Breaking News, World News and Taiwan News.

Updated Wednesday, January 27, 2010 10:08 am TWN, By Frank Ching, Special to The China Post

Disparity between Chinese and U.S.' humanitarian efforts

For all the talk of an America in decline and a rising China, the crisis triggered by the devastating earthquake in Haiti is a reminder of the huge disparity that still exists between the ability of the United States (U.S.) to project power, for military or humanitarian purposes, and that of China.

The U.S. was quick to react to the 7.0 magnitude earthquake, with Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton, putting off her Asian trip to deal with the crisis.

And President Barack Obama said in a speech: “To the people of Haiti, we say clearly, and with conviction, you will not be forsaken; you will not be forgotten. In this, your hour of greatest need, America stands with you. The world stands with you.”

Washington sent the aircraft carrier USS Carl Vinson as well as three amphibious ships and a hospital ship to Haiti. In all, about 10,000 troops were sent to the stricken country.

China, too, was quick to offer aid but the disparity was striking. A 50-member Chinese rescue team arrived in Port-au-Prince two days after the earthquake struck, with three rescue dogs and 20 tons of equipment and humanitarian aid.

The Chinese rescue workers focused their efforts on the United Nations (U.N.) headquarters, where Chinese peacekeepers and officials had been meeting with Hedi Annabi, the top U.N. official in Haiti. They recovered Annabi's body as well as those of eight Chinese nationals.

The U.S. dominated the relief effort. Washington emphasized that it had “no intention of supplanting the leadership of Haiti.”

However, the Haitian government clearly was in no position to respond to the crisis. Last Friday [Jan. 22], the American ambassador, Ken Merten, and the special representative of the U.N. Secretary General, Edmond Mulet, signed an agreement of coordination between the U.S. and Haiti without any representative of the Haitian government being present.

The bodies of the eight Chinese ─ half of whom were peacekeepers and the other four part of a delegation from China's Ministry of Public Security ─ were flown back to Beijing, where they were honored as heroes and mourned in an elaborate memorial ceremony attended by President Hu Jintao.

Many Chinese reports on Haiti linked the disaster with China's own earthquake in 2008, asserting that the Chinese therefore had special empathy for the Haitians. People in Sichuan were quoted as saying that they wanted to go personally to help the Haitians.

1|2|Next Page>>

Share

Print

Email

Comments

April 3, 2011 ottawa_scuba_monkey@

China had a plane on the ground before the US. I was surprised to see that US planes had to return to US soil because the Haiti airfield was already overwhelmed with other aircraft. The live reports in Canada showed a Chinese rescue effort was well underway before the first US plane arrived.
BTW ... here's some facts from Wikipedia's account of the Haiti Earthquake:
A few days before the first anniversary of the quake, Oxfam published a report on the status of the recovery. According to the report, relief and recovery are at a standstill due to inaction from the government and indecision on the part of the donor countries. The report states, "One year on, only five percent of the rubble has been cleared and only 15 percent of the required basic and temporary houses have been built. House building on a large scale cannot be started before the enormous amount of rubble is cleared. The government and donors must prioritize this most basic step toward helping people return home".[247] Robert Fox, executive director with Oxfam Canada, said "The dysfunction has been aided unabated by the way the international community has organized itself, where pledges have been made and they haven't followed through [and] where they come to the table with their own agendas and own priorities. Most donors provided funds for transitional housing but very little money for clearing rubble or repairing houses". Fox states that in many instances rubble removal "means it was [moved] off someone's property onto the road in front of the property". [248][249]

According to a UNICEF report, "Still today more than one million people remain displaced, living in crowded camps where livelihoods, shelter and services are still hardly sufficient for children to stay healthy".[250] The Interim Haiti Recovery Commission was set up in April 2010 and led by former US President Bill Clinton and Haitian Prime Minister Jean-Max Bellerive to facilitate the flow of funds toward reconstruction projects and to help Haitian ministries with implementation. As of January 2011, no major reconstruction has started.[247] Amnesty International reported that armed men prey with impunity on girls and women in displacement camps, worsening the trauma of having lost homes, livelihoods and loved ones.[251]

On the first anniversary of the earthquake, Haitian-born Michaelle Jean, who served as the Governor General of Canada at the time of the disaster and who was installed as Special Envoy for Haiti for the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) on 8 November 2010, voiced her anger at the slow rate of aid delivery, placing much of the blame on the international community for abandoning its commitments. In a public letter co-authored with Irina Bokova, the head of UNESCO, Jean said, "As time passes, what began as a natural disaster is becoming a disgraceful reflection on the international community."[252]


Sponsors
▪	Buy china wholesale products from reliable chinese wholesalers on DHgate.com!
▪	Save 70% for hotel in Shanghai and 6000 hotels, in Beijing, Guangzhou, Shenzhen, and all China.
▪	Get the best deals for Guangzhou Hotels or choose from more than 10,000 hotels in 499 Chinese cities.
▪	Find great real time deals on China Flights. Book flights to China or China domestic flights 24/7.