Flooding of Yuyao, How the Chinese Government Created Enemies In a Natural Disaster

Yuyao is a county-level city in Ningbo Prefecture, Zhejiang Province. Due to Typhoon Fitwo, much (over 70% of downtown) of Yuyao had been underwater.

Natural disaster like this is often seen as God-sent for western politicians, as this set a great stage with free and unlimited camera time for them to demonstrate how much they care about their constituents in need. Mayor Giuliani, Governor Christie and President Obama all had their political lives saved or elevated from major disasters. However, in Chinese politics, where it is mysteriously held that even a natural disaster could be the fault of top officials, the No. 1 priority of any level of government officials was to bury any negative news as much as they could.

So it was not surprising that there had been little media coverage for this flood, even though Yuyao was one of most prosperous cities in one of most prosperous provinces, and that it was within an hour's drive from most major cities in eastern China, including Ningbo, Hangzhou and Shanghai.

Three days after the beginning of the flood, and while over 50% of its downtown still submerged in water, the local government broke the silence and denounced that water had receded, and that nobody had died despite floating bodies nearby.

Angry residents asked the official reporters of Ningbo TV to turn their camera away from the only dry place in town, and tell the outside world the need for disaster relief assistances. The journalists were offended, and cursed the residents of being mentally sick in failing to recognize that they were on official propaganda mission. A brawl ensued.

For the first time since the flood began, many local resident saw police SWAT team on the street. Not to help with the flood, but to beat people with batons. More people rushed to argue with the police, and even larger group of people joined the battle.

A recent crackdown of online rumor spreading might have caused the initial delay in rescue and relief efforts. The government recently announced through a joint memorandum of judicial interpretation by the Supreme Court and the Supreme Procuratorate that any misinformation would be prosecuted with criminal code. The legal recognition of 'misinformation' had been exemplified by a series of cases in the past few weeks. For example, when 5 cars were involved in an accident, if someone posted online that 4 cars were involved, then it would have broken the law. A Henan women was arrested because she posted these language (a literal translation: "I heard there was a crime took place in the neighboring village last night, was it true?") A middle school student in Gansu Province was arrested when he questioned why didn't local police act to track down the criminal of a homicide case. In a sharp contrast to the busy online mobilization and coordination of rescue and relief after previous disasters, such as the Sichuan earthquake and the bulletin train accident, almost nobody talked about the unprecedented flooding in Chinese online media for days.

A hundred and four years ago on October 4, 1909, a famous minister Zhang Zhidong passed away. Zhang was deemed that last capable minister in the Qing Dynasty (1644-1911). In his last days Zhang had a conversation with the Prince Regent Zaifeng. Knowing it would be his last opportunity to pass his concerns to the rulers, Zhang tried to point the Prince people's resentment to the Court. Zhang cautioned Zaifeng that he should listen to what people were complaining. The Prince stopped him, and assured him that nothing should be worried about because 'we had soldiers'. Later Zhang recounted the exchange in utter disgust, and labeled the 'we have soldiers' phrase as a sign predicting collapse of government. Zhang died in three months, and one year later, Qing collapsed in a sudden when a few soldiers in Wuchang rebelled.

National Secret: Undocumented Babies Killed by Hospitals

Movie star Zhang Ziyi recently pled to entertainment reporters not to dig on her private life, because 'for your it's gossip, but for me it's my life'.

For everyone else what was revealed from a ten years old medical record is a taboo of national secret; but for Ms. Chen, it was her life forever without her own offspring. Her first baby boy, whom she was told born dead, was actually delivered alive but later killed by the hospital because she did not have proper document, the birth license. She had since unable to carry another baby.

In mainland China, one family is allowed to have one child. In addition, the couple must obtain a birth license before a child is born. It is an often troublesome procedure for many because each 'unit (the bottom level organization in charge of people's work, life, welfare etc.)' is only allocated a certain number of such licenses each year. If birth licenses run out before the end of year comes, then the options for married couples are either an abortion or carefully avoiding pregnancy. Sometimes it makes a laughable moment when co-workers have to coordinate their sex schedule so that they could fairly and wisely make use of the available birth licenses. Sometimes it became a sadden moment when some couples were told they would have to have an abortion, even when it's their first pregnancy.

Ms. Chen's pregnancy was not planned. She and her husband rushed the wedding when they found out Ms. Chen was pregnant. Before going to the hospital, they had envisioned the father could be arrested and they might have to pay a big fine. They were discussing selling the house to pay the fine. However, they didn't know and little was known to most people that the Health Ministry had a policy which dictated babies without the aforementioned 'birth license' would be secretly executed by the hospital. In China, fathers are not allowed in the delivery room, and mothers would be usually worn out to be alert of what's exactly happening. The baby would be quietly and decisively killed by the delivering doctors, and the mother would be told the child was born dead.

Ms. Chen has been a frequent visitor of fertility clinics in the past 10 years with no luck. About one month ago on July 31, 2009, when she was hospitalized for another fertility treatment at the No. 1 Ninghai Hospital, where the baby was killed tens years ago, a copy of the old medical record was accidentally given to her along with current records. That's when the national secret was leaked to Ms. Chen.


The time was 1999, and the hospital was the No. 1 Hospital of Ninghai (Address: 73 South Taoyuan Road, Ninghai, Zhejiang, 315600, PRC. Tel: +86 (574) 6557-8396. President: Fang Zhengming. Beds: 400) in Ningbo, a coastal city of Zhejiang Province. Three Obgyns were involved in the termination process. They are Drs. Jiang3, Wang and Jiang1. According to the medical record, Dr. Jiang3 carried out the execution 2 minutes after the baby was born alive.

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