Last night Mr Johnson read an article on a number of projects The People's Republic of China is trying to push through/accomplish/finish before the 90th anniversary of the founding of the Communist Party in what is now the PRC.
Of course, the British journal was highlighting the misses. The projects that had been rushed to meet a date, are not actually fully completed, or have failed completely. There was great risk in some of the projects. In others people have died.
In an attempt to gain face, the Chinese will probably end up losing some. (The ironic, Daoist ying and yang at play.)
The section that stood out to us was the project in our former home city of five years, Qingdao. QD recently "completed" the longest bridge in the world. Except, when they opened it earlier this summer, it might not have been fully lit, nor had all the safety measures in place.
(The bridge is over 26 miles long. Who would have thought safety measures where optional?)
Here's the paragraph on Qingdao:
In the northern city of Qingdao, engineers have resumed work on the world's longest sea bridge to fit it with the safety barriers and lighting that were not quite done when it was opened to the public, with some fanfare, ahead of the anniversary.
Here's a link to the entire article in The Telegraph:
----------------------------
This morning a long-term expat in QD posted on Facebook another unrelated article also sure to be face-losing for China. It dealt with water contamination. The bottled water that must be used for drinking and cooking has been found in Beijing to be tainted. (Tap water in China is almost never potable).
The Taipei Times reported:
Random market inspections found bacteria colonies in the water, the Beijing Administration for Industry and Commerce said on its Web site, citing a joint study with the capital’s product quality bureau.
“In order to prevent these substandard products from entering the distribution chain, the product quality bureau has taken measures to halt sales,” the administration said in a statement on Wednesday.
Tests on one brand of bottled water — Yiqun — found that bacteria levels were 9,000 times above safety standards, while those in Tianxing Special Water were 560 times higher, a report in the state-run Beijing Times said.
The tests were carried out on large barrels of water and did not include the smaller bottles of water normally bought in supermarkets, the report said.
Drinking the tainted water could lead to bouts of diarrhea, dizziness and vomiting, it added.
Part of the problems stemmed from quality controls at factories, including the failure to clean and sterilize water pipes, and replace and disinfect filters, the paper said.
Links from this blog on former food safety scandals, losing face and life in China:
A Sad Story
The Tai Tai's Musings on 'Face'
Perspective
1 comment:
Regarding the bridge ... The bay at the point where the bridge crosses is not even close to what is mentioned as the bridge's length ... And that it ( so I heard summer 2009) had collapsed in part during condtruction)
BW
Post a Comment