China presents its humanitarian aid for the earthquake in Turkey
On Tuesday, Chinese state media was filled with stories about the humanitarian aid China is sending to Turkey and Syria following Monday’s incident. devastating earthquakesincluding approximately $6 million in emergency aid, an 82-member rescue team and satellite monitoring of the affected region.
Earthquake victims no doubt appreciate all the help they can get, but the efforts announced by the Chinese state world times represent only a small part of what the United States and Europe will do for the victims.
Besides offering emergency aid to Turkey and Syria, the Chinese government has also sent rescue teams to Turkey to help save lives. Analysts are calling for more international aid focused on medical care, resettlement and reconstruction. https://t.co/5Ooocn5BfO pic.twitter.com/J2N4NcBCFl
— Global Times (@globaltimesnews) February 7, 2023
The United States Agency for International Development (USAID) and other U.S. federal agencies are already on the case, and it’s a safe bet they have well over $6 million in the works. Two USAID teams landed in Turkey on Wednesday, each as important as the group sent by China, and the US European Command (USEUCOM) is diverting personnel and equipment in the earthquake zone.
The United States is moving quickly to send aid to Turkey and Syria as the death toll from a powerful earthquake continues to rise, Biden said today.
The 7.8 magnitude earthquake has so far claimed 1,900 lives and toppled hundreds of residential buildings. https://t.co/dAjOXHMjhP
— POLITICO (@politico) February 6, 2023
THE world times, of course, ostensibly avoided mentioning US efforts while praising international contributions and touting China’s own assistance in great detail, down to the last bureaucratic flourish:
Other Chinese rescue teams have traveled to Turkey. A civilian rescue team named Ramunion from Hangzhou, consisting of eight members and a rescue dog, is expected to arrive in Turkey on Wednesday.
The Global Times learned on Tuesday from the team that they had taken state-of-the-art equipment, such as a radar life detector for buried victims, as well as other search and rescue equipment. The team is the first Chinese civil assistance team sent to Turkey, and it is expected to operate in the most damaged area.
Wang Ke, managing director of the Pinglan Public Welfare Fund, told the Global Times on Tuesday that after the disaster, the fund immediately contacted the Turkish and Syrian governments through their embassies in China to send a request for participation in the rescue mission.
US government begins sending earthquake relief to Turkeyhttps://t.co/jjbpNTNs4f
— Military Times (@MilitaryTimes) February 7, 2023
Another world times tuesday article detailed the contributions of a Chinese satellite company:
After the 7.8-magnitude earthquake hit the town of Nurdagi in southern Turkey’s Gaziantep province on Monday, Changsha-based Spacety Co Ltd immediately organized the Chaohu-1 satellite to carry out emergency footage from the earthquake area, Global Times reporters learned on Tuesday. Radar remote sensing images of the area surrounding the epicenter were obtained at 11:05 a.m. local time on Monday.
After the earthquake first shook the region, at least 185 aftershocks were recorded in the southeast of the country and surrounding areas. With the situation in the disaster area unclear and aftershocks continuing, remote sensing satellites have become the primary means of obtaining information about the quake, experts said.
According to Spacety China, the Chaohu-1 satellite adopts a band mode, with an imaging area covering about 8,878 square kilometers. The company’s researchers compared images of the epicenter with previously released optical satellite images before the earthquake. A residential area about three kilometers from the epicenter was reportedly damaged.
#Exclusive: After the 7.8 magnitude earthquake hit Turkey on Monday, Changsha-based Spacety Co immediately organized the Chaohu-1 satellite to carry out emergency imaging of the quake area, learned Global Times reporters on Tuesday.https://t.co/Zjk8vSRsLX
— Global Times (@globaltimesnews) February 7, 2023
A third piece vaunted China’s 40 million yuan ($5.8 million) in emergency aid for Turkey, plus an unspecified amount for Syria, and an unspecified amount of “relief materials, including tents , sleeping bags and blankets” donated by Chinese citizens in Turkey.
This was supplemented by an editorial in which the world times chastised the rest of the world for obsessing over small issues, like the origin of this nasty little coronavirus pandemic, instead of forming the “true solidarity needed to deal with global issues”.
Chinese President Xi Jinping. (AFP)
These hosannas to international solidarity soon turned into a long list of usual Chinese Communist Party stomachaches regarding foreign policies that interfere with Beijing’s ambitions:
Many people have the same feeling that since the beginning of the third decade of the 21st century, international relations seem to have fallen into the quagmire of accelerated regression. Whether it is populism and trade protectionism in the economic realm, or the zero-sum game and geopolitical conflicts in the international political realm, everything is escalating and an ever-deteriorating inertia has even formed. In this context, it is even more valuable for countries around the world to jointly support Turkey and Syria to resist disasters; but this kind of unity should not only be short-lived in the face of a sudden global crisis. We hope he can continue to warm the world.
Needless to say, there isn’t much optimism about how long the current unity or harmony will last. Just days before the earthquake, some Western countries including the US, UK, Germany and France temporarily closed their consulates in Istanbul or issued security warnings about Turkey in citing “security concerns”, triggering violent protests in Turkey, which can be described as a “diplomatic earthquake”. The issue has not been resolved. It is conceivable that in the country where the earthquake occurred, disaster relief and post-disaster reconstruction may still encounter obstacles and resistance at the geopolitical level.
After lambasting the United States for refusing to work with the brutal torturer Syrian state that Beijing has helped keep in power, the world times applauded China for demonstrating how to achieve true and lasting unity by making a wacky sci-fi movie in which China leads the world in an ambitious scheme to attach giant rocket engines to the backside of the Earth and blow them up in deep space:
Chinese science fiction film Wandering Earth 2, which is currently being screened, shows that true unity and cooperation can be achieved when the entire human race stands at a critical juncture of life and death and will be destroyed if humanity does not unite. We hope that in the real world, we won’t wait until the last minute to be forced to make a choice, but that we will be one step ahead and take the initiative as soon as possible.
“Whenever after a disaster, people sympathize with the victims from the bottom of their hearts and sincerely hope to help as much as they can. It’s a shining part of universal humanity,” said the world times concluded, missing the equally important lesson that the world’s most toxic and selfish regimes must continue to fall back on the unparalleled humanitarian kindness of its free nations.
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