EARTHQUAKE: PARTY BENEFITS, ANGER IN QUAKE ZONE

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 03 BEIJING 002437

SIPDIS

E.O. 12958: DECL: 06/20/2028
TAGS: PGOV PREL PHUM PROP SOCI CH
SUBJECT: EARTHQUAKE: PARTY BENEFITS, ANGER IN QUAKE ZONE
SERIOUS BUT MANAGEABLE

REF: A. BEIJING 335

B. BEIJING 390

Classified By: Acting Political Minister Counselor Ben Moeling.
Reasons 1.4 (b) and (d).

Summary
--------------


1. (C) The Chinese public is giving high marks to the
Central Government, and especially to Premier Wen
Jiabao, for its quick response to the May 12 Sichuan
earthquake, and our contacts believe the Party and
Central Government have received a boost in legitimacy
as a result. Although managing the wrath of parents
who lost their children due to shoddy school
construction presents a challenge for the leadership,
our interlocutors believe demonstrations and unrest
will remain geographically confined to the quake zone.
The authorities, our contacts say, will attempt to
control fallout from the parents' anger with a
combination of media controls, compensation for
victims, official action against critics and the
scapegoating of some local officials. Those we spoke
with are divided over the long-term political
significance of this disaster. Some believe the
Sichuan earthquake is a turning point in government
transparency. Others argue that the degree of future
openness will continue to depend on the situation.
One historian believes the quake may have the opposite
effect of what liberal reformers hope for because, for
many in China, the disaster highlights the need for
strong centralization of power under the Communist
Party. End Summary.

Big Boost to Party/Government Legitimacy
--------------


2. (C) Tsinghua University historian Qin Hui (protect)
told PolOff June 17 that the Communist Party has
experienced a large boost in legitimacy as a result of
its handling of the Sichuan earthquake. Many of our
interlocutors believe the quick Central Government
response, including the decision by Premier Wen Jiabao
to go to the disaster area within hours of the quake,
reflect the lessons learned from the January/February
snowstorm disaster, when many Chinese, particularly
bloggers, criticized the Party leaders for their
sluggish response (reftels). Ren Qian (protect),
Deputy Director of the State Administration of Radio
Television and Film, told PolOff May 14, just two days
after the earthquake, that the snowstorm experience
was critical to the leadership's handling of the
earthquake. Hu En (protect),an executive at China
Central Television, however, felt the "exceptionally"
fast response to the earthquake reflected not
necessarily the snowstorm, but rather a more general
trend toward greater responsiveness going back to the
2003 Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) crisis.
Li Dun, a prominent AIDS legal activist who recently
retired from Tsinghua University's Center for the
Study of Contemporary China, likewise told PolOff June
13 that the Sichuan quake had allowed the government
to reestablish its crisis management credentials.
Furthermore, Li said, in the aftermath of the quake,
President Hu Jintao and Premier Wen displayed genuine
concern for the safety and welfare of ordinary people.
While this might be taken for granted in Western
countries, Li observed, in China, demonstrating that
the leadership values individual lives is fairly new
behavior and wins points with the Chinese public.

Anger in Quake Zone Serious But Manageable
--------------


3. (C) Freelance journalist Chen Jieren (protect),who
is the nephew of Politburo Standing Committee (PBSC)
member He Guoqiang, wrote an analysis two days after
the disaster that noted that school buildings in the
quake zone had collapsed while government office
buildings had generally remained standing. (Comment:
We do not know the audience for Chen's piece, which he
emailed to us. It is far too sensitive to be
published inside China. Chen claims he frequently
writes internal "neibu" articles for high-level
leaders. End Comment.) Chen also wrote that small
rural towns, where poverty leads to poorer building
quality, suffered more damage than larger cities.
Chen warned that by exposing disparities between
government officials and ordinary people, and between
rural and urban areas, the earthquake had badly

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damaged the image of the Communist Party and increased
public dissatisfaction.


4. (C) While other contacts acknowledge widespread
dissatisfaction within the disaster area, most said
quake-related unrest does not represent a major
challenge to the Party. China's propaganda apparatus
is working to minimize public anger over the high
number of student deaths, according to Zhang Shensi
(protect),a senior editor at the Legal Daily. Zhang
told PolOff that, following a period of very little
media control immediately after the quake, propaganda
authorities have reasserted their authority by
limiting media reporting of school construction issues
(see septel). Zhang predicted that the Central
Government will use monetary compensation to parents
to try to limit their fury. Mao Yushi (protect),the
founder of the Unirule Institue of Economics, an
independent think tank, said central authorities will
continue to limit media reporting of the school
collapse fallout while at the same time publicly
punishing a small number of local officials as
scapegoats. (Note: The Xinhua News Agency announced
June 9 that 15 officials in Sichuan Province had been
fired for poor performance during the quake relief
effort while 50 officials had been promoted as a
result of their outstanding service.) The Central
Government's announcement June 8 that officials
responsible for poor construction will face criminal
penalties and that building codes for schools will be
improved is all part of the damage control effort, Mao
said. The government, Mao observed, cannot allow
protest to grow but also cannot afford to appear
callous toward parents who have lost their children.


5. (C) Qin Hui, of Tsinghua University, noted that so
much money has been raised for earthquake relief
(according to Xinhua, USD 6.7 billion in private
donations plus another USD 7.8 billion allocated by
the Chinese Government) that expectations of
government assistance among survivors are
unrealistically high. The anger and bitterness caused
by the school collapses will increase if quake victims
perceive that relief money is ending up in the pockets
of corrupt officials, Qin said. Qin predicted that
any quake-related unrest will remain isolated to the
communities within the disaster zone. From a national
perspective, he observed, the Chinese public has a
very positive opinion of the government's performance
and this is a net plus for stability. (Note:
Authorities are detaining some of the more outspoken
critics. The Hong Kong-based Information Center for
Human Rights reports that police jailed Zeng Hongling
in Chengdu June 9 after Zeng posted articles on the
Internet about poor school construction.)

Situational Transparency
--------------


6. (C) Chinese we spoke with had varied opinions about
the lasting political ramifications of this disaster.
Zhang Shensi, of the Legal Daily, called the quake a
"breakthrough" in government transparency and
openness. The May 12 earthquake, she said, is the
first disaster in China to be covered so freely and
sets a new precedent for how the government handles
major incidents. Wang Lin (protect),Editor-in-Chief
of the Beijing-based newspaper Fazhi Wanbao, likewise
felt that the positive role played by media and civil
society in the crisis shows how China is gradually
becoming a more open society.


7. (C) Other contacts, however, were skeptical that
the Sichuan quake marks a real change in the Party's
approach to governance. Li Dun said every government
decision in China is highly situational and Party
authorities wil continue to restrict information
flows when t suits the Party's inerests. Although
Chinas rulers granted the media and NGOs a great dea
of latitude during the rescue phase, Li noted, this
freedom is now being rolled back. During the
rebuilding phase, Li commented, complex local
interests will come into play as the government sets
priorities for reconstruction and awards contracts.
The Party, Li said, will not want the messy details
reported with the same level of transparency that
characterized the immediate relief efforts. Huang
Shan (protect),Deputy Editor of Caijing magazine,
said he does not believe the earthquake really
represented a turning point and, like Li Dun,
predicted that future openness will vary depending on

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the situation.

"Quake Reinforces Centralization of Power"
--------------


8. (C) Qin Hui also expressed doubt that the quake
will usher in a new era of transparency in China. In
fact, Qin said the legacy of the Sichuan quake may be
the exact opposite of what liberal reformers wish.
People on both sides of the political spectrum, Qin
explained, typically project their own hopes onto
major events. Pro-reform liberals in China are
praising the media openness, close cooperation with
foreigners and the mobilization of civil society that
followed the earthquake. "Stalinists" in China,
however, view the earthquake as an affirmation of the
need for a strong centralization of power at the top
of the Communist Party. Only a centralized state,
according to this view, can mobilize resources on the
scale needed to cope with such emergencies. Qin
argued that the 2003 SARS epidemic also created
unfulfilled expectations among liberals that China was
moving toward greater transparency. Qin, however,
said that, for many in China, the lesson of SARS and
the Sichuan quake is that China needs more, not less,
centralized government control. Mao Yushi, of the
Unirule Institute, said that while he does feel the
regime is gradually moving towards more transparency,
the quake has served to bolster the idea of a strong
Central Government and military. "The Communist Party
is good at disasters," Mao said, adding that China's
Leninist political system is pre-disposed toward mass
mobilization and tends to handle disaster response as
a kind of warfare. Mao likened the quake to the
massive floods of 1998 in that both disasters offered
a chance to burnish the image of the Party and the
PLA.

Comment
--------------


9. (C) The academics quoted above, especially Qin Hui
and Mao Yushi, are very outspoken and do not hesitate
to criticize China's rulers. We find the near
universal praise among our contacts for the
government's performance in dealing with this tragedy
to be notable, and unusual.
PICCUTA