Haiti, China: Let's Not Rush to Judgement

As a survivor of hurricanes and other extreme weather along the Texas Gulf Coast, I have often been sickened by the monetary exploitation that happens in times of scarcity.

Often private citizens would sell water, tools, and other emergency supplies in the backs of pickups at inflated rates for the sake of a quick buck. While I had always been fortunate enough to grow up in a family fond of chainsaws, generators, and storing emergency supplies, I was lucky never to have to experience this myself.

In Haiti however, some locals are capitalizing on the influx of dollars and Euros into their island as rescuers and aid workers from as far afield as Israel and Taiwan have descended into Port-au-Prince, since the devastating 7.3 earthquake rocked the capital January 12.

According to French wire service, Agence France-Presse (AFP), prices on fuel, water, food, cigarettes, alcohol, and even hotel rooms and Internet access have been escalated to two to three times of normal. Local business owners have defended the move, saying that scarcity has forced the price increase, while aid workers claim many of these sales are of goods already looted from supermarkets in the wake of the quake.

I’m inclined to believe both claims. It’s unfortunate, but this sort of thing happens during any major disaster, anywhere in the world, and we should be careful not to single Haiti out.  Maybe the press or even we have a natural bias due to Haiti’s poverty, but I’ll remind the reader the same things happened in Houston after Hurricane Alicia in 1986, in Alabama after Hurricane Ivan in 2004, and in Louisiana and Mississippi after Hurricane Katrina in 2005.

Other stories from Haiti concerning the Chinese rescuers seem a bit more dubious. But lets talk about the good news first before we get to that.

The world’s response has been swift, generous, and united, and despite being more than a week since the earthquake struck, survivors are, amazingly, still being discovered alive beneath the rubble. Private citizens everywhere are opening up their wallets, and with countries like Nigeria pledging money in support; one has to feel optimistic about the discussion of rebuilding Haiti into a much better state than even before the earthquake struck. It’s also very comforting to see how unpetty and civilized we as human beings have put been to put aside our own respective politics to work side by side to save lives in Haiti.

Nothing is ever perfect, though. There have been some reports of international relief workers, particularly the Chinese delegation, of engaging in less than altruistic behavior. The rescuers of that nation have been accused by some of only looking for Chinese survivors. UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has been in Haiti since Sunday and has lauded the Chinese rescuers, who were some of the earliest responders of the quake, and have been credited with saving many lives.

In a Beijing press conference Tuesday, Foreign Ministry spokesman Ma Zhaoxu defending his nation from the rumors, saying, "The comment that the Chinese rescue team was only searching for Chinese nationals in Haiti is false and made out of ulterior motives."

Among many of the bodies recovered by the Chinese team included eight Chinese police officers, and many UN officials killed in the quakes. China has set up a temporary clinic near the Haitian Prime Minister’s compound. China’s leader of the rescue team, Huang Jianfa, said that his nation would continue on front line rescue work in cooperation with the many international search and rescue teams from the United States, Canada, United Kingdom, France, Spain, and Israel.

"The principle of our work is to mobilize limited resources in the shortest possible time to carry out rescue operations in the most needed areas, “ he said, in an interview with Xinhua. “This is the duty of China as a responsible big country towards the people of the world," he said.

What wasn’t said, and has been very under-reported in the week’s news cycle however, is that China has seen some very serious problems of it’s own. A record cold snap has engulfed the north of that country, rendering at least 100,000 people homeless and killing over 100,000 heads of livestock.

More than 150,000 were forcibly evacuated from their homes in China’s western Xinjiang district, including at least 200 people trapped on highways in their automobiles as temperatures fell to -45 degrees Fahrenheit this week.

In most other places, winter storms of this magnitude would almost certainly spell out a need for international help, if not large numbers of dead. The fact that China was able to handle this, while at the same time responding in Haiti, says a great deal about the nation’s level of preparedness. As for any political motivation, as we speak, Taiwanese planes are headed to Haiti to help, and China, normally a bit sensitive about "little brother" Taiwan being involved in anything, has to its credit, kept its mouth shut. Considering all of this, we should, at the very least, give them the benefit of the doubt as they race to save as many lives as they can in Haiti.
 

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