Tianjin Disaster

On 9/11, more than 400 first responders were killed. Now we know that more than 100 first responders were killed or missing in the Tianjin explosions. I have been under a miasma of sadness and anger since then. With each new revelation the more I questioned the edifice which China built in the last 35 years. For the question is no longer whether the black or white cat catches the mice, but whether the edifice is infested with termites which endangers the whole.
Certainly the families of the first responders were justified when they disrupted official press conference when the names of their relatives were not on the lists of those killed or missing. The revelation that the storage was licensed to handle 10 tons while 700 tons of sodium cyanide were present. I was relieved that those chemicals were found mostly intact and not another Bhopal happened. The company records and harbor custom showed discrepancies on chemicals in storage. Obvious there were corruptions and violations of rules and heads will roll, but that’s beside the point. With the explosions the origin of the fire will never be known. Whether it is illegal smoking which is rampant in China or leaking chemicals improperly handled. As for the nature of the explosions I am sure CIA with their spy planes collecting the residues over East China Sea probably has a better idea than local officials. I just hope the local officials publicize the nature of the explosions before U.S. embarrass them by leaking their findings as they did with the 2.5 micron pollution levels in Beijing.
Xi and his leadership has been fighting corruption the last 3 years. We know that corruption permeates in all levels of government and military, for it has been building up with the expansion of economy and the dominance of Market. What is Market? For it is profit motive. It appeals to the worst in human nature. In a reaction to the worst aspects of Cultural Revolution I think China has gone too far in the other direction. West, such as IMF wants China to be more market oriented, and I think that’s a mistake China should rebut. Recently I read an article in guancha.cn which professor Li Ling answered questions why medicine and healthcare cost so much in China. She blames it on the privatization and discuss more centralized socialized medicine as a solution. I think her view should be seriously studied by policy makers, not only in medicine, but by taking advantages of overcapacity in steel by eliminating those small private steel makers and cutting pollution and strengthen state owned enterprises as social needs rather than profit centers.