Left Flank

Beijing's senior leadership continues to learn, on the job.

While the causes of individual building failures remain unclear, such complaints underscore widespread concerns about the quality of much of China's infrastructure amid an unparalleled but only patchily supervised national building surge. The criticism is also a potent reminder of the political risks that natural disasters – with their merciless exposure of administrative or societal failings – can pose even to rulers as firmly rooted as China's Communist party.

So far Beijing leaders have appeared well prepared to minimise such risks. Hu Jintao, China's president, and Wen Jiabao, the premier, reacted decisively and very publicly within hours of the quake on Monday. And state-controlled media have kept Mr Wen centre-stage in their coverage from the earthquake zone ever since.

«This is clearly a team that realises they cannot muck around on disaster relief,» says David Zweig, director of the Centre on China's Transnational Relations at the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology.

Mr Wen's calls for local officials to redouble relief efforts have bolstered his man-of-the-people image and attracted online praise for the government, largely drowning out accusations of shoddy school construction and anger that officials failed to forecast the quake.

Victor Shih reports also on "...a quake and disaster relief work headquarters with Comrade Wen Jiabao as the head and Comrades Li Keqiang and Hui Liangyu as the deputy heads to take full charge of the current quake and disaster relief work."

The Dalai Lama is a likeable kind of guy, but I'd like to see, and hear, less of him.

Tibet's case is not helped by world leaders. US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's actual words were quite measured, but standing in Dharamsala, the seat of the Tibetan government-in-exile, is incendiary. «We insist the world know what the truth is in Tibet,» Pelosi said.

PRC's Premier, Wen Jiaobao, even more explicitly makes the mistake Pelosi only staged with symbolism: demonizing the Dalai Lama directly.

The EU eschewed the long tradition of childishly pursuing its own foreign policy and spiting every other western state, agreeing with Pelosi not to boycott the Summer Olympics. But still, Beijing can always thank Brussels for relieving the diplomatic pressure.

I also think the Dalai Lama erred tactically by broadcasting his pledge to resign if Tibetan resort to violence. The nature of this gamble exposes Tibet's problem: there are no responsible leaders in Tibet ready to speak for Tibetans. Fortunately, the Dalai Lama maintains that he only wants "autonomy" for all Tibetans in Tibet and in western PRC.

The 73-year-old religious leader was reacting to statements made by Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao. In a telephone conversation with British Prime Minister Gordon Brown, Wen said that Beijing was prepared to talk to the Dalai Lama. The condition, however, would be that he could not demand independence for Tibet and he would have to distance himself from the violence.

Beijing accuses the Dalai Lama of being a "separatist and traitor," who talks of autonomy but really means the independence of Tibet from China. The Dalai Lama calls for broad autonomy for Tibet, not only for the current so-called "Tibet Autonomous Region," but also for areas in the neighboring provinces of Gansu, Qinghai and Sichuan which have large Tibetan populations.

When asked by SPIEGEL ONLINE whether he might be ready to limit his autonomy plan to just central Tibet, the Dalai Lama said no. The proposal to include other areas as well proves that he has no separatist intentions, he said. For the Tibetans, the only important thing is to "protect their culture."

"I have now repeated a thousand times, it is my mantra: We do not want independence," he said. The Chinese government should take seriously their constitution, which talks of autonomy for certain regions, he added. "It should not only be on paper," said the Dalai Lama.

Of course, Beijing will never consider an autonomous Tibetan zone encompassing western parts of its geo-economically strategic western provinces. For a refreshingly unromantic viewpoint on Tibet, FT reprises the Chinese perception of the Tibetan protests. Yet, I agree with Jeffrey N. Wasserstrom, that Beijing needs to act more responsibly.

Still, the tragic and farcical developments of recent weeks underscore the inherent conflict between China's desire to place itself in the global spotlight and its hope that no one will focus on the nation's flaws. They want internationally acclaimed artists to perform in cities like Shanghai without doing unexpected things--even if, like Bjork, part of their cachet is an ability to surprise an audience. But the Chinese leadership is no more capable of balancing these tensions than Don Quixote was of slaying windmills.

Beijing knows better; Tibet just needs to learn. At 73, the Dalai Lama is past the mark where he can continue to lead Tibetans, who should find their own secular path in a very dangerous region. A new generation of leaders should realize, that simplistic notions of self-determination and autocracy are fighting words where the mountains and rivers run between vital trade, pipeline, and resource routes.

There is opportunity as much as crisis here: even the meanest dictator doesn't want to have blood all over the Internet, or disrupt his cash flow (also check out Tim Johnson's report from Sichuan province).

Military looking vehicles had their license-plates covered or removed and many troops displayed no insignia, suggesting an attempt to cover up the use of army personnel to control the unrest. China does not want the run-up to the Olympics overshadowed by accusations of military repression in Lhasa. But the army is almost certainly playing a big part in the city's clampdown on the ethnic violence that erupted on March 14th and 15th. The authorities say 160 rioters in Lhasa have turned themselves in to the police and 24 people have been charged with «grave crimes». But Tibetans say they fear widespread and indiscriminate arrests.

Ethnic Han Chinese who were targeted in the violence (officials say 13 people were killed by rioters) are fearful too. Several told your correspondent that they would leave Tibet. One Han on the flight from Lhasa to the neighbouring province of Sichuan said he would normally travel in and out of Tibet by train, but he was now afraid that Tibetan terrorists might target the line. No terrorist incidents involving Tibetans have yet been reported, but China—partly in response to an alleged attempt by an ethnic Uighur woman to start a fire on board an airplane earlier this month—has stepped up airport security in recent days.

The huge security deployment in Lhasa has prevented further outbreaks of unrest there, but reports of smaller incidents in other areas of Tibet and ethnic Tibetan regions close to it have continued to emerge. The authorities admitted on March 20th that security forces had fired at protesters in the southwestern province of Sichuan four days earlier, injuring four people. A correspondent for Reuters news agency reported from the area that local residents believe several Tibetans were shot dead. Foreign reporters are now barred from Tibet and several have been turned back from ethnic Tibetan areas of surrounding provinces.

A younger generation of Tibetans raised in the the Dalai Lama's medieval aura, but with feet and senses in the real world, would take a shrewder gamble.

(For those with an open, unclouded mind, check out the bevy of high-quality links China Beat has collected from across the Internet on Tibet.)

I should be grateful I didn't have to wait in frigid, socked in stations waiting for a train, as millions of Chinese people had to endure during their one annual opportunity over the Lunar New Year holiday to see far-flung relatives. Were all the delays merely the result of the snowstorms, an "act of God"?

For a government that bases its claim to legitimacy on its competence and ability to guarantee the supply of basic necessities, all of this might seem threatening. Yet like many others, Mr Liu blames what he calls «the worst weather in decades», rather than the authorities.

Not everyone is happy to leave it at that. The disgruntled probably include the millions still suffering from shortages of power and water, and those who have reluctantly heeded the government's call to scrap their cherished holiday visit home.

Government leaders have dispatched army and police forces to keep order and work crews to get things moving again. They have also gone out of their way to express concern and, in the familiar ringing idiom of martial mass-mobilisation propaganda, show they have taken charge. Wen Jiabao, the prime minister, visited stations in three provinces, offering sympathy and vague apologies for unspecified failures. President Hu Jintao went down a coalmine to inspire miners to step up their output. On February 2nd Wu Yi, a deputy prime minister, popped up at Nanchang station, urging local officials to «be fully aware of the arduousness and gravity of the snow-havoc battle».

According to Fang Xiu'an, of the China Coal Transport and Distribution Association, which handles marketing for coal producers, the authorities deserve high marks for responding to the crisis. They worked quickly to increase coal production, to give deliveries of coal priority over other cargoes, and to start fixing transport and power disruptions.

But he also faults bureaucrats in the coal and power industries. Power plants that normally stock 18-20 days' worth of coal had in some cases run their reserves down to as little as three days' worth. Planners, says Mr Fang, should have been more alert to warning signs that these dangerously low stockpiles made China vulnerable. The causes of the supply crunch are clear enough. Since 2005 the government has ordered thousands of unsafe and poorly managed coalmines to shut down, reducing production. Lower output, together with unusually cold weather, forced up prices. From December to January, the price of premium coal rose by 13%, from 575 yuan a tonne to 650 yuan. But electricity prices are fixed, and, unable to pass on costs, power producers had been waiting for seasonal price cuts in March before stocking up.

Equally clear is the reasoning behind these policies. Rising inflation has unnerved citizens and officials alike, and power-price controls are one way to stem it. Lax mining standards, meanwhile, have led to a gruesome string of coalmine accidents and a scandalous yearly toll of thousands of dead miners. The government has justifiably been under pressure to act.

At least, President Hu Jintao and Prime Minister Wen Jiabao acted like leaders, visiting coal mines and angry travellers. But, Again, there is a very real policy failure these leaders need to tackle.

Despite their professions of concern, however, Mr Wen and Mr Hu have done little in concrete policy terms to make them count. And there are some ways in which policy failures have indeed exacerbated the weather-induced agony. The first is the inadequacy of disaster-response mechanisms, and the poor co-ordination between the various government departments involved. Second is the refusal to tackle a basic structural problem: that China is a country with hundreds of millions of migrant workers, most of whom are separated from their families, who all take their holidays at exactly the same time. A reform to holiday entitlements is belatedly under way. Residency rules that force families apart also need reviewing.

Thirdly, at least one aspect of the latest crisis was both foreseeable and in part a direct result of government policy: the electricity shortages, which afflicted tens of millions and worsened the transport bottlenecks. A flawed reform had freed fuel prices but left power-producers unable to pass on the rising cost of coal to consumers, because electricity prices are fixed. Many producers responded by letting their stocks fall to dangerously low levels, in the hope prices would fall when the weather warms up in the spring.

Gordon G. Chang offers the New Year snowstorms as another reason the PRC needs a "…more open economy." Before that, China needs two politicians who can do better than just make house calls.

It's not a game yet, but the US should watch.

On Saturday, Mr. Fukuda played catch with Mr. Wen...The symbolism of this should not be underestimated. Playing catch, after all, is one of the oft-cited bonds that united President Bush and former Prime Minister Koizumi. (They played catch at Mr. Bush's ranch when first meeting in June 2001.) What a pointed but understated way for Mr. Fukuda to signal to Washington that Japan's priorities are changing, an argument Mr. Fukuda made explicitly when he visited Washington in November.

For the moment, concrete progress on disputed issues is beside the point. This is mood-setting, with its significance depending on Mr. Fukuda's staying around long enough to convert preliminary overtures into a lasting shift in Japanese foreign policy that will bind his successors. But the mood-setting is necessary. Japan is not in a position to choose between Beijing and Washington. It needs frank but cordial relations with both, although the two relationships are obviously different thanks to Japan's security relationship with the US. I remain unconvinced that grandiose rhetoric, which hints at a desire to prioritize the Sino-Japanese relationship to the detriment of the US-Japan relationship, is the way to change the mood in the Sino-Japanese relationship; by going to Beijing more quietly but no less determined to revive the relationship, Mr. Fukuda has, I think, embarrassed Mr. Ozawa yet again.

Now if he could only get certain US presidential candidates to realize that just as Japan has no choice between its largest trading partner and its most significant security partner, so the US has no choice but to maintain healthy relationships with both its long-time ally and trading partner and the emerging power.

Let's wait until April, 2008 to see if Tokyo is not playing catch-up!

As discord erupted in Pakistan, it seems nothing but fulsome verbiage about deadlines and promises has bloomed in China between prime ministers, China's Wen Jiabao and Japan's Yasuo Fukuda. I would like to hear from a translator, but it seems Fukuda added yet more words to Japan's continuing avoidance of uttering an apology.

Speaking at Peking University, Fukuda also urged China to become Japan's partner in creating a peaceful and stable world, saying it is both a great opportunity and responsibility for the two nations to do so.

Referring to Japan's militarism as "an unfortunate period" in history, Fukuda said, "I believe it is our responsibility to squarely look at it and pass it on to our offspring.

"I believe we can prevent mistakes in the future only if we properly look at the past, and have the courage and wisdom to repent what we must repent," he said, triggering a round of applause from the mainly Chinese audience.

Fukuda's speech during his four-day visit to China was the first in the country by a Japanese prime minister since Ryutaro Hashimoto's 1997 trip.

It was broadcast live on China's state-run television, a rare move by China and seen as symbolic of the recent warming of testy bilateral relations.

"Japan and China have become major presences" in the world, Fukuda said. "The fact that Japan and China have come to acquire the abilities to contribute to the stability and development of Asia and the world is a big chance for the two countries," he said.

Both FT and Reuters listed the same issues both leaders enumerated for further discussion or as "progressing", including Taiwan, North Korea, and Sino-Japanese joint oil exploration. Asahi used the phrase for 2008 as "first year for a great leap in bilateral relations". And, PM Wen Jiabao announced that President Hu Jintao would visit Japan in April, 2008.

Now, who said Pyongyang was the only master of verbiage and brinkmanship in East Asia?