MTV might not run it, but China's most heavily played music video this week stars Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao (
Soldiers cheer and grateful citizens weep in the clip as a shrill soprano extols communism's love for the common people.
"United with one heart, conquering adversity," read the words superimposed over the final image of a smiling Wen leading response efforts in Harbin.
The video -- produced virtually overnight and aired incessantly on state television -- illustrates how hard China's leaders are working to shore up their credibility in the face of a rising wave of manmade disasters ranging from environmental meltdowns to carnage in the workplace.
China's government has only lately begun accounting for the toll of fast economic growth in terms of deadly accidents and damage to the country's rivers, soil and air.
With a recent order to declassify disasters, officials are under even more pressure to respond effectively.
That's a major challenge for an authoritarian government not accustomed to airing its dirty laundry in public -- or answering to its citizens. While seeking to portray the Chinese Communist Party as responsible, the increased publicity risks giving the impression that such disasters are out of control.
"With more reporting on the disasters and accidents, Chinese are probably feeling that there are so many of them," said Dali Yang (
"Hence the need to extol how the system is doing well to deal with the problems," Yang added.
The Wen video accompanied the suspension of water to Harbin for five days after a factory explosion last month released 100 tonnes of cancer-causing chemicals into the Songhua River.
Officials were initially accused of hiding the threat, but the city soon thrust itself into an all-out effort to deliver emergency water supplies to the 3.8 million people without service and safeguard public health.
Just days later, a coal mine explosion in the same region killed at least 164 workers -- the latest in a string of mining catastrophes.
Such disasters feed into growing complaints from the public that China's economic growth is occurring at the expense of people's basic rights.
China has seen an unprecedented number of public protests this year, fueled by anger over government corruption and inaction in cases of illegal land seizures by developers or industrial pollution, among other issues. While many have been suppressed by force, leaders in Beijing have urged local officials to address such grievances with meaningful reforms.
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