Special report: Reconstruction After Earthquake    

    By Xinhua writers Wang Aihua, Yu Zheng

    BEIJING, June 12 (Xinhua) -- Nations usually best prove themselves in front of disasters. In the past 30 days, the world has seen a China displaying solidarity and free will -- something not organized but spontaneous.

    The gloomy moment on May 12, when people thousands of kilometers away from Sichuan sensed tremor and felt dizzy, was meant to be traumatic -- the moment left nearly 70,000 dead and several millions homeless.

    Previously unknown county names such as Wenchuan, Beichuan, Qingchuan and Maoxian in the southwestern Sichuan Province have become quite familiar to the Chinese since they were badly hit by the 8.0-magnitude earthquake.

    For many, changes came in different ways, not only in the shattered landscape in the mountainous Sichuan, but also the response of the government and the general public.

    Changes in media coverage -- from Tangshan to Wenchuan

    When the 7.8-magnitude Tangshan earthquake in the summer of 1976 claimed more than 240,000 lives and left millions more injured or homeless, people had no history to learn from and were forced to live in doubts and fears. The media at the time was too busy covering "class struggles," which were almost a daily routine during the 10-year Cultural Revolution (1966-1976). The national wire service, Xinhua News Agency, only mentioned a quake occurred in a city 180 kilometers to the west of Beijing.

Wang Jianmin(L, front), photographer of Xinhua News Agency, shakes hands with a soldier in Wenchuan County, southwest China's Sichuan Province, May 16, 2008. (Xinhua Photo) Photo Gallery>>>

    Chinese people suffered an even more dreadful disaster 32 years later when the Wenchuan-centered earthquake devoured towns and counties in seconds. Media today is not what it was three decades ago.

    Within 20 minutes of the quake, Xinhua released a flash confirming a big tremor from the China Earthquake Administration; about 10 minutes later, the China Central Television (CCTV) started the non-stop live coverage on the disaster and relief work. Such coverage had never been seen in China before for any domestic natural disaster.

    State-run media no longer enjoyed exclusive access to disaster news sources. At least 550 journalists, including 300 foreigners from 114 overseas news outlets, swarmed into the quake-hit areas.

    Old-trade news organizations are becoming less important for people learning news in today's China, a country with the world's largest contingent of 221 million web surfers. BBS, blogs, chat-rooms and image-sharing portals such as flickr and youtube, are omnipresent, in addition to another network of information sharing, SMS via cell phones.

    Concerned Netizens voice their opinions on a number of issues, from the distribution of relief funds to conflict of interests between local officials and relief workers, to school building overhauls to the wise planning of post-quake reconstruction.

    Via the immediately reactive and even proactive media, the central government responded, in a timely fashion, to people's outcries with promises that relief would be distributed under close surveillance. Any corruption involved in subcontracting school buildings would be carefully investigated.

    Improvements in government emergency-responsive mechanism

    Ten minutes after the major quake hit, the People's Liberation Army's (PLA) Chengdu Military Command set up an emergency command and control center; three minutes later, the Central Military Commission kicked off a top-down coordination mechanism at its Beijing headquarters.

    Braving continuous aftershocks, President Hu Jintao visited the most devastated areas to show solidarity and the resolution of the whole nation in face of the natural disaster.

Chinese President Hu Jintao arrived in Shifang City, Sichuan Province, Sunday morning to oversee rescue operations. (Xinhua Photo) Photo Gallery>>>

    Within two hours of the quake, Premier Wen Jiabao boarded a hastily-prepared plane to the quake-ravaged counties. He visited Sichuan on three occasions to pacify the survivors and inspect the efforts to defuse the threat of risky quake lakes.

    Members of the Standing Committee of the Political Bureau of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee visited quake-hit Sichuan or adjacent provinces that were also affected.

Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao (front) walks past debris during an inspection in Muyu Township, Qingchuan County, southwest China's Sichuan Province May 15, 2008. Qingchuan County is one of the worst-hit areas in Sichuan Province. Premier Wen is here to oversee rescue work and visit survivors. (Xinhua Photo) Photo Gallery>>>

    In a political culture where local officials tend to do a lot better once being directly supervised by top leaders, the high-profile visits go far beyond just soothing people's temperament. They have demonstrated the central government's determination to ensure things be done the right way.

    Statistics showed that more than 130,000 service people and 40,000 local militiamen were deployed in relief work. Millions of tons of relief goods were transported into Sichuan and other affected provinces

    Non-governmental relief funds distributors such as the Red Cross Society of China invited the National Audit Office to supervise all their fund distributions and donation activities.

    Progress in donation and volunteer work

    The nation has probably never seen people being so enthusiastically involved in making donations and volunteering.

    In almost every government organization, every company, every factory, even in the villages, people are giving money to help those they don't know. Over 44 billion yuan (6.3 billion U.S. dollars) worth of funds and goods, mostly from domestic sources, was reported as of Wednesday. Volunteer numbers from around the country were too many to precisely count.

 

Students of the Kangleli Primary School of Xuanwu District, Beijing, donate books to their friends in the quake-devastated areas on May 26, 2008. (Xinhua Photo) Photo Gallery>>>

    In a culture where people attach more importance to kinship, people are quite foreign to the concept of contributing through donation and volunteering. People are increasingly willing to put their trust in the government and recognized social organizations.

    International aid and national mourning days

    By declining any international aid to help bail out the Tangshan earthquake tragedy, China tried to show an image of an unbeatable socialist giant that was able to fight any catastrophe on its own.

    In contrast, the government quickly resorted to overseas aids this time, from military-use synthetic aperture radar images for disaster assessment to expertise on search and rescue, among others.

Citizens mourn during a silent tribute at a commercial walking street in Changsha, capital of central south China's Hunan Province, May 19, 2008. (Xinhua Photo/Long Hongtao) Photo Gallery>>>

    After a short period of understanding the quake impact, China immediately stated it welcomed all types of international aids. The decision to invite Japanese, Korean and Russian rescue teams to work at the front reflected the government's sincerity of putting people's lives over any possible worries that ineffective post-disaster management might sully the glorious image of the great nation.

    So did the decision to fly national flags at half-staff from May 19 to 21 in a national mourning for those who lost their lives in the earthquake. In addition, all public entertainment activities as well as the Olympic torch relay were suspended.

    This was the first time ever the national flag had been kept at half-staff to mourn for ordinary people. Before that, this was only a privilege for great state leaders. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Chinese embassies to foreign countries even went as far as organizing open condolence.

    As American political scientist Francis Fukuyama wrote in his 1995 book "Trust" a nation's well-being and its competitiveness are decided by "the level of trust inherent in the society."