Politics of Crisis Management in China

Sonny Shiu-Hing Lo is professor and head of the Department of Social Sciences at the Hong Kong Institute of Education.

This book offers a systematic and well-textured case study with keen analytical insights in a comparative framework of the key dimensions of China’s regime responses and crisis management efforts in the aftermath of the devastating 2008 Sichuan earthquake. Its focus on the rescue-relief-rehabilitation processes should render this book a much welcomed contribution to the Chinese governance, comparative politics, and Asian public administration fields as well as being a highly relevant and directly useful reference work on natural disasters relief and humanitarian aid for international bodies, national regimes and NGOs around the globe. Readers in the academic world and in the public sector will enjoy the rich details and refreshing findings of this illuminating volume that highlights the realpolitik implications with domestic consequences and external impacts of a rising China as a global soft power player with a huge crisis management capacity. The book’s detailed coverage of the PLA’s leading role in post-quake rescue-relief operations have yielded valuable appreciation of the Chinese military’s other vital domestic functions. This has direct bearings on the elevation of natural disaster crisis management capacity into becoming a high priority concern on the China’s national security and societal harmony agenda as well as 21st century developmental strategies.

• Introduction: Crisis Management and EarthquakeChapter 1: The Critical 72 Hours After the Sichuan EarthquakeChapter 2: The Response of Interest Groups, Citizens and Tibetan ActivistsChapter 3: The Role of the People’s Liberation ArmyChapter 4: Post-Earthquake Reconstruction Work and Policy LearningChapter 5: Crisis Management in Comparative PerspectiveConclusion