The footage was horrific: a massive wave of ice, mud and floodwater smashing into buildings on the border between China and Nepal with devastating force, sweeping away bridges and cars. Stunned onlookers watched as homes crumpled and towns disappeared. Terrified construction workers were seen fleeing for their lives. No wonder the distressing videos, snatched on smartphones, led global news reports as it emerged that the hundreds of missing people in this Himalayan tragedy included tourists from at least 30 nations.
Yet in China, the state broadcaster led its Thursday evening report on the launch of a new book by President Xi Jinping, the latest instalment in this egotistical dictator’s efforts to canonise his dismal reign. This tedious tale also dominated the front page of People’s Daily, the country’s most popular newspaper, the following day. At the bottom, readers could find a report about 800 metres of roads being reopened in the landslide-stricken region, illustrated with a picture of rescue teams. Meanwhile, official censors removed any disaster footage appearing online.
This set the tone for Beijing’s coverage: downplaying fatalities, focusing on rescue efforts, promoting the role of political leaders and rapidly insisting the initial glacier collapse occurred in Nepal despite differing claims. As I write, only a single image of that wall of water has been shown on state media. Typical of the posts scrubbed from social media was an article briefly seen on a WeChat account describing how fleeing people were “swallowed up” by “the black torrent” – then pointing out that the “Friendship Bridge” swept away at the border crossing had reopened just a few months ago following another fatal flash flood last year, which originated with the bursting of a Chinese glacial lake.
Behind these deadly events lies the dark spectre of climate change with retreating glaciers, thawing permafrost and more rain falling in precious – and increasingly precarious – mountain areas. “If you want nature to treat you well, you must treat nature well,” wrote Aldous Huxley. Yet, China’s initial response to this catastrophe should not be ignored as its rulers seek global hegemony in their dystopian vision of a brave new world dominated by Beijing.
Once again, we glimpse how they strive to control narratives to glorify their regime, protect their system’s stability and suffocate dissent – regardless of any impact on the rest of humanity.
This was seen with most horrendous clarity over Covid-19, when Beijing covered up the outbreak of a deadly new disease – almost certainly created by its scientists – with such devastating consequences. Even today, after millions of deaths and huge economic disruption, China frustrates efforts to determine the origins of the pandemic. Yet still, there remains astonishing complacency over the true face of this gruesome dictatorship, which is transforming the fragile Himalayan region with dams, roads, railways and urban developments since it sees the area as crucial for national and energy security.
Look at the afflicted areas on both sides of that border. In democratic Nepal, foreign journalists enter to speak freely with witnesses, survivors and families. But they are barred from Tibet, annexed by Beijing in the 50s. This is one of China’s most brutally repressed regions. It has seen its Buddhist culture crushed, a testbed for the sinister tactics of indoctrination, intimidation and surveillance later inflicted by the same Communist Party chieftain on Muslim Uyghurs. Children separated from families, religion forced under state control, their language driven from homes and schools. Then Beijing uses its economic muscle to silence criticism or support for the Dalai Lama around the world, even when shown only by entertainers such as Richard Gere or Lady Gaga.
The legacy of such intense repression can be lost lives when disaster strikes. “Local residents, afraid of punishment, are not posting about where people are trapped or where damage is the worst,” said a spokesman for the International Campaign for Tibet. “If people are afraid to share that information, or if their posts are removed, potentially useful information may not reach families, relief workers or the wider public.”
An Australian journalist in Beijing told how she saw people posting requests for help on social media in accessing information blocked by China’s digital firewall – and how one person was dismayed to discover from people outside China that a building site where a relative was working had been destroyed.
Such is the callousness of the Chinese government, which is far more concerned with promoting the cult of Xi Jinping than protecting its people – as I heard from a former state journalist who defected after seeing the sickening truth about his regime exposed by another devastating disaster.
Han was sent to report on the Sichuan earthquake in 2008, where he saw soldiers focus efforts on saving party dignitaries. “People were begging for help and they let them die, even children who could have been rescued. So many people died. We don’t know the numbers but the army just saved party officials, not ordinary people,” he told me.
It is thought almost 90,000 people were killed in this terrible earthquake, including many children trapped in badly-built schools crushed by landslides. Han said foreign rescue teams were allowed in after a week but claimed many aid workers were in tears at seeing so many corpses that could have been saved with faster access.
After he returned to Beijing, armed soldiers came to his home to take all his notes and photographs. The experience led him to stop working for state-controlled media and determine to leave China, which he finally achieved 16 years later by flying to Ecuador with his wife on a tourist visa.
Since then, as he explained, repression has grown worse. “Now there is no freedom and cameras are everywhere. The government controls everything we say on social media.” So even in a disaster – as people fight for lives, rescue teams battle devastation and families search for loved ones – this selfish regime blocks footage of flood waters and pleas for help, fearing that it might help to sweep away its rule along with all those buildings and people.
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