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China’s Wen Visits Quake Site

17 April 2010 00:52 (UTC +04:00)

Baku â€“ APA. Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao spent Friday visiting earthquake survivors on the Tibetan plateau in western China and urging on rescue crews, as China’s leaders took a high-profile, hands-on approach to dealing with the disaster that struck one of the country’s most troubled ethnic-minority areas, APA reports quoting â€œThe Wall Street Journalâ€.
More than 790 people were confirmed dead and nearly 300 others were listed as missing, authorities said Friday, in the wake of Wednesday’s quake in Qinghai province’s remote Yushu prefecture. Yushu’s population is predominantly Tibetan, and the area was the scene of anti-government protests in 2008, when unrest swept many Tibetan parts of China.
"We will make all-out efforts to build a new Yushu," Mr. Wen, a member of China’s majority Han ethnic group, promised residents Friday, according to state media. "Whether you are Tibetan or Han, we are all from one family and we need to take care of each other."
During an unusually long visit to the scene of the earthquake, where he arrived Thursday evening, Mr. Wen went to the site of a collapsed vocational school, visited injured people in tents behind a local hospital and oversaw a meeting of emergency workers. On Friday he talked with orphaned children and visited a Tibetan Buddhist monastery.
"Your suffering is our suffering," Mr. Wen told townspeople in Jiegu, where most residents are Tibetan.
The government has ordered a massive deployment of soldiers, troops from the paramilitary People’s Armed Police as well as firefighters and other emergency workers to the quake zone. Officials said Friday that more than 10,000 rescuers were on the ground in Yushu, tending to thousands of injured and searching for additional survivors.
Tents, quilts and warm clothing as well as instant noodles, drinking water and other government supplies were also starting to arrive Friday, as state media broadcast images of the devastation in Yushu. Chinese President Hu Jintao decided to cut short a trip to Latin America and return to China.
Analysts say the tragedy is an opportunity for the government to show its commitment to helping members of a minority ethnic group. "If rescue and relief efforts go well, relations will be better" between the government and Tibetans, predicted Zhang Zhirong, a Tibet scholar at Peking University.
Relief efforts after the 2008 Sichuan earthquake generated significant public support for the government. The tragedy, in which more than 80,000 people died or went missing, also became a patriotic rallying point for Chinese and prompted an outpouring of donations and other assistance from people nationwide.
Tibetans have long complained about government restrictions on their civil rights and religious practices. And many feel they have been largely excluded from China’s economic boom. All of that contributed to a surge in unrest across Tibetan areas ahead of the Beijing Olympics in 2008.
Chinese leaders responded by blanketing the Tibet Autonomous Region as well as Tibetan areas in Qinghai and other provinces with troops and paramilitary armed police. Large numbers of people were detained. And Han public opinion soured on Tibetans and other minorities, who are often viewed as receiving preferential, affirmative action-type treatment.
People’s Daily, the official mouthpiece of the Communist Party, ran an editorial Friday describing Yushu as an "ethnic-minority-dominated, poverty-stricken region." It called on Chinese to "save lives and treat the wounded at any cost." People sympathized with victims online. One wrote: "Condolences to the victims who are our ethnic-minority compatriots."
Rescuers in Yushu faced serious obstacles, including altitude sicknessâ€”Yushu is about 4,000 meters, or 13,000 feet, above sea levelâ€”cold weather, aftershocks and the sheer scale of the devastation. More than 15,000 homesâ€”many of traditional wood and earth constructionâ€”were destroyed, and more than 100,000 people left in need of relocation, according to the Ministry of Civil Affairs.
"It’s too early to tell" how the government’s disaster response will affect relations with Tibetans, said Phelim Kine of U.S.-based advocacy group Human Rights Watch. He said the group’s main concern was that Beijing’s political sensitivities not interfere with the ability of nongovernmental groups to participate in the relief effort.