Southern Weekend has continued coverage of the Shanxi brick kiln case by interviewing several officials in Hongdong County about their role in the incident. ESWN translated the article (original Chinese here):
The Southern Weekend reporter interviewed a large number of Shanxi government officials at various levels and went into a previously unexplored subject area about the logic of response, consultation and consideration by the government. There was a chain of reaction from the town up to the provincial government. Along this chain, different officials showed different faces: there was the undeniable “inertia” at the base level and there was the need for Shanxi to meet the urgent crisis. There is a broad background behind the affair which consists of various interlocking age-old malpractices. This case was not simply the fault of one or two persons.
Afterwards, it seemed that the storm was triggered by an action in Hongdong that should have been “praiseworthy.” This action exposed the secret behind the “illegal brick kiln.” But the official who exposed the secret is being severely sanctioned. [Full text]
