Bill GreenCHINA IS STILL THE DISASTER IT WAS
May 18th 2008 00:41
China is becoming a master of deception. Everything is now open, according to some commentators. China will never be open for, like the US, they are quickly learning how to spin a story. Journalists are forever grateful for being allowed some leeway and in this case they haven't reported China's appalling lack of readiness for disaster. Gee, the army was rushed in - in exactly the same way as the Burmese fumbled it, but there was barely any criticism for China. Pity about the four living people in the building that was flattened because they couldn't save them.
That callousness over life is at the heart of their revolutions and Mao's personal life. I visited China in the early days (1973), and the day before the Peking Trade Exhibition opened they executed 50 prisoners as they sat in a gutter in a city street. It was never officially announced but it was leaked to journalists who told the staffs of visiting politicians. It was a message. Look, we can do anything we like. As far as those in the leveled building were concerned they were developing as a terrible embarasment for the communist regime.: they couldn't be saved. Not for the Chinese the risk- everything- to-save lives of the West, just get the awkwardness over quickly.
Of course the media are themselves getting excited about the Olympic Games and they don't want to be reporting from a country of total human rights disasters. So, instead of coming down heavily on China's incompetence and rescue brutality, they play ball with a corrupt regime.
Apart from New Orleans the West copes pretty well with disasters but then New Orleans was the fault of the President who had placed mates in key positions and they were so rich they could never comprehend that there was anything really wrong in the country, or with their rescue plans. In a weird way America responded with spin in the way the Chinese are doing today.
That callousness over life is at the heart of their revolutions and Mao's personal life. I visited China in the early days (1973), and the day before the Peking Trade Exhibition opened they executed 50 prisoners as they sat in a gutter in a city street. It was never officially announced but it was leaked to journalists who told the staffs of visiting politicians. It was a message. Look, we can do anything we like. As far as those in the leveled building were concerned they were developing as a terrible embarasment for the communist regime.: they couldn't be saved. Not for the Chinese the risk- everything- to-save lives of the West, just get the awkwardness over quickly.
Of course the media are themselves getting excited about the Olympic Games and they don't want to be reporting from a country of total human rights disasters. So, instead of coming down heavily on China's incompetence and rescue brutality, they play ball with a corrupt regime.
Apart from New Orleans the West copes pretty well with disasters but then New Orleans was the fault of the President who had placed mates in key positions and they were so rich they could never comprehend that there was anything really wrong in the country, or with their rescue plans. In a weird way America responded with spin in the way the Chinese are doing today.
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