The recent train crash in Wenzhou sparked a blogging and micro-blogging frenzy amongst Chinese citizens who are angered at the way the accident has been handled by the party. This disaster is revealing the need for China’s authoritarian model to change, according to an opinion piece in the Guardian:
A knowledge economy operating at the frontiers of technology is incompatible with a one-party state.
‘If nobody can be safe, do we want this speed? Can we live in apartments that do not fall down? Can the roads we drive on in our cities not collapse? Can we travel in safe trains? And if there is a major accident can we not be in a hurry to bury the trains? Can we afford the people a basic sense of security?”
When a news anchor on China’s state TV feels he can say that on a broadcaster which has become the world gold standard for censorship and propaganda, you know that something profound is afoot. But it is not just the crash last weekend outside Wenzhou, involving two high speed trains that cost 39 lives and some 190 injured, that has appalled the country. It has been the Communist party’s attempt once again to try to close down the whole affair that has aroused passionate protest.
Read more about the Wenzhou high-speed rail crash via CDT.
