The Sichuan quake System Perturbation rumbles on

ARTICLE: "Parents' Grief Turns to Rage at Chinese Officials," by Andrew Jacobs, New York Times, 28 May 2008, p. A1.

Stunning pic: CCP boss of Mianzhu, kneeling in street, eyes downcast, in front of mothers holding pics of dead kids, pointing at the faces and screaming at him. He is begging them to abandon their protests, and seems to be failing.

Article says angry parents are lashing out over fact that gov buildings and nearby elite schools withstood quake while their kids die in poorly built public schools.

The usual caution about confronting party bosses evaporates ...

This is not just about the quake, but about people getting used to making more demands over perceived injustices. People start living better and then start expecting more. When they work their asses off to get ahead and then see how elites do better for no good reason, then they get mad and the gloves come off. People's sense of the new minimum standard is everything when it comes to reforms and change: they say to themselves, "Nobody should have to endure this" and whammo! The new minimum standard for decency is undeniable.

And with every perceptible rise in that public-defined new minimum standard, the party's arbitrary power weakens and its responsibility to deliver on heightened expectations grows.

Increasingly, the quake creates a fault line between a pre-disaster and post-disaster China.

With all due disrespect to misguided Sharon Stone, China is getting what it deserves ... not with this tragedy but as a result of it: a more demanding public and a more responsive Party.

Comments

[Bill C.]

Forgive me if this has already been addressed but:

Should we consider the war in Iraq to be a "system pertubration" of the first order, in that it is/was the cause of crises and instability in the global age and because is likely to cause (has caused) a new ordering principal which has forced us to rethink everything -- expecially the concepts of (1) US omnipotent power, (2) preemptive war and (3) tranforming the Gap?

[stuart abrams]

Please be sure that Robert Kagan sees this.

[Ted O'Connor]

That photo was really something. A revelation to me about how little we understand about that very old culture. Can you imagine an American politician or functionary getting down on his knees to apoligize over anything. I did not see anyone on their knees in New Orleans. Wait, I take that back. I saw one of the refugees at the stadium on their knees begging for help. Some difference!

[Louis Heberlein]

If these are birth pangs for a new China, I hope there are some smart and experienced nurses available to help achieve a happy result. That was not usually true in earlier transformations.

[Bill C.]

Sorry no takers on my to-the-side question above. Just thought that one of the biggest system perturbations I could think of was the Iraq War.

I thought of all the things that have changed because of this: Republican Party's major decline and the Democratic Party's rise, the change in emphasis from military to diplomatic efforts, the temporary loss of allies, the move by the military to finally accommodate COIN, the notation by Sec. Gates -- re: present and future budget funding/planning -- to prepare for "wars like these," the rise in gas prices (?), the rise in and controversy surrounding the use of contractor/mercenary forces, the increase of instability in the Middle East and elsewhere, the rise in influence and importance of Islam and Iran (?), the decline of United States influence and the compromise of the idea of preemptive war.

I am sure there are many others.

This is where the war in Iraq may be most like the Vietnam War -- they are "system perturbations," of such magnitude, that they changed everything and for a very long time.

[Michael]

Not to mention that people who've lost their only children may not see themselves as having anything left to lose:(

[William R. Cumming.]

Natural disasters can be major societal disruptors. This is a large-scale event for China which on a relative basis is prepared for earthquakes. Last really big one was 1976. But this is different. China is trying to demonstrate to the world its soft-power leadership even while advancing its military capabilities. This event, at least 15 times the size of Hurricane Katrina, between 11-13M homeless and evacuees will document in an extraordinary way where the Chinese, leadership, polity, and culture are today. Any China scholar not watching intently is missing a real opportunity. And by the way the Chinese have welcomed outside technical support except of course at the nuclear sites, a number of which suffered major damage. Here the early deployment of the Chinese Armed Forces was done to protect the security of those sites. And probably another missed opportunity for the Bush Administration that cannot seem to realize that real people and their lives can be drastically changed by unexpected large-scale disasters. A CSIS report released this month indicates that the US post 9/11 and post-Katrina is still substantially unprepared for a large scale event.