International Law

Chinese Corruption and School Construction -- No Longer A Suitable Media Topic

Here is Caijing magazine's attempt to explain in English the causes of the collapse of school buildings during the Sichuan earthquake. Yes, construction standards existed, goes the article, but weren't implemented. That English language translation -- intended to be the magazine's face to the world -- appears to be a compilation of several articles, including this, originally in Chinese, but the thrust of the pieces is consistent:

??????????????????????????6?2??????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????? [Editor's note: Subscription required.]

If indeed standards were sufficient to maintain a school structure long enough to allow students to leave the classroom before collapsing -- and even that statement has not been justified -- why weren't those standards implemented? Caijing magazine fails to treat this question directly. Hailed by many as a trend-setter in Chinese journalism, Caijing shows the limits of even these media channels to get the news out (as we well knew). Even an indirect assertion of corruption such as this is insufficient:

School buildings are totally controlled by an educational hierarchy. Local officials are responsible for fund-raising, lining up design and construction bids, and quality appraisals. No third party supervises the process.

So, where is the discussion of the pervasive corruption that allowed administrators, builders, educators, et al, to profit from the evasion of those standards? if anywhere, the discussion goes on within the Chinese Communist Party.

Full post as published by Asia Business Intelligence on June 17, 2008 (boomark / email).