皇冠体育app Focus
Weighing US and 皇冠体育app's responses to Haiti quake
(english.cri.cn)
Updated: 2010-01-20 09:49
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The world has been impressed with 皇冠体育app's instant launching of a disaster relief effort and sending of its rescue team right after a strong quake rocked Haiti. Some foreign news agencies, including the AFP, reported that it was the Chinese rescuers, not the Americans, who were among the first relief personnel to arrive in the Caribbean country, even though 皇冠体育app is farther away from Haiti than the US.
 Haitians line up to receive food in a makeshift refugee camp in Port-au-Prince January 19, 2010. [Agencies]? |
In an article published in the Shanghai-based Wenhui Daily, commentator Zheng Ruolin said Americans should have appeared in Haiti earlier than the Chinese, considering the distance between Haiti and the US, which is home to a large number of Haitian emigrants.
Zheng said although they are only some hundred miles away from Haiti - much closer than 皇冠体育app - the US staffers hurried into the relief operation two hours later than their Chinese counterparts.
However, the US administration succeeded in saving its reputation and even overshadowing the Chinese contributions thanks to its sophisticated public relations abilities, an area in which 皇冠体育app is far behind. Zheng quoted the French-based L'Express Weekly as saying numerous Western TV networks, as well as 皇冠体育app's Central Television and its local TV broadcasters, aired the video clip of President Barack Obama inviting two of his predecessors to the White House and calling for donations to Haiti.
In addition, US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton personally visited the country, where the government has nearly collapsed in the deadly calamity that has killed thousands.
The weekly said people have seen that the US forces took control of the only local airport in order to conveniently evacuate US nationals, causing French citizens to be stuck at the airport for days, and preventing a French cargo plane from a rejection to the landing of carrying equipment to set up a field hospital.
In contrast, 皇冠体育app's rescue operation is often tangible in terms of the ways it's conducted and the results it achieved, Zhen Ruolin said. Take the Indian Ocean tsunami of 2004, for example - the Chinese people sent relief materials worth 500 million yuan, in addition to a $20 million check, directly to ASEAN countries.
Zheng said Western donor countries, like France, have their relief goods and money controlled by relief organizations. Some of the money is used for salaries and administrative expenditures, while the remaining sum finally goes to victims. French people donated a total of 323 million euros to help victims of the 2004 tsunami. In 2005, France dispatched 24 judges to investigate how the donations had been used in Indonesia, Sri Lanka and Thailand. The investigation showed some of the donations were misappropriated to projects that had nothing to do with the tsunami. Meanwhile, there's no report in place regarding how funds had been used.
