Corruption Made Chinese Earthquake Worse

Monday’s earthquake in the Chinese province of Sichuan has killed at least 15,000, and more are likely to be found dead as the rescue effort evolves into a recovery operation. At 7.9 on the Richter scale, it is the worst earthquake to hit China since 1976, when 300,000 people died in the city of Tangshen. The death toll this week didn’t need to be this high. Corruption undermined building codes to put up buildings that were deathtraps waiting to happen.

This journal has no love of the Chinese Communist Party, but to its credit, the ChiCom government has tried cracking down on corruption off and on over the years. The trouble is that in a booming economy with 1.2 billion people, the temptation to cut corners is huge. When substandard material is used and no one gets punished, it is only a matter of time before standards drop across the board.

Ashley Howlett, a partner with Jones Day, who heads the Greater China construction practice, told Reuters in an interview, “Enforcement costs money and local officials at many levels are involved. There is a lot of corruption.” As author of a book on Chinese building codes, he is in a position to know.

Interestingly, he added, “China’s building codes are very clear. If a similar earthquake hit near Beijing I don't think you would see this kind of damage.” If true, it suggests that the central government can’t supervise the outlying areas as well as it should. The only solution, therefore, is to send in inspectors and the like and do a top to bottom cleaning of local authorities.

Natural disasters will always happen, and earthquakes along the Pacific Rim are just part of Earth’s plate tectonics. Governments and societies can do nothing about them. However, it is possible to construct buildings to survive these shocks, and to minimize the loss of property and life. This will happen again in China unless the Beijing government can make sure that the buildings going up in China meet the codes set for them. There is no communist or capitalist, conservative or liberal issue here, but rather a matter of simple public safety – which is the prime reason for government in the first place.

© Copyright 2008 by The Kensington Review, Jeff Myhre, PhD, Editor. No part of this publication may be reproduced without written consent. Produced using Fedora Linux.

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