The Politics of Crisis Management in China: The Sichuan Earthquake

Abstract:

This talk is based on the content of a new book, examining the Chinese government's capacity of managing earthquake crises. It analyzes the ways in which the Chinese government and military responded to the 2008 Wenchuan earthquake in Sichuan province, including the responses in the first critical 72 hours, the mobilization of the People's Liberation Army and its difficulties, the partnership between non-governmental groups and the state in the rescue operations, and the process and politics of reconstruction. The book includes comparative case studies of the Tangshan earthquake in 1976, the earthquakes in Haiti and Chile, and the contrasts with the Japanese earthquake tsunami in 2011.

Speaker:

Prof LO Shiu Hing Sonny
Professor, Department of Social Sciences, The Education University of Hong Kong
Sonny Lo is the Professor and Head of the Department of Social Sciences, Co-Director of the Centre for Governance and Citizenship and the Centre for Greater China Studies at the EdUHK. He is the author of eight single-authored books, including Political Change in Macao, which was awarded the First Class Prize by the Macau Foundation in 2009.