Flood and Famine

For the first time, Peking asks for international aid

Officials of international aid organizations in Geneva last week were privately nervous--and somewhat aghast. They were finally digesting the consequences of a calamity that has spawned rumors and speculation for months. China, the world's most populous nation, is suffering from the worst--and least publicized--series of natural disasters since its 1976 Tangshan earthquake. Some 20 million people in two widely separated regions of the country are living on meager government-supplied cereal rations as they cope with the twin catastrophes of flood and drought. For the first time in its 31-year history, the Chinese Communist regime has been forced to issue a circumspect appeal for large-scale international aid. So extraordinary is the request, and so explosive its implications, that both Chinese and United Nations officials have been trying to keep the revelation as muffled as possible.

Last summer China's central Hubei province suffered weeks of torrential rains that led to the worst flooding the country has seen in 26 years. While giant dikes held back the main torrent of the mighty Yangtze River, 142 branch levees burst, spilling water over the low, rice-growing terrain, affecting some 6.2 million peasant families. Says one observer of the disaster area: "Much of the land is covered by silt and debris, and can't be cultivated. There are villages where absolutely everything has been swept away." Though a cleanup is well under way, tens of thousands of Chinese are still living in makeshift tar-paper shacks, and millions are getting by on a starvation diet of about 14 oz. of coarse grains daily. Nearly a quarter of the preschool children in the hardest hit area have contracted such water-borne diseases as hepatitis, dysentery and schistosomiasis.

The flood disaster pales, however, when compared with the results of a two-year drought that is centered in the northern province of Hebei, but has also affected five other neighboring provinces. An estimated 14 million people are living on survival rations. Says a recent visitor: "There are vast areas of parched land where nothing has grown since early last year. Wells are bone dry or terribly low." Contagious diseases are epidemic, and rickets strikes an estimated 11 % of children under 14. The drought shows no sign of ending. Declares an international relief official: "The situation can only deteriorate even further from here."

Last December the Chinese leadership finally decided to break with the Maoist principle of national self-reliance and quietly appealed for help to the United Nations Disaster Relief Office (UNDRO). A team of UNDRO inspectors toured the affected areas in January. They were impressed with China's own emergency efforts; only 5,000 people have died so far. But they estimated that China would need 1.5 million tons of rice, wheat and other grains, along with medicine, clothing, blankets, seed, milk powder and additional necessities.

Where the relief supplies might come from is not clear. Last week a first shipment of 17 million vitamin pills arrived in China from U.N. warehouses in Denmark. The European Community has pledged $6.2 million in aid, mostly milk powder and edible oils. Although the U.S. has listened with sympathy to the Chinese appeal, at week's end Washington was still pondering its own aid contribution. International grain stockpiles for relief purposes are already strained by requests from famine-struck African countries, and from other nations such as Poland and Viet Nam. Undoubtedly, China will be forced to buy on the open market at least some of the $700 million emergency grain supply it needs.

Chinese officials insist that the country will get by as much as possible on its own, but the continuing troubles could have far-reaching international consequences. Both Hubei and Hebei are traditionally areas of agricultural surplus, meaning that their difficulties are throwing the country's entire food supply out of line. Last year China was forced to import between 12 million and 15 million tons of grain. If the drought continues, it could affect as many as 130 million people, further dislocating the economy. As one U.N. aid official puts it: "Imagine a quarter of the world's population relying on handouts from the West." qed

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