China Admits Building Flaws in Quake

A Chinese government committee said Thursday that a rush to build schools during the country’s recent economic boom might have led to shoddy construction that resulted in the deaths of thousands of students during a devastating earthquake in May.

As we all know, the earthquake in China devastated towns and buildings and killed many people. We have all been shocked by the big number of casualties but maybe we have not thought of the reason why there were so many deaths. Now we have an answer, finally. In fact, I am not surprised by the news report of poor construction because it is in a way a common phenomenon nowadays.

Back in China, I used to be very angry at these news. I think these construction firms were really bad that these news show that they only care about their profits and they left all their morality behind. Also, these things often happened to the schools and children, affecting China’s education condition seriously. I wanted to ask that how the firms or the managers can be so irresponsible. They simply take people’s lives as nothing while they consider money as everything in the world.

I used to be very disappointed, too, because many of these affected schools were called “school of wish” in China. These schools are sponsored to be build by charity or other individuals willing to help those in poverty. However, when they come to the towns and try to find construction firms to build the schools, these firms which lack responsibility are chosen. The outcome was serious. The firms only pursue profits but not quality of the building, leading to the poor construction. The schools were supposed to help the people in poverty, but now they become great potential danger to the students.

Now my view of this problem changes a bit. Firstly I see the transparency of Chinese government being improved. The government used to make some of the news invisible to us citizens for fear of our protests or dissatisfaction being shown out. The news mentions that it is rare for the government to admit the phenomenon and its terrible consequences, but I, as one of Chinese citizens have seen much improvement. Years ago government seemed to be quite afraid of reporting serious accidents or problems, and the censorship of media was very powerful. For example, the casualty of an accident would be reported fewer than the real number. Now the media is much more open, although still criticized by many western people.

Secondly I see the power of government being much stronger on such problems. Chinese government has seemed to be very powerful to the western people ever since the establishment of the country, but the power of government was quite weak when dealing with these civil problems which often involve much bureaucracy. Now we see the problem-solving of the government being much faster and stronger. More transparency also shows more confidence in dealing with these problems.

As the news reported, the problem of poor construction is quite serious in China, especially in poorer areas. The government need to take harsh measures towards those irresponsible construction firms which cause all these tragic accidents. However, we can also see transparency and power of the government being improved from the news, which is a great thing to us Chinese citizens.