China: March 15, 2001

Archives

The government discovered how the internet has changed China. When some fifty people, mostly school children, were killed in a fireworks explosion last week, the government said it was the work of a lone madman with a bomb. But locals said the children were making fireworks in class, a common practice used to earn money to keep the school open. Corruption diverted money for education to local officials and schools are often left on their own to pay school expenses. The official media carried the "madman" story, but the local people got the true story out on the real story out. Today the government admitted as much, a previously unheard of retraction.