« The current bibliography (books only) of "Great Powers" | Main | Why Japan continues to make itself less than the sum of its economic parts »

Seismic diversion

ARTICLE: Quake in China Kills Thousands, By Jill Drew, Washington Post, May 13, 2008; Page A01

Quake in China will be, sad to say, great diversion from Myanmar and Tibet in terms of China's national PR right now. Clearly, given the high-viz response, Beijing's leaders feel need to demonstrate competency relative to junta down south.

Comments (2)

Yes, but is not the "high-viz" aspect of the response (all the TV, youtube coverage) and the acceptance of some foreign assistance part of a significant opening up on China's part - and therefore progress.

On Burma, China needs to recognize that it bears significant responsibility for the failure of the Burmese generals to let in outside humanitarian assistance. China is the country that could lean on Burma the most. So long-term contrasting the effectiveness of the Chinese in meeting the needs of their people post earthquake will only make their failure to assist in getting aid into Burma more obvious.

Chinese mobilization of national resources for response for event at least 10 times size of Katrina will give insights into that culture and nation as opposed to current US capability as evidenced by August 2005 Katrina.

Post a comment

Comments must adhere to the comment policy. All TypeKey comments will post immediately (but are still subject to moderation) All other comments must wait for moderation before they publish. Please also read How to write so Tom will post/reply.

'Development-in-a-Box' is a registered trademark of Enterra Solutions.

Buy Tom's books online









About

This page contains a single entry from the blog posted on May 17, 2008 6:15 AM.

The previous post in this blog was The current bibliography (books only) of "Great Powers".

The next post in this blog is Why Japan continues to make itself less than the sum of its economic parts.

Many more can be found on the main index page or by looking through the archives.