A Tale of Two Disasters: Compare and Contrast

I've been critical of China often enough in this blog - most recently only yesterday - so it's only fair that I should give the Chinese government credit when they get something right. There could hardly be a greater contrast than that between the handling of two natural disasters: the Sichuan earthquake and the Burmese cyclone.

Within hours of Monday's deadly earthquake in Sichuan Province, which has killed at least 12,000 people so far and left possibly hundreds of thousands homeless, the Chinese government had rushed rescue teams into the area, and 50,000 troops are hard at work locating survivors and clearing blocked roads to enable supplies to reach the area. Prime Minister Wen Jiabao was quickly on the scene to demonstrate the central government's concern and assess the situation for himself. China has also welcomed offers of assistance from overseas, and journalists are apparently free to visit and report on the earthquake zone.

"We must treasure every second and do our utmost to save survivors," Wen is quoted as saying - not a message that appears to have reached Burma, where the callous clique of bandits in uniform that runs the country is still hindering relief efforts, almost two weeks after Cyclone Nargis swept over coastal communities, killing more than 34,000 people according to the latest official figures (probably grossly understated).

Although as many as 1.5 million people now face homelessmess and the threat of disease and starvation, the Burmese regime continues to deny visas to international aid experts and to confiscate relief supplies arriving in the former capital Rangoon (Yangon) - reportedly either diverting them or relabelling them to appear to be from the Burmese military. The long standing ban on foreign reporters (who might tell the truth about conditions in the country) is also still firmly in place, with the government seemingly committing more resources to enforcing it than to solving the problems reported on.

Some aid is trickling through, but so inadequate and tardy has been the official response to the disaster that even the mormally impeccably doiplomatic United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki Moon, rarely directly critical of UN member governments, has described it as "unacceptably slow".

Meanwhile Burma's military rulers, whose greed, corruption and mismanagement have achieved the rare feat - rivalled by Robert Mugabe in Zimbabwe - of transforming a country rich in natural resources from one of the wealthiest in its continent to among the world's poorest, remain holed up in paranoid seclusion in their isolated slave-labour-built new capital Naypyidaw, at the opposite end of the country from the storm-struck Irrawaddy Delta, showing no signs of any genuine concern for the plight of their people.

So, is this a case of "China good, Burma bad"? Well, not quite - real life is seldom that black and white. The murderous Burmese junta's main trading partner, and strongest overseas backer, is China...

P.S. Immediately after posting this, I turned to Spike's blog to find him saying something very similar, with the added thought that the US Government's response to Hurricane Katrina in 2005 more closely resembled Burma's than China's - lest we forget.

Making It Better:
China donations - Oxfam Hong Kong
Burma donations - Hong Kong Red Cross