Earthquake public relations

While I’m usually quite favorable towards the Economist’s editorial position on China, a “former China journalist” working on their Europe blog seems to have a bad sense of the nuances of 30,000 people dying.

If China had a free domestic press, and something approaching a political opposition, might this not be closer to China’s Hurricane Katrina? True, the government reacted swiftly, but why did so many buildings fall down? Why is so much infrastructure in such a bad way, especially in ethnic minority areas of Sichuan? This is a country that sends men into space, and is preparing to host a show-off Olympics. Yet incompetence, corruption, or cut corners mean that building codes are ignored across China’s hinterland.

The reason why China is getting good coverage, even in international not censored press, is because 30,000 people are dead, and the Chinese government has mobilized every possible resource to prevent the body count from rising. In these situations to start placing blame for something before all the people are pulled from the rubble makes you sound petty and political. The difference with Hurricane Katrina is that Bush ignored a rising body count and then preceded to play politics with the issue, the exact opposite of what China is doing.

As the urgency of the rescue efforts begins to cool down more and more news is coming out about how the problem was drastically multiplied by corruption and cutting corners. That we know of so far three high level officials have lost their careers over this, and one could imagine more drastic things in the near future.

China has finally learned two strong principle of Western PR, the more you talk to the press the better press coverage you get, and that strong positive responses leave little room for criticism.

Bradley Gardner