Chinese Media Ignores Manmade Causes Of Deadly Landslide
Graham Webster is a journalist who holds a master's degree in East Asian studies. He is blogging from China this summer.
Flipping through the channels of Chinese news today yielded a flurry of coverage of the disastrous landslide in the northwestern province of Gansu, which has killed more than 100 people. What the televised reports don't mention is that many netizens believe the tragedy may be the direct result of human activities.
The web site Global Voices has collected a bevy of material from an ongoing citizens' investigation that presents a very different narrative from the orchestrated television coverage, which features Chinese soldiers rescuing stranded residents and Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao yelling instructions to a victim trapped under rubble. While displaying rescue efforts is important, the media's portrayal of the landslide as a natural disaster ignores the careless exploitation of the land at its root.
There were glaring warning signs that this landslide would happen. One 2006 study by researchers in at Lanzhou University, in the province's largest city, pointed out: "The hills have become highly unstable and easily subject to natural disaster of landslides and mudslides, the situation is the result of deforestation, exploitative mining activities, construction of hydroelectric power plants and other development activities."
As China's economy continues to grow and its living standards rise, its exploitation of natural resources is expanding in lock-step. Regardless of the competing media narratives, this tragedy is a glaring reminder of the consequences of aggressive land use, especially in areas where regulation is weak.
Yet, as with many other Chinese environmental issues, it is too simplistic to blame bad local policies or corrupt officials alone for the disaster. An imprint of responsibility also extends to every company that relies on the resources from these areas, right on up the global product supply chain. Just as labor conditions have become a selection criteria for companies sourcing foreign parts and products, environmental conditions also need to come to the forefront of decision-making.
This part of Gansu is no major export center, but this landslide and the cause behind it are important reminders that unmonitored economic activity can have catastrophic and devastatingly direct effects on ecosystems and on people.
Photo credit: kriswho.
Graham Webster
is a graduate student at Harvard and environment writer. He has worked as a journalist and consultant in Beijing and as an editor at the Center for American Progress.
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