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International Herald Tribune
THE GLOBAL EDITION OF THE NEW YORK TIMES
STEPHEN DUNBAR-JOHNSON Publisher
ALISON SMALE Executive Editor
TOM REDBURN Managing Editor
PHILIP McCLELLAN Deputy Managing Editor
URSULA LIU Deputy Managing Editor
KATHERINE KNORR Assistant Managing Editor
RICHARD BERRY Editor, Continuous News
RICHARD ALLEN News Editor
SERGE SCHMEMANN Editor of the Editorial Page
PHILIPPE MONTJOLIN Senior Vice President, Operations
ACHILLES TSALTAS Senior Vice President, Innovation and Development
CHANTAL BONETTI Vice President, Human Resources
INTERNATIONAL HERALD TRIBUNE
editorial opinion
Patriotism with Chinese characteristics
A Chinese
writer
redefines
his patriotism after
traveling
through
Sichuan
after the
2008
earthquake.
JEAN-CHRISTOPHE DEMARTA Vice President, International Advertising
CHARLOTTE GORDON Vice President, Marketing and Strategy
PATRICE MONTI Vice President, Circulation
RANDY WEDDLE Managing Director, Asia-Pacific
SUZANNE YVERNÈS Chief Financial Officer
Stephen Dunbar-Johnson, Président et Directeur de la Publication
EUROPE FAILS AGAIN
TO QUELL THE CRISIS
If Europe’s leaders don’t figure out how
to help Greece and other weakened nations to grow as they reduce their debt,
the consequences could be disastrous.
They blew it, again. With Greece in meltdown, raising fears of
cascading bank insolvencies and deepening recession,
Europe’s leaders failed again this week to agree on the ambitious initiatives needed to quell the crisis.
For a few days before their Wednesday dinner meeting, it
sounded as if Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany might
be ready to change her all-austerity-all-the-time tune.
France’s new president, François Hollande, had campaigned
and won on a pro-growth agenda, and Ms. Merkel was suddenly suggesting that some stimulus for Greece and others to
spur growth might be possible.
But, on Wednesday, she was again insisting on the same
draconian budget cuts and the same unreachable targets as
the price of aid to Greece and other indebted euro-zone nations.
By this point, there should be no debate: Austerity has
been a failure, shrinking economies and making it ever
harder for indebted countries to repay their debts.
The political costs are also rising. In parliamentary elections earlier this month, Greece’s voters rejected candidates
from the two major political parties that had agreed to a
German-dictated ‘‘rescue’’ package, and the country has
been unable to form a government since. In that vote, the
far-right party, Golden Dawn, whose xenophobic members
perform Nazi salutes, did frighteningly well — a warning
that no responsible political leader in Europe can afford to
ignore.
Meanwhile, the unthinkable becomes increasingly imaginable: Greece fails to meet the conditions of its bailout and
drops out, or is forced out of the euro zone. The financial
chaos could quickly spread, spooking investors and destabilizing the banks and economies of other struggling European
nations, with knock-on effects for the global financial system
and the world economy.
We take no comfort in recent reports that European finance officials have been preparing contingency plans for
Greece’s exit from the euro, or in the proclamations of Germany’s central bank that the effects of a Greek exit would be
manageable. Let’s remember that in 2008, American officials
also believed that they and the markets were prepared for
the collapse of Lehman Brothers, though the global credit
crunch that ensued quickly disabused them of that notion.
The financial system is no less interconnected now, and the
weakened European and American economies are more vulnerable to shocks.
Ideally, Europe’s leaders would recognize that growth
measures are crucial to resolving the debt crisis — giving
struggling economies a chance to recover even as the euro
zone nations work toward strengthening European institutions for political and fiscal integration. A sensible plan for
euro zone members to jointly issue bonds — championed by
Mr. Hollande and the International Monetary Fund — would
be coupled with a mechanism for strict monitoring of sovereign budgets.
The bonds would ease borrowing costs for Greece and other struggling economies, like Spain and Italy. The fiscal oversight mechanism would calm Germany’s fears that its taxpayers will have to guarantee the debt of countries over
whose budgets it has no say.
Similarly, a plan to use the euro zone’s roughly $640 billion
rescue fund to directly recapitalize troubled banks would be
coupled with safeguards against the bank runs that now
threaten Europe, including euro-zone-wide bank supervision,
deposit insurance and common plans for an orderly management of bank failures.
Institutional reform, however, is a long-term solution.
Right now, Greece and other weakened nations need an aid
plan that will help them grow as they reduce their debt burdens.
If Europe’s leaders don’t figure that out soon, the consequences could be disastrous — for their countries and the
rest of the world.
ONLINE
IHT GLOBAL OPINION
Today on LATITUDE
Beyond nationalism and nonviolence, most
people don’t know what Gandhi stood for
— which means almost anyone can claim
to be a Gandhian, writes Dan Morrison.
Join the debate on the expanded International Herald Tribune
global opinion site at nytimes.com/globalopinion
International Herald Tribune
New Great Wall with our flesh and
blood’’ but now I also believe the Great
Wall should protect our flesh and blood.
Li Chengpeng
•
BEIJING Rapeseed plants in Sichuan
Province flowered a month late in 2008.
People did not think much of it. In those
days, people still believed experts and
the experts said the delayed flowering
season was normal. They also said the
thousands of frogs suddenly jumping
onto streets was normal.
That day, I was sitting in my study in
Chengdu working on an article. When
the floor started moving I thought it
was just the cat being naughty. I realized an earthquake had struck only
when books started to fall off the shelf.
Buildings shook. Lampposts swayed.
An ominous glow was on the horizon. I
rushed down the stairs. The ground
heaved like boiling water. Along with
my neighbor, I finally made it to safety
in an open area outside our apartment
complex.
News arrived slowly. Many people had
died in the Dujiangyan area at the epicenter of the quake. Roads to Beichuan,
a county close to the epicenter, were cut
off. Blood supplies were running out.
‘‘My country is calling me,’’ I thought
to myself. ‘‘It’s time for us to build a
New Great Wall with our flesh and
blood.’’ Our national anthem resonated
in my head. The next morning I set off
to Beichuan with two friends.
I didn’t know it at the time, but those
were my final days as a typical Chinese
patriot.
I arrived in the town of Beichuan and
was perplexed as I stood in front of the
ruins of Beichuan No. 1 High School. I
couldn’t understand why the rubble of
a brand new five-story building
covered half the area of a basketball
court while nearby structures built decades ago were still standing. I
couldn’t understand why new buildings seemed as fragile as crackers. I
couldn’t understand why even the students on the ground floor of the school
were apparently unable to make it to
safety.
I saw a woman loitering around the
pile of debris. Pointing at the rubble, she
muttered: ‘‘Look, that’s my baby. Her
hand is still moving. She is still alive but
I can’t pull her out.’’ I could see the bottom of a little girl’s floral printed shirt,
and other children as well. Many of the
children were still moving. But the military rescue team forbade us from getting closer to the rubble, fearing further
collapse. We stood by helplessly. The
children eventually stopped moving.
After the quake, I roamed for many
days over the mountain areas in
Beichuan with other volunteers and
managed to rescue some elderly people
and young children. One day, we came
across a primary school funded by Project Hope, a welfare organization that
aims to bring schools to povertystricken rural areas of China.
The school building was still standing
and even the glass windows were intact. All of the students of this school
had survived the quake.
I later asked the school principal and
the teachers the reason for this miracle.
They said we should thank the person
who supervised the construction of the
school building. This man, once a member of an engineering corps in the
People’s Liberation Army, had been
hired by the company that donated the
money to build the school. They told me
the man used to tap on every newly
built cement pillar with a little hammer.
By listening to the sound, he could tell
whether the concrete was mixed at the
right ratio. The construction team was
ordered to start all over again if the
man was not happy with the sound.
Teachers added that two kinds of
noises used to reverberate in the school
construction site: the sounds from
building and the yells from the man arguing with people — either with builders over the quality of the construction
or with the local government officials
over delayed payment for construction
(all donations to Project Hope for building new schools had to go through local
governments and all builders were assigned by local governments).
I met this construction supervisor
and asked him if he had followed any
special codes when building the school.
‘‘No, it was simply built by following
the national standards,’’ he said. I also
learned that he had supervised the construction of five other school buildings
and all of them withstood the quake.
Meanwhile, the mainstream media is
prohibited from praising this man.
They may not even mention his name.
One evening two years ago, I received
a call from him. He said he had been forcibly treated for fictitious mental problems and his wife had left him. He said
he wanted to escape from Sichuan, the
source of his troubles. He begged me to
help him leave and find a job in northern
China. Then we lost touch.
Four years after the Sichuan earthquake I am still perplexed. Why can’t
we publicize the names of children who
died during the quake? Every single
victim’s name of the 9/11 attacks was
read out loud and published many
times. And why can’t we mention the
name of the man who built safe structures that saved so many lives?
Four years after the earthquake, I now
reveal his name: Gou Yandong
Gou Yandong is a remarkable patriot.
He saved many Chinese children by
building safe structures. He deserves to
be rewarded.
A month after the
Our children
quake, I returned to
were not
Beijing. One day I
killed by forbumped into a reeign devils.
spected journalist
They were
from CCTV, the state
television news chankilled by the
nel. We talked about
hands of my
the shoddy ‘‘tofu
own people.
structures’’ that
claimed many lives
during the quake.
‘‘Corrupt officials deserve to be shot
dead,’’ I barked.
‘‘No,’’ responded the respected wise
man while gazing intently at me.
‘‘Tackling such issues in China must be
a gradual process. Otherwise, there will
be chaos again. After all, we have to
rely on these officials for post-quake reconstruction.’’
I used to have a lot of respect for that
man. Now we are strangers.
•
Some people now call me a traitor.
Some call me an agent of the foreign
devils. But how can I be an agent of the
foreign devils when I don’t even have a
U.S. green card, when unlike much of
the Chinese elite my child doesn’t drive
a Ferrari or study at a prestigious foreign university, when I don’t own any
real estate in the United States or
Europe. I love my country, but I cannot
love a government that is responsible
for so many shoddy ‘‘tofu structures.’’
These days, people in China like to
talk about patriotism because of the disputes with our neighbors over small islands and sea lanes. I am, in fact, quite
open to using military force to claim
Huangyan Island, the disputed island
between China and the Phillippines.
But I am against the idea of fighting enemies abroad while letting bad guys at
home get away with murder. Many typical patriots think differently. They believe bringing bad guys to justice can
wait but claiming a tiny island can’t.
After witnessing events in 2008 — not
only the quake but also the Olympic
Games and the melamine milk scandal
— my definition of patriotism changed.
Patriotism is not about robbing our
own people while claiming foreigners
are looting us. Patriotism is not about
bullying mothers of children who died
in the earthquake, while calling for
people to stand up to the foreign bullies
of our motherland.
Patriotism is about taking fewer kickbacks and using proper construction
methods when building classrooms. Patriotism is about constructing fewer extravagant offices for the bureaucrats
and building more useful structures for
farmers. Patriotism is about drinking
less baijiu (a fiery Chinese spirit) using
public money. Patriotism is about allowing people to move freely in our country
and letting our children study in the city
where they wish to study. Patriotism is
about speaking more truth. Patriotism
is about dignity for the Chinese people.
I am a patriot. I would love to see a
little island added to our vast territory of
this great nation. But I would much
prefer to see the names of countless of
extinguished souls engraved on humble
memorials in my country.
LI CHENGPENG is a writer and a blogger
who has over five million followers on
Sina Weibo, the Chinese version of Twitter. This article was adapted from a
longer article posted online on the fourth
anniversary of the Sichuan earthquake
earlier this month. It was translated
from the Chinese by Jane Weizhen Pan.
•
I was a typical patriot before 2008. I
believed that ‘‘hostile foreign forces’’
were responsible for most of my
peoples’ misfortunes. As a soccer commentator covering games between Japan and China, I wrote lines like, ‘‘Cut
off the Japanese devils’ heads.’’ I saw
Japanese soccer players as the descendants of the Japanese soldiers who brutally killed Chinese civilians in the 1937
massacre of Nanjing. I used to curse
CNN for its anti-China commentaries. I
was one of the protesters who stood in
front of the U.S. consulate in Chengdu
and raised my fist after the U.S. bombing
of the Chinese Embassy in Belgrade in
1999.
But my patriotism began to come into question as I stood in front of the ruins of Beichuan High School. It became
clear that the ‘‘imperialists’’ did not
steal the reinforced-steel bars from the
concrete used to make our schools.
Our school children were not killed by
foreign devils. Instead, they were
killed by the filthy hands of my own
people.
I still believe that we should ‘‘build a
ELLEN WEINSTEIN
How to stop wildlife poachers
Just as
guards
patrol our
museums,
we should
use security forces to
safeguard
our nature
preserves.
Elizabeth L. Bennett
Over the past 20 years, chimpanzees,
gorillas and other great apes have declined the most in areas lacking a security force to protect them. Conversely,
parks and protected areas with armed
guards and anti-poaching patrols —
places like Nouabalé-Ndoki National
Park in the Republic of Congo, KahuziBiega National Park in the Democratic
Republic of Congo, and Volcanoes National Park in Rwanda — have not only
retained their ape populations, but
have seen population increases.
This connection extends beyond
great apes. The Albertine Rift in Central Africa has over the past 50 years
demonstrated the benefits of a close tie
between law enforcement and the survival of diverse species.
In Asia, the government’s training
and deployment of park guards in Thailand’s most important reserve, the
Huai Kha Khaeng Wildlife Sanctuary,
has led to seven years of population stability in tigers and other wildlife, in contrast to dramatic declines in nearby unprotected parks.
This only makes sense. We don’t
leave our valuables unprotected.
Guards patrol art galleries and museums to secure our cultural heritage.
We should be taking the same approach
to safeguarding our natural heritage.
The urgency for the training and deployment of guards to protect wildlife
across the globe could not be greater.
Only last November,
Africa’s western
The urgency
black rhino officially
for the trainbecame extinct. Wild
ing and detiger numbers are
ployment of
down to 3,200 from
guards to pro- over 100,000 a century ago. Roughly half
tect wildlife
of Africa’s elephants
across the
have been killed for
globe could
not be greater. the ivory trade since
1987. Sadly, the list
goes on.
The most effective protection inevitably involves the long-term efforts of
committed park rangers patrolling protected areas with the endorsement and
support of local communities. Wildlife
guards are deployed by the national
governments, which gives them the legal authority and mandate to operate
and, in some cases, the core financing
to do so. Other agencies work in part-
nership with those governments to give
them both technical and financial support to combat poaching.
Nevertheless, for many poorer governments striving against the odds to
protect their wildlife, outside support
for salaries, vehicles and equipment is
crucial. At present, support (not including weapons) comes largely from nongovernmental organizations, with their
generous private donors, and from national government agencies like the
U.S. Agency for International Development and the United States Fish and
Wildlife Service. More money — and
the resulting increase in the number
and effectiveness of guards — is crucial
to the survival of many species targeted by poachers.
Fortunately, relatively small investments can have big impacts. In Thailand’s Huai Kha Khaeng reserve, 200
rangers cover an area of 1,073 square
miles for an annual cost of under $5,000
per ranger. The government pays salaries and, with assistance from the Wildlife Conservation Society, provides rations, equipment and training.
Two poachers were sentenced last
summer to the longest prison terms to
date in Thailand for a wildlife crime —
one for four years and the other for five.
No high-value poaching episode has occurred in the reserve since.
In the Republic of Congo’s Ndoki National Park, the conservation society’s
support for ecoguards over two decades has been essential for the protection of what is arguably Africa’s most
pristine rain forest — home to critical
populations of gorillas, forest elephants
and chimpanzees so unacquainted with
humans that they approach their fellow
primates with no fear.
Rangers in Ndoki also enforce agreements that the government has made
with logging companies to ensure that
hunting and the bushmeat trade do not
follow.
These rangers toil in landscapes that
are frequently remote, physically tough
and dangerous.
Until we provide the resources and
security to safeguard the world’s great
natural treasures, populations of great
apes and countless other species will
slowly wink out across the world, and
our awe-inspiring natural heritage, the
product of millions of years of evolution, will continue its slide into oblivion.
ELIZABETH L. BENNETT is vice president for
species conservation at the Wildlife Conservation Society.
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