New York Times 16 March 2001 China Backs Away From Initial Denial in School Explosion By CRAIG S. SMITH BEIJING, March 15 - Prime Minister Zhu Rongji apologized to the country today for a deadly schoolhouse explosion in a rural province and softened earlier denials that children at the school were making fireworks. He said that news reports of the tragedy last week had led him to order a high-level investigation. "I want to apologize and reflect on my own work," the prime minister said in a quiet voice at a news conference on the closing day of the Chinese legislature's annual session. He added that the State Council, or government cabinet, which he heads, bears "unshirkable responsibility" for the explosion. Mr. Zhu's nationally televised apology, highly unusual for a Chinese leader, reflected the extent to which the government's attempts to contain conflicting accounts of the blast had been undermined by citizens' rapidly spreading access to the Internet and other information channels and by an increasingly self-assertive press. Mr. Zhu said a six-member team dispatched by the Public Security Ministry had confirmed that children were forced to manufacture fireworks at the school in 1999 as part of what he called a "work-study program." But he said production stopped after a fireworks-factory explosion in a nearby village last year that killed 35 people. Mr. Zhu stood by the government's earlier statement that the school in Jiangxi Province was blown up on March 6 by a lone madman. Yet he left room for that verdict to change. "History can never be covered up," he said. "The investigation will continue until we really get the full picture." The explosion, in which at least 42 people died, 38 of them children ranging from 9 to 11 years old, left an unusually visible gap between the government's version of the event and the statements of people in the small village where the blast occurred. While Chinese are accustomed to state news reports that have little grounding in reality, it is rare that they catch a glimpse of how far the government sometimes strays from the facts. In the Jiangxi case, both local and foreign media reported that villagers reached by telephone insisted that their children were forced to make fireworks at the school. County officials quickly corroborated those reports, which were given added credibility by accounts of other underfunded schools that use child labor to finance their operations. The local government, however, announced that a deranged suicide bomber was responsible for the blast, a charge bereaved parents and surviving students almost unanimously rejected. That statement caused a barrage of caustic criticism on Internet chat rooms and reactions ranging from outrage to resignation among people across the country. Then, Mr. Zhu weighed into the debate, which threatened to overshadow a particularly dull session of China's largely impotent legislature. He declared that he was certain the school had not been used to make fireworks and backed the suicide bomber explanation. The school blast was an embarrassment to the government not only because of the child labor allegations but also because it appeared to be the latest in a string of deadly industrial accidents that Beijing had vowed to curb. It was embarrassing, too, because it focused attention on one of the thorniest issues being addressed by the congress: a rural financial crisis that has sapped farm incomes and left villages without enough money to operate clinics or schools. Because of shrinking central government support, townships and villages have been forced to levy fees and special taxes on farmers to raise money for schools, clinics and other public services. Much of the money, though, is wasted on the local governments, which are often overstaffed with friends and relatives of officials. Tension between farmers and local bureaucrats has already led to bloodshed in various parts of the country, particularly Jiangxi, a poor province where some farmers say levies eat up most of their income. Other farmers there say local governments have turned schools into part-time factories to supplement revenues. The crisis has undermined support for the Communist Party among much of its original and most fundamental constituency - China's 900 million farmers. The trouble in Jiangxi is particularly embarrassing because that is where the party drew recruits more than 70 years ago to form what became the core of the People's Liberation Army that swept the party to power. Mr. Zhu did not link the Jiangxi incident to this larger crisis, but he said later in his news conference that one of the decisions ratified by the congress was an order to cut local government staffs and stop illegal tax levies. He said China will distribute up to $3.6 billion a year in subsidies to local governments to offset their losses from ending the levies and help pay for schools. Mr. Zhu's initial support of the suicide-bomber story appeared to end hope for a further investigation. After his remarks, Internet chat rooms and Web sites were purged of dissenting views, the site of the explosion was bulldozed, and surviving students and parents of those who died in the blast were told to keep quiet. But the attempted media blackout only fueled speculation in the Hong Kong and foreign media that there was a coverup reaching into the central government. The talk threatened to tarnish Mr. Zhu's reputation as a straight-forward, frank-speaking leader. Mr. Zhu said the media reports led him to order Public Security Minister Jia Chunwang to send the six police officers to Jiangxi to investigate the blast. In an apparent effort to lend credibility to their findings, Mr. Zhu said they went in plain clothes, though with the small village sealed off to outsiders, anyone asking questions would quickly be identified as a government investigator. "I know overseas media and media in Hong Kong did not agree with the explanation I gave them," said Mr. Zhu. But he said there was as yet no evidence to support statements that fireworks were being manufactured at the time of the blast. He added, however, that if it is proved that the children were making fireworks at the time or that if such activities are uncovered elsewhere, heads would roll. "I solemnly promise to all the people of this country that we will learn from this incident and will never allow students and minors to participate in activities that are potentially dangerous and could cause the loss of life," he said. "If such a thing happens again, not only will the county governor, the village chief and the township mayor be sacked and held criminally responsible, but the provincial governor will also be disciplined."
