Artifacts | Secrecy on the Yangtze

Vanessa Moore

It could be the title of an Agatha Christie novel since this tragic tale includes all the classic elements of a murder mystery – death, intrigue and secrecy. But before I get to the macabre denouement, here’s a prequel to set the scene.
About this time seven years ago, back in the summer of 2008 when I was still a student in Hong Kong, a classmate and I decided to travel overland from Hong Kong to Beijing via train, bus and boat. Part of the trip involved a three-day cruise on the Yangtze as part of a no-frills voyage from Chongqing to Yichang. Being students, we opted for the cheapest tour, taking an all-Chinese-speaking excursion with a mainland company. As two of only four foreigners on a behemoth of a four-story vessel floating leisurely downriver, I’m pretty sure my trip was comparable to the one most of the elderly package tourists on the ill-fated Eastern Star experienced last week. Except nothing went wrong on mine. Well, actually, it almost did.
On the second night of the voyage, just before we reached the Three Gorges dam, what came to be known as the 2008 earthquake struck Wenchuan in neighbouring Sichuan province. However, sleeping peacefully in our cramped quarters that May night, we felt nothing as the ship made its way slowly down the mighty waterway. Which is why, coming back to today’s riverboat tragedy, I find it almost hard to believe that last Monday’s calamity was put exclusively down to bad weather. Only 14 of the 456 people aboard the vessel survived after the sinking following what has been described as a freak tornado that struck during a heavy storm. So far, that’s the only ‘fact’ released by the authorities. However on a busy stretch of river normally teeming with tourist cruisers and shipping traffic, why was the Eastern Star the only one affected?
Moreover, only fourteen people survived the late-
evening capsizing by swimming overboard. To me that seems somewhat suspicious. Mainland media outlets also didn’t help matters by characteristically playing down the death toll, giving significantly understated approximations all of last week even as the chances of finding any survivors faded. Interestingly, seven of those who swam away were crewmembers, bringing to mind last year’s ferry sinking of the Sewol in Korea, where the captain and crew abandoned ship at the expense of the 304 schoolchildren left inside who drowned.
Last week the captain and chief engineer were placed in police custody for questioning, yet there’s been no information about the launch of any inquiry into their conduct. Surely this would be the most logical place to start? The ship’s operator, Chongqing Eastern Shipping Corp., apologized to families and said the company is cooperating with investigators. A preliminary investigation found the ship was not overloaded and had enough life jackets on board, the SCMP reported on Sunday. But some relatives say they believe authorities haven’t focused enough on the possibility of human error.
More than a week has passed and details are still few and far between with nothing about the progress of the on-going investigation released or who’s overseeing it. Understandably many of the relatives are frustrated over this shortage of information, and the police are still tightly controlling access to the disaster site. Although Beijing has guaranteed there wouldn’t be a cover-up, the grief-stricken kin are hardly convinced. Reuters reported on Friday that one relative burst into a just-concluded news conference, publicly accusing the government of treating its people like enemies. And I’m tempted to agree.
Whether communist or capitalist, any administration has to be accountable to its own citizens. As those of us dealing with the news know full well, China has a culture of secrecy surrounding practically anything. When disasters happen, this general lack of transparency is especially prevalent, from withholding name lists of victims to secrecy surrounding any kind of outbreak – take the initial denial of SARS as a case in point. With officials trained to never tell the whole truth if they can help it, lying and a culture of evasion are routine.
Lack of transparency conversely (or helpfully?) means mysteries are buried instead of solved. But real life isn’t a thriller novel and the government would be wise to remember that. The Yangtze tragedy should serve as a warning that you can’t just wipe out hundreds of lives and assume no one will want to know why.