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Updated Saturday, June 7, 2008 0:00 am TWN, By John J. Metzler, Special to The China Post

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Burma: Dictators, disasters and consequences

I’m old enough to recall the devastating July 1976 Tangshan earthquake. China then, in the grip of Maoist madness, at first refused even to concede the natural catastrophe had happened. Then the regime went into major cover-up mode as to hide what was actually happening. International aid was not only refused but scoffed at. What earthquake? While perhaps 250,000 people died in the Tangshan quake, they were victims both of nature and their communist rulers. Though Tangshan was a generation ago, let’s not forget that even a few years back, Beijing refused to admit the severity of the SARS epidemic on the mainland until the public health emergency could no longer be hidden.

Importantly, too, in the ancient Chinese tradition, the Mandate of Heaven, earthquakes were often said to presage political change. “When Heaven Quakes, Earth Shakes,” and it is time for a new ruler. Even China’s communist dictatorship during the Mao era did not totally discount this ancient maxim, and thus an earthquake could mean trouble. Mao died in September 1976. There is, of course, an uncomfortably superstitious feeling given that the Sichuan earthquake hit China on the eve of the extravaganza Beijing Summer Olympics.

Dictatorships are, by political pedigree, not very transparent, and it’s equally true they usually don’t like to even admit natural calamities. While any logical onlooker would say, “a cyclone or earthquake is not their fault” the dictators will counter that “foreign humanitarian aid allows unwarranted access, gives the people contact with outsiders, and likely shows up the incompetence of the rulers.” Regimes like Burma, acting in the cynical tradition of despots, could care less, but the rulers in contemporary China however know that the world is watching, and they are forced to care. Natural disasters can have very down to earth political consequences after all.

John J. Metzler is a United Nations correspondent covering diplomatic and defense issues. He can be reached at jjmcolumn@att.net

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