The remaking of a great city; when ‘reform’ fails

CHENGDU — To most Filipinos, China is about the cities of Peking, Shanghai and Hong Kong. Since Wednesday, a group of Filipino journalists were treated to the vision of another great Chinese city — Chengdu, the birthplace of Deng Xiaoping. 

We took China Southern Airlines to Guangzho then on to Chengdu.  It was a short flight and the weather that we were told will be colder than usual turned out to be very pleasant. That was the first surprise because I had brought sweaters that I did not need at all. What were we to expect in this city that I have never been to.

Chengdu was hit by an earthquake in 2008, killing some 80,000 people and as Third Secretary Liu Chang said to those who had come — we will show you how a city that was once destroyed to rubble can be rebuilt and transformed. This was, of course, very welcome to us Filipinos coming from a disaster prone country ourselves.

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First stop was what they called Chengdu International Sister Cities Exhibition Hall. Curious, I asked our guide why this should be the first stop on this cultural and economic familiarization tour. Sister cities is not an innovation, we have them between many countries, but as our guide told us this is the logic of China’s opening to the world. So they have devoted an entire museum to it — how they have welcomed guests from their sister cities, whether these came from Europe, the US or the nearer neighbors in Asia. Davao is an important sister city of Chengdu and reports are the papers are in process to open consulates between them.  Gifts from sister cities were also on display including a bicycle from Netherlands.

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Just in front of the museum was park planted with hibiscus. Chengdu is also sometimes referred to as the city of hibiscus because it was planted everywhere. Chengdu, is the provincial capital of Sichuan and the fourth most populous city in mainland China but it deserves more importance than it is presently given to it.

According to Wikipedia, Chengdu is one of the most important economic, transportation, and communication centers in Western China. Up to now, Chengdu Railway Station is one of the six biggest train stations in China, while Chengdu Shuangliu International Airport is on top 50 airports all over world. According to the 2007 Public Appraisal for Best Chinese Cities for Investment, Chengdu was chosen as one of the top ten cities to invest in out of a total of 280 urban centers in China. Chengdu is also popular in international companies and consulates. It has more than 250 Fortune 500 companies and 10 consulates have established branches in Chengdu due to huge demand of Western China. In 2006, it was named China’s 4th most livable city by China Daily.

The fertile Chengdu Plain, on which Chengdu is located, is also known as the “Country of Heaven” (Chengdu is the original city name which dates back to its founding over 2000 years ago.  In the next few days we will be visiting the Chengdu Hi-tech Industrial Development Zone, the Chengdu City Planning Museum and  the 2000 year old Dujangyan Irrigation  which continues to run to this day.

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And then the magnitude of 8.0 earthquake struck.

The highest number of casualties and property damage were from Dujiangyan and Pengzhou. But today there are new houses and buildings and a booming economy, done in six years when it had seemed the end for the historical city. At the center of the building which houses the offices of the reconstruction and rehabilitation is a monument to ordinary men and women who pulled together to restore a great city. The statues are shown passing on dead bodies that they had picked up from the rubble, some dead and others into safety to demonstrate the strength of character of the city of Chengdu and how they rebuilt their great city.

And for the giant panda fanciers, this is their home. You see replicas of the giant panda everywhere, but its habitat is the large primitive forest surrounding Chengdu. In the East stands the low Longquan Mountain where the giant pandas are bred and preserved.

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Today marks the 42nd anniversary of the declaration of Martial law by Marcos. That is a long time. But the memory lingers on for those of us who were in the opposition. It was long talked about before it happened on the day it did — Sept. 21.

 (Some say it was on Sept. 22). The date is unimportant, what was unforgettable was the drama, the shock and awe that accompanied it when it finally came.

Mercifully, we were in London by that time because of a freak of luck when a corporate struggle in Meralco made it necessary for us to leave the Philippines. So we escaped the wrath of Imelda Marcos thanks to the Lopezes who wanted us out of the way for big corporate plans for their group.

We heard of friends’ arrests and watched developments through both BBC and ITV coverage. Although relieved that we were not in Manila when it all happened, we were isolated in London where at that time we were a very small Filipino community – just some nurses who were introduced to us by long time London resident David Medalla. He was making waves in the art scene with his bubble machine from an art gallery on Wigmore Street. So we managed to put together (I believe the first of sorts, happening immediately when martial law was announced in Manila).

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Remembering all this today is good.  It is my opinion that although the aim was to create a more disciplined society, somewhere along the way, it failed. It failed because the idea of a reformed society was limited to political enemies rather than to create a viable society under the rule of law. It became a struggle between political factions of us against them. So no matter what economic or political reforms were attempted these were seen as partisan and self-serving.  It is ironic that we now have a similar situation. We have a government under the son of the main victim of martial law, Ninoy Aquino, committing the same mistake of Marcos who used the punishing of his personal enemies as the platform for reform.