China?s take on Japanese Shinkansen (bullet train) has crashed tragically. China?s Hexie (name of the train, meaning Harmony) collided with another bullet train in the eastern coastal city of Wenzhou on July 23, killing 39 people and injuring 2,000. Six cars derailed, with four falling off the elevated track. And netizens took hold of the information flow. They out-ran and out-paced the state-run media, forcing the latter to follow suit. Open criticism of safety standards and rescue operations got the government so worried that the Central Propaganda Department issued a directive, on July 29, against adverse commentary of the accident. However, netizens are flouting the directive and so is a section of state-run media, which is quite unprecedented in China.
An editorial in People?s Daily said that China should say no to ?blood smeared GDP?; China Daily?s Raymond Zhou suggested that the ?train collision may be the perfect symbol of China?s problems in its dash to modernity? and China Daily ran Singapore?s Straits Times article by Peh Shing Huei which said that the ?price of high speed is too high?.
China?s rail expansion is currently a prized pet project, aiming at a high-speed railway network of 18,000 km by 2020. It already has the world?s largest high-speed rail network?50% more than Japan, although this should be viewed in relation to country size. Strategically speaking, the extension of the estimated $2 billion, 253 km line from Lhasa to Shigatse (and later to a border town in Nepal) will bring China?s railway to India?s doorsteps by 2015. Railway expansion has been viewed as an engine of growth and thus money is being duly pumped in. An estimated 13% of the stimulus package directed for infrastructure has been assigned to the railways.
But all is not well. A study by China?s Minsheng Bank shows that the railway ministry?s debts equalled 56% of its assets and could reach $455 billion in 2020. China?s railway design flaws are also being cited as the reason for the crash. Two of the largest domestic railway builders have used licensed rail technologies from Alstom (France) and Siemens (Germany) but these have been adapted with a Chinese sleight. Alarmingly, it takes only two years to build 300 km of high-speed rail in China as compared to a decade in other countries. The Central Japan Railway chairman has accused China of ?running too close to its maximum safety level?.
China?s netizens have sought answers to a hasty burial of the wreckage and other anomalies in the Hexie accident. They have openly mocked PM Wen Jiabao who visited the crash-site after 5 days. In response to the PM?s defence??I have been ill recently, on a sickbed for 11 days??netizens simply posted pictures, official engagements and details of meetings from the time he said he was in the hospital. Now all eyes are on the construction company that not only built the train that crashed but the Beijing subway as well.
China has the world?s largest Internet population at over 450 million, and microblogging is big in China. It spreads across CEOs, movie stars and celebrities down to ordinary citizens in a way that we cannot quite comprehend in India. Even the Party has of late conceded that microblogs are a safety valve?with China Daily attesting, ?local governments, which were formerly unfamiliar and resistant, have now begun to actively utilise microblogs?. And government officials have been attending special seminars on microblogging.
This writer took the Beijing-Shanghai bullet train (built on a budget surpassing the Three Gorges Dam) three weeks before the accident, in what was a more than a comfortable journey. Little Misses ( as they are known in China) helped neatly file the enthusiastic passengers into a queue; red and white liveried porters delivered the luggage to the seat; and one was welcomed into plush blue interiors, complete with a stunning cafe. The train chugged out of the station on time.
The upside of the crash is that it has prompted the State Council to order ?comprehensive and thorough inspections? of rail and road transport, bridges, coal mines and ongoing construction projects. They seem to have read the writing on the wall that sometimes the Flying Dragon must slow down.
The author is a sinologist and a visiting fellow at Institute of Chinese Studies, Delhi. Views are personal