Earthquake shakes China’s development

The extent of the tragedy of Monday's earthquake in south-east China is the result of the country's turbo-charged economic growth.

In the race to develop every facet of Chinese society the government has overseen the construction of tens of thousands of buildings that fall below even the most basic safety requirements. Officials in Sichuan province, the picturesque backwater at the epicentre of the earthquake, were probably encouraged to throw up hundreds of cheap, dangerous buildings in order to impress party bosses in Beijing.

Even a cursory visit to a major city in China reveals the shoddy quality of so much of the recent building work. The desire to design and construct cityscapes which will compete with Paris, New York and London mean local planning commissions frequently sacrifice quality materials for the sake of a flashy

facade or extra height.

I lived in one such building in Beijing and it literally broke in half while I was in it - an enormous fissure split it from top to bottom, prompting the floor to buckle underfoot. Typically these building projects are undertaken before anyone has calculated whether people can afford to live or work in them. The skyscrapers which have shot up in Shanghai, for example, are frequently empty.

Perhaps because of this summer's Olympics the government seems likely to accept international help. This is in stark contrast to the Communist Party's reaction to the last devastating earthquake in 1976 when between 200,000 and 700,000 were killed in and around Beijing.

The government at the time, controlled by Mao's wife Jiang Qing, kept the disaster secret from the world and even tried to use it as propaganda against Mao's rival Deng Xiaoping. Ironically this year the Chinese government may benefit from the disaster, as international sympathy in the wake of the earthquake will divert attention from unrest in Tibet.