China's earthquake turning out to be a legitimate System Perturbation

ARTICLE: "In Departure, China Invites Outside Help," by Howard W. French and Edward Wong, New York Times, 16 May 2008, p. A1.

ARTICLE: "China to Allow Foreign Help as Death Toll Is Raised: More Than 50,000 May Have Perished; Appeal for Shovels," by James T. Areddy and Miho Inada, Wall Street Journal, 16 May 2008, p. A6.

ARTICLE: "First Foreign Rescue Team in China Faces Delays," by Hiroko Tabuchi, Wall Street Journal, 17-18 May 2008, p. A6.

ARTICLE: "China seizes moment to heal its image," by Geoff Dyer, Financial Times, 19 May 2008, p. 6.

The Chinese accept equipment and relief experts "from neighbors it has long shunned as rivals or renegades," according to the top NYT story.

This is indeed shaping up as a bit of System Perturbation, which seem to arrive with harmonic regularity for China: SARS, avian flu, Olympic torch, and now the quake. The Japanese send a bunch of recovery experts, the first outsiders accepted during this crisis and "one of the few relief missions China has ever accepted from abroad." Even Taiwan's team is accepted.

All this after Wen takes charge and 130k PLA troops are mobilized to the epicenter.

No doubt, as I noted in a previous blog, China uses this opportunity to soften its image in the run-up to the Olympics. Cynical to say, but the quake's timing was perfect.

Still, there was a certain pokiness resulting from pride. It always happens. Happened here with Katrina and in Japan in the '95 quake.

But still, for China as it emerges, this was a relatively rapid about-face, reflecting a pragmatism that is attractive. After all, Japan and Taiwan are two of the most seismically active places on the planet, so—of course—you take their help. Hell, if Beijing is smart, this event sets the stage for permanent trilateral cooperation on the subject.

And if America is smart, we seek not only to encourage that sort of cooperation, we join it as well.

Comments

[Nathan Machula]

This is definitely good news, and assuages some of my previous concern. Accepting help from "arch-enemy" Japan and "rebel province" Taiwan is a huge step for China! Now with Chinese public opinion of the PLA good in this sysadmin like role, how can we get them to export security internationally?

[Michael]

I read another article in the NYT about the schools that collapsed. Many of them were shoddily built- and not repaired- because they were low on bureaucratic priority lists or because money was siphoned off by corrupt officials.

Foreign policy isn't the only ruleset change coming out of this.

[William R. Cumming.]

With estimates rising to 11 million homeless this post-earthquake response and recovery will be very helpful in gauging Chinese resilience and organizational skills public and private in cooperation and collaboration. A very very major event. Lessons learned could be interesting to watch impact on future Chinese development and international cooperation. Even more interesting will be foreign neighbors reactions including democracies like S. Korea and India and U.S. Always remember that inability to provide basics like picks and shovels to the Red Army had real world consequences for the Soviet Union in the Armenian Earthquake, the ecology of the event, if that is a word that can be used, from press relations to post-event modificiation of policies could be really important in weighing China's capabilities. Chenyoble and the Armenian Earthquake delt twin hammer blows to Soviet mythology, and this might have similar ramifications.

[William R. Cumming.]

I don't believe for a moment that the decision to openly accept assistance was done for image. This is real evidence that the Chinese leadership will do what it takes to try and benefit the Chinese people and lower ideological barriers. You see they (the Chinese) are likely to show that the world's oldest and richest democracy (Guess who?) is inept when faced with a event at least 10 times less severe in Hurricane Katriana. Actually a fair test in my opinion since neither nation had planned for an event of the size that occurred and now much must be accomplished by collaboration of government and citizens and cooperation between response and recovery organizations. Remember it took the World Bank from 1944 to 1994 to figure out that natural disasters and the response and recovery to them impacted and affected both the economies and policies of nations. And just for a footnote it should be added that AQ's estimate of $500B in direct and indirect damage to the US economy by 9/11 is a lot more accurate than the US consensus of academics and government agencies of $60-80B. Perhaps desperation has driven the Wall Street financial sector to try and maintain their standard of living through waste, fraud and abuse once the damage from 9/11 and Katrina filtered through the vastness of the US economy. Afterall, just as this blog is a sensing mechanism largely reflecting the personality and knowledge base of one man, Wall Street is another sensing mechanism and now Mother Nature has added China to its list of those being audited by natural disaster. It is only through the sensing mechanisms of globalization that the US and certain other countries understand fully the interlatedness of the world. No time for ostrich like foreign and economic policies.