Wenzhou Crash Media Aftermath

The western and English language media in China is going into overdrive providing coverage and commentary on the aftermath of the Wenzhou Train Crash.

Xinhua is reporting that Wen Jia Bao has called for a “swift, open transparent investigation”, although Grandpa Wen has pretty much been calling for whatever he wants since he’s going to to be stepping down as Premier next year – he promised political reform when he was in England earlier in the summer.

Time Magazine has a piece on the “murmurs of dissent” in China following the crash – although almost every foreign reporter in China is probably playing up the idea that Chinese people are disagreeing with the government

The ever-excellent Ministry of Tofu (which I keep mistyping as the Ministry of Tudu for some reason) has a rundown and translation of the microblog surveys that have been run through the Chinese cyberscape.  Needless to say, people ain’t happy.

China Realtime Report has a slideshow of pictures from the crash site  and another Chinese language gallery shows how the newspapers on the mainland are reporting on the tragedy.

Both the Global Times and the China Daily have ripped the government a new one over the Ministry of Railways handling of the crash.  The Global Times has attacked the department’s officials, saying that their “arrogance results in bad PR” (another brief tells of the total cost that the new rail system might total up to).  The Global Times editorial ominously ends with the lines that “the relationship between the government and the public is like that of a ship and water. Water can keep the ship afloat or sink it.”