Forget the nukes, break out the hot water!
China's at WAR!
PLA soldiers numbering in the tens of thousands are now on the move. China's defacto 2nd in command, Premier Wen Jiabao, is out rallying the people. The CPC youth league is now being mobilized and pleas are going out to the public to provide financial support.
Now, if you were to read the statement above out of context, of course you might assume that either the CPC finally said 'screw it,' and started lobbing missiles at Taiwan or that some unruly ethnics started another Taiping. But instead, China now has a new enemy that can be mortally wounded by a strong stream of pee!
As far as Xinhua is concerned, China has declared war on snow. Well, actually, it's declared war against the disasters caused by the heavy snow and rain that has hit southeastern China.
Having worked in state-run media here in China for over the last two years, I've stopped banging my head against the wall trying to change the way my Chinese colleagues write their news. I swear, some of these kids come into the job as halfway decent writers. But once they toss them into commie school (AKA, the work environment), any sense of prose that they once had is slowly drained out of them like the fat from a Rosie O'Donnell liposuction. Don't get me wrong, I have tonnes of respect for guys like my friend and contemporary Edwin Maher who take time to try to coach the aspiring journalists to become better broadcasters. Hell, I was a broadcasting instructor before moving here to China myself. But at this point I have just given up hope. And reading the latest Xinhua story about the relief efforts in the southeast has just simply confirmed my apathy.
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Uh, isn't Premier Wen Jiabao the de jure second-in-command and not de facto?
Mike s.
Haha.. good point! The question is, for how long???
At this time of the year, before they hit the expressways in their Audis or Roewe 750es, bosses at state-run media nationwide must be driving their boots into their backsides (and the snow). That's because precious headline space usually reserved for "Foreigner learns how to make jiaozi" and "Beijing relaxes ban on fireworks" and "Revolutionary couplets the hottest seller at the Golden Star Market" is being wasted by disaster.
Still, quotas are maxed out with tales of the government's sympathy for the unfortunate traveling masses. Naturally, El Premiero is continuing his tradition of hogging the limelight . (Remember that panic-stricken face in the students' bus in a certain year that occurred some time last century?)
Here's another example of how the world's most false smile can so easily morph to the other side:
http://www.chinatoday.com.cn/English/e2005/e200505/p40.htm
PS - Mike, kudos for pointing that one out - I didn't have the heart to do it myself;-)
Paul,
Having not heard rumors about Wen's impending demise, I think that his really getting out in front of this snow crisis--personally addressing crowds in Changsha and Guangzhou--ties his future to its outcome. If when the dust settles, he fails to turn to crisis into a PR-coup about look-how-much-the-government-cares-for-you, then Wen will be the fall guy.
However, I see a different scenario. Chinese people have a tradition, going back to the much-beloved Zhou Enlai, of loving the Premier, who cares about the common people and heroically tries to make their dysfunctional government work for them. And people really like it when the leader addresses them personally, saying "we know this is a hugh problem, and addressing it is our number-one priority."
So short version is, if the government is successful in turing this into a your-government-cares-for-you story--which the government is striving to do--it will be impossible to sack the man who's made himself the face of that effort. If it fails he's gone for sure. Does this make sense?