A few hours after the Sichuan earthquake in China, like most people, my attention was focused on the tragedy and lost of human lives. In particular, I have six old college classmates working in the nuclear facilities in MianYang, the city with highest death casualty, and a new friend who has relatives that were buried in BeiChuan, the city suffered most in percentage. Luckily, as of today, I have learned that all the classmates were not hurt and 3 out of 4 relatives of my friend will survive.
In a function today while I was chatting with physics professors, the natural topic was about China's earthquake. When I commented on the deaths of innocent children of collapsed school buildings, an American atomic physics professor commented: "Our news media surely are concerned about all the pandas." As the conversation continued I talked about MianYang being an important city for the Chinese military industry, including both nuclear development (coded as Industrial Department 2 for Nuclear Industry) and space science (coded as Industrial Department 7 of equivalent to NASA). The professor was shocked that the news media did not give coverage on the issue.
This issue should not have been ignored, especially since currently two major threats are facing the quake survivors in that region.
One is the possible flooding caused by the collapse of the weakened dams of the nearly 500 reservoirs in the region. People like me have personally witnessed the suffering from a previous incident in 1975 when the largest dam disaster in the world happened. The collective collapses of several dozens of dams flooded more than 10,000 square kilometers and killed more than 26,000 people and made many more homeless. Till this day, I still remember vividly the doorsteps of my home flooded with these beggars with harrowed eyes and sobbing voice telling their stories to win some sympathy for food.
The other danger that has not been told officially but is already spreading is the potential of nuclear disaster from the stock piled nuclear weapons in the mountains and nuclear facilities nearby. As a matter of fact, when the Chinese government abruptly refused international humanitarian assistance to the region during the most crucial time of the first 3 days to save these fragile lives, there was already the rumor of areas being sealed with heavy security and people with military and bio defense gear walking in and out. The military industrial nature of MianYang should have been known by the international intelligence agencies such as CIA, so it is amazing that the international news media did not report this aspect, an aspect that surely counted in the decision making of the Chinese government.
Many welcome the fact that the news media was able to report on China's earthquake this time in comparison to just 2 months ago when Chinese government totally cut off communication and media access to demonstrations in Tibet. However, considering the outcome of the international outcries and pressure from that recent event, giving a failure grade for its Olympic torch rally P.R., it was wiser for the Chinese government to improve its strategy to allow limited and misleading reports. Why misleading? On international TV channels, you could see much footage of the army rescue that was directly copied from Chinese government's TV channel CCTV. Why limited? I have not seen any in-depth report noticing the profound meaning of the military industry in that region over the pandas.
I have always thought the free news media in the West was the most forefront warrior of democracy and freedom, as exhibited by the Watergate report. Yet, over the years especially recently I have grown concerned by the trend of news reports, which I wish to be more serious and in depth, rather than superficial and tabloid type. I have also see the power of money control and influence over the news media in recent years, a conclusion which is not difficult to reach when one compares the attitude and reporting by the news media and scholars between the former USSR and current China. In my opinion, reporting and decoding the hostile and destructive forces is just another way to contribute to transparency and peace.
I have noticed that the Chinese embassy officially asked the US State Department for detailed satellite photos of the region. Yet, the US State Department agreed to it today. One has to wonder why the Chinese spy and intelligence agencies, including their facility in MianYang, would not produce their own? Then what is the real purpose behind this request? Would the Chinese government ever admit to its people that their super satellite technology could not beat American's? The answer is no. It seems obvious that they wish to know what the US knows about the installations. If you recall that just a few days ago, Chinese president Hu Jintao took the opportunity of President Bush's phone call about the earthquake to be his opportunity to solve Chinese government's difficulty internationally, you could safely conclude that once again, the Chinese government puts its own interest above the lives and welfare of the Chinese people.
So here are some suggestions of mine to news media what they could investigate and report on in depth:
1. Why did most school buildings collapse but not most of the government buildings in this earthquake? How Chinese government's one-child policy deepens the tragedy in this disaster?
2. Why in many schools did the officials survive, but not the children? We could not forget the big fire in XinJiang's school auditorium just 13 years ago. When the fires started, the school called the students to wait to let the officials move out first, which resulted in more than three hundreds of children's deaths, but not the officials.
3. Why the military could not move in to the disaster area earlier and the real reason to refuse international assistance teams at the most crucial 72 hours.
4. Knowing they were on the earthquake fracture lines, were the students and citizens taught the basic surviving skills? Being close to the nuclear facility, were the residents nearby taught the basic protection in face of nuclear contamination? (The answer is: no.)
5. The true reason why the military parachutes were not dispatched in the first 3 days, despite the fact that the Chinese government boasted more than 10,000 all weather parachutes even in 1999.
6. Why a few days before the earth quake, the government's announcement had to ask people not to pass "earthquake rumors" when they observed unusual events that signed earthquakes such as massive migration of toads in hundreds thousands near the epicenter days earlier and a pond of 10,000 cubic meters all disappearing in a few hours (the official announcement was deleted from the website after earthquake happened)?
Finally, let me tell people why I wrote this article. Thirty years ago, I was lucky to go to college without going through high school. I was lucky enough to be the classmate of the brightest and smart prodigy children of China at the time, and I choose nuclear physics because it was the most competitive, a career that my role model Madam Currie had. However, after I got a job working in the Institute of Atomic Energy, an integral part of designing atomic bombs and nuclear weaponry, I not only discovered the horror of nuclear weapons, but also learnt the fact that the Chinese government was passing the nuclear technology to countries like Pakistan. I had to question the possible consequences of an irresponsible government that disregards human rights and human lives could do with these nuclear weapons. From that point on, my pride and determination to search the truth of nature turned into my conscience and responsibility for the human race and the rest of the earth.
(This article only represents the opinions of the author.)
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