the government's handling of some aspects of the relief--the failure to use helicopters for the first three days after the quake, for example.

As surprising as the freedom is the sophistication of the coverage. It's on television and radio round the clock, and newspapers have put out special editions. An anchor even dressed down a reporter on air for broadcasting from the comfort of her hotel room rather than venturing into the field. "Three to five years ago, both the state media and the online world simply wouldn't have had the energy, experience or skill to do coverage on this scale," says Xiao Qiang, a Chinese-media expert at the University of California, Berkeley. "It's going to progress just as much in the next three to five years too. It's not going to be total media freedom, but it is a big step in the empowerment of China's civil society."

Unlikely Hero, Familiar Villains

One of the most widely praised aspects of the relief operation was the speed and scale with which the government responded. And to Chinese and foreigners alike, the man primarily responsible for that was the country's Premier, Wen Jiabao, 65. Within two hours of the earthquake, Wen was on a plane to the disaster area, and for the next four days, Chinese TV was flooded with images of the increasingly exhausted-looking leader as he rallied the relief forces, offered succor to survivors and even choked up.

Wen has long been the human face of the Communist Party. Netizens responded rapturously. "I couldn't help crying when I saw the pictures of Premier Wen in the stricken region," wrote a poster in a typical comment. "I feel very safe to have a wonderful leader like this." The praise will reassure the party hierarchy. Having long since discarded their Marxist-Leninist ideology, China's leaders are increasingly dependent on the approval of the public for their legitimacy; the survival of the party may ultimately depend on its handling of crises.

Wen's star turn notwithstanding, the real danger to the party comes from its rotten base: the county and township officials whose corruption and venality have had the greatest impact on the lives of hundreds of millions of Chinese. There's sure to be a backlash over the number of children killed by the quake, buried in their classrooms as shoddily built schools collapsed around them. In the days following the quake, blogs and online message boards teemed with demands for answers as to why so many schools were destroyed. In one structure alone--the three-story Juyuan Middle School in Dujiangyan--at least 600 students died. "It was built out of tofu," says Hu Yuefu, 44, of the building that collapsed and killed his 15-year-old daughter Huishans. He holds local government officials and building contractors responsible. "I hope there is an investigation," Hu says. "Otherwise, there are a thousand parents who would beat them to death."

Corruption has proved an inflammatory issue in the past--it was one of the driving forces behind the Tiananmen Square protests in 1989--and mixed with student deaths, it could be explosive. Beijing's first instinct will be to sweep the schools scandal under the rug. Much of the online anger over the collapsed schools has been deleted, and all discussion of the topic has been banned. But the University of Alberta's Jiang says that as China's civil society develops, leaders know they must adapt. "It will be extremely tempting for the control types and ideologues to use the earthquake to glorify the party and to direct this new openness toward reporting only good news," he says. "But that will be one step backward out of two steps forward--no more."

It's hard to see how Beijing can stifle the civic impulses of the millions of Chinese who have been stirred into action by the humanitarian crisis. The earthquake has exposed how much China has changed and given a fleeting glimpse of what might be. The political and cultural aftershocks will roll on for years after the ground has ceased to tremble.