CHINESE LEADERS are being far more open about the earthquake in Sichuan province than their predecessors were after a similar disaster in 1976, and more open than the Burmese junta after a cyclone devastated much of the country earlier this month. But the presence in Sichuan of Chinese and foreign reporters reveals only part of the story. A better test of China's new transparency will be whether the government lets reporters investigate whether human failings, official or otherwise, contributed to thousands of deaths.
The extent of the tragedy would have been hard to conceal. Video of the quake was up on YouTube shortly after the first tremors Monday. And Chinese society is far more open to outsiders and to its own people than it was under the Maoist Gang of Four in 1976, when an earthquake devastated the north. Premier Wen Jiabao arrived at the affected part of Sichuan within hours of this week's disaster, and news crews followed.
The central government is moving quickly to shape news coverage. According to the Financial Times, a Politburo member told a meeting of propaganda officials Tuesday that the media need to "uphold unity and encourage stability." Live broadcasts from a television station in Chengdu, the provincial capital, were stopped. The government and the Communist Party want to regulate openness as though it were water from a tap.
Yet any Chinese citizen who reads about the disaster or sees images from the scene must be seared by the devastation: children hoping for rescue under the rubble of a school; parents' cries of anguish over the bodies of their young; survivors scrambling for food or staring hopelessly at the remains of their homes. Once the shock of devastation is past, many Chinese people will crave not stability but an honest accounting.
People who live in societies with a free press often disparage its excesses, for good reason. But in a disaster of national significance, the news media would soon move from coverage of the immediate impact to inquiries into its causes. Why, for instance, did schools collapse? Were building codes enforced, or were they inadequate to limit the damage? If construction was faulty, who is to blame? Given the size and resources of China, was the response to the disaster up to the task?
If the past is any guide, Chinese leaders may find a local scapegoat to imprison or execute, but will be loath to permit a critical examination of the causes. That might turn up evidence of the corruption that pervades Chinese society, including the government and party. The survivors deserve better than a cover-up, however, and the dead wordlessly cry out for the truth.
