Tianjin Port. Demotix/DemotixLiveNews4. All rights reserved.In the wake of the hellish chemical explosion in Tianjin, some Chinese and western commentators have invoked the spectre of Chernobyl, the 1986 disaster sometimes seen as marking the beginning of the end of the Soviet Union. As Chinese authorities struggle to contain information about and quell discontent relating to this catastrophe, which cost scores of lives and left a massive crater in the port city closest to Beijing, some are asking if it could have Chernobyl-like political aftershocks.
There are definitely parallels. Here, again, a large-scale man-made disaster has struck at a politically sensitive time. Mikhail Gorbachev was carrying out a drastic top-down reform of the Soviet system in 1986, while Xi Jinping is in the midst of an intense anti-corruption campaign, working to restructure the economy, and dealing with a stock market crisis. In addition, ‘information management’ was at the heart of ‘crisis management’ in the Soviet case and the same is true now in China. The Chinese leadership is being accused of cover-ups, sparking public mistrust of the state — a phenomenon familiar to Gorbachev.
Tianjin Port. Demotix/DemotixLiveNews4. All rights reserved.There are, though, important differences to keep in mind, especially in the way that official communication on Tianjin has diverged from the Chernobyl model. The Soviet disaster was followed by a long official silence; the first report by a state news agency, TASS, came 65 hours after the explosion.
