Reaching Out to The World With A Manicured Hand

The earthquake that devastated China's Sichuan province on May 12 was soon compared with another Chinese natural disaster, the Tangshan quake of 1976, when the government responded with secrecy, refusals of aid offers and a low-ball estimate of the death toll.

How different it all was this spring. The Sichuan earthquake, aftershocks from which have been felt as late as yesterday, became a media event in China, a shared rather than suppressed tragedy. And the publicity continues. On Monday, the Chinese Embassy opened a small exhibition of photographs showing the destruction and relief efforts in Sichuan. The photographs, mainly taken by Chinese journalists, fill a bleak room in the basement of the sadly neglected Martin Luther King Jr. Library.

There was no hope of hiding the destruction of the Sichuan earthquake, which hit a rugged but lovely region of China. Cellphone cameras have forever changed the way that governments can deal with disasters. Complete suppression is not an option, even in Burma.

Instead, the Chinese government opted for a more embracing media strategy. Television cameras penetrated deep into the region where the earthquake had flattened cites, towns and small villages. Flag-waving rallies were held across the country; the state media network had ready-made, somber-sounding theme music to accompany the horrifying images of destruction; and top Chinese officials were seen touring the quake zone, listening sympathetically and promising quick recovery. On television, the earthquake looked like a CNN special -- with the addition of red flags. Rather than suppress, the authorities orchestrated.

The Tangshan quake hit while China was preoccupied with internal politics, including the end time of an ailing Mao. The Sichuan earthquake hit during the final preparations for the Beijing Olympics, just after the carefully planned Olympic torch relay had become a PR fiasco, marred by protests in London, Paris, San Francisco and other cities.

The exhibit begins with images that suggest the earthquake has helped China reverse the tide of bad feeling. We see Cuban medical teams (not that Cuba has been in the forefront of Tibet protests), supplies from Indonesia, contributions from Japan and Korea. Even the United States is represented. President Bush is seen signing an embassy condolence book, and another image, very grainy, as if it has been taken from the Web or a video screen grab, shows Chinese and American flags waving together at a small earthquake rally. Where? There's no caption on the latter image, perhaps a last-minute addition, meant to prove a wider and deeper, rather than merely diplomatic, sense of fellowship and sympathy.

The world, which failed to love China on cue during the torch marathon, suddenly felt very sorry for the country after the earthquake. Inside China, a powerful sense of connectedness between earthquake victims and the general population was also detected and hailed as something new and positive in the development of the national character. That, too, is suggested in this exhibition, with images of "5-12" gatherings and memorials.

None of these sentiments are false. What is striking, however, is the brazenness with which the natural human sense of sympathy has been connected to a broader and more blunt sense of Chinese deference to government power. Soldiers and police are presented as the heroes of the drama. Is that any different from CNN or Fox News, with their maudlin tributes to National Guard troops, Boy Scouts and volunteer sandbaggers? Perhaps not, but it's worth noting that there are very few individuals in this exhibition, few faces of the victims, few cries of pain that pierce through the official patina.

On one level you have to admire the discretion, the refusal to engage in the disaster porn that is ubiquitous on American airwaves. Individual pain isn't entirely eliminated, but transferred decorously to children, the elderly, or to people turning their faces from the camera.

Instead, you have a May 16 photograph of Jiang Xiaojuan, a policewoman breast-feeding a "hungry orphan." She faces the camera directly while the baby's face is buried in her chest. Or an image of a boy in Beichuan, lying on a makeshift stretcher made of a broken blue board, saluting the soldiers who have just rescued him. It may have been a real image, a spontaneous moment, but it looks posed. Behind the boy, a soldier holds up what appears to be a cellphone camera to capture the moment.

That salute completes a series of "connections" that run through the entire exhibition. The Chinese are connected to the world, they are connected to one another, they are connected to their government. The caption on a May 18 photograph of Chinese President Hu Jintao reiterates the basic message: "The Party and the government will help you through the hard time." Hu's fingernails, seen in a photograph showing him comforting a young boy, are immaculately trimmed.

Is it cynical to focus on these details? Some 70,000 people died in Sichuan, and millions were made homeless. As the Chinese charge d'affaires, Xie Feng, said at the opening, "Mountains broke apart, rivers changed course. . . . Many lives were lost." It is perfectly natural that people would be grateful for outside help, that they would turn to one another and receive aid from the government with gratitude.