Word: china
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...China has several advantages over Haiti when it comes to reconstruction. While China's disaster affected millions of people, the destruction was concentrated in rural areas and smaller towns, not a dense city. The mountainous parts of Sichuan and surrounding provinces hit by the 2008 quake are poor, not destitute, and they all had a basic level of food and water supplies, access to medicine and health care, and transportation and communications infrastructure. When much of that was wiped out by the quake, China's central government responded quickly, sending tens of thousands of soldiers and paramilitary troops...
...compare this to the tsunami and other major disasters, it's rare to see something so efficient take place. It was well organized and well planned. All the international people who came in spoke very highly of this," says Ramsey Rayyis, regional representative for the American Red Cross in China...
With such speedy reconstruction, there are obviously questions about the quality of building. At the same time, there has been an intense focus on controlling graft. Despite allegations that corruption led to the shoddy construction of schools in the first place, China hasn't punished anyone for any wrongdoing that occurred before the earthquake. Grieving parents who protested over the deaths of their children in collapsed schools were silenced by payments and by threats of punishment if they continued their agitation. Officials have declared that the extent of the destruction was due to the intensity of the temblor, not substandard...
...government said it would spend $176 billion on reconstruction by 2011. (The total recovery cost is estimated at $250 billion.) As of last June it had already spent more than $50 billion. Some of the expenses have been shouldered by other parts of China. Twenty provinces have set aside 1% of fiscal revenues for two years to help rebuild Sichuan. That's another advantage that China has over Haiti. As a large nation with a rapidly growing economy, it can divert money from more prosperous areas to aid one devastated region...
...were able to get back to work fairly soon after the disaster. The massive rebuilding effort also provided direct investment and job opportunities. Several of the dislocated people I met in the temporary camps had family members working on reconstruction. Overall the quake region produced less than 1% of China's GDP, so it did little to slow the national growth engine. A chief concern was that rebuilding would contribute to inflation. That was largely forgotten over the past year...