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Crisis and response - part three

By Wenran Jiang - posted Wednesday, 28 May 2008


But for a tectonic shift to occur in the world’s perception of China as a new kind of superpower, Beijing needs to do more than demonstrate that its crisis management is better than Burma’s or that post-earthquake Sichuan is no post-Katrina New Orleans.

First of all, the Chinese leadership faces the challenge of translating the initial success of this disaster relief into long-lasting benefits for the Chinese people. While Beijing should be congratulated for its human-centred rescue efforts, extending such an approach to other areas such as Tibet would win China greater respect. A global power whose responsibility begins at home applies to China now more than ever before.

And when the victims are buried and the reconstruction process begins, Beijing should encourage a nationwide debate on the lessons of the catastrophe. It is no doubt tempting for the Chinese Communist Party propagandists to convert the current high-level support of the Chinese people into a glorifying feast for the party and to re-assert tighter control over the media on politically sensitive issues. But the CCP could confront a legitimacy crisis unless it gives honest answers to thousands of grieving parents on why so many schools collapsed in a country that has built some of the world’s best skyscrapers in Beijing and Shanghai.

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It is also high time for China to reflect on its development strategy that has heavily favoured the cities over the countryside, the coastal regions over the interior and the rich over the poor during the past two decades.

Furthermore, China will be tested for its willingness and ability to play a more active international role, commensurate to its growing world-power status. While it is understandable that the Chinese public has been emotionally involved in such a calamity so close to home, the country will command universal respect when its government and its citizens display as much care to other humanitarian crises around the world as they have at home.

The Chinese responses to the immense tragedy have moved the country towards a more open and responsible society. But China will remain in the spotlight in this very eventful year as the Olympic Games approach. China could make a great leap forward beyond its borders when it’s willing to play a more active role in alleviating human suffering in countries such as Burma, Sudan and Zimbabwe, and take the lead in world affairs beyond its well-defined but narrow national interest.

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Reprinted with permission from YaleGlobal Online - www.yaleglobal.yale.edu - (c) 2008 Yale Center for the Study of Globalization.



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About the Author

Wenran Jiang is the acting director of the China Institute at the University of Alberta and a senior fellow of the Asia Pacific Foundation of Canada.

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