QIJIANG, China -- It was a little before 7 o'clock on a chilly Monday evening in January, and people were heading home from work on the Rainbow Bridge. As a group of soldiers marched across, the 460-foot span of concrete and steel suddenly gave way and crashed into the Qi River.
At least 40 people plunged to their deaths, drowning in the cold water or crushed beneath huge steel supports. People here in southwest China explained the catastrophe with a single word: corruption.
An initial investigation pointed to shoddy workmanship on the 3-year-old bridge and the use of inferior materials, such as steel supports one-third smaller than required.
On Friday, authorities charged five people with graft in connection with the collapse. They include Lin Shiyuan, former deputy Communist Party chief of Qijiang County, who has been accused of taking a $15,700 bribe from the contractor.
"The government has a responsibility for this man-made incident that could have been avoided," says a bitter Zhang Hua, 62, who was walking onto the bridge when it fell and whose daughter-in-law and grandchild were killed.
Corruption is slowly gnawing away at China, and those who died on the Rainbow Bridge are among the most recent casualties.
A poorly built span in coastal Fujian province collapsed in January, killing seven and seriously injuring 18. Last summer, a $46 million highway in Yunnan province fell apart weeks after opening.
To spur the nation's slowing economy, Chinese leaders plowed $12 billion into infrastructure projects last year. Now, some fear they might have invested in time bombs that could not only cost more lives but ignite unrest as money-losing, state-owned businesses lay off millions of workers.
Frustration over unemployment and corruption continues to spark protests. One man died and dozens were injured recently when thousands of farmers clashed with police in Hunan province while demonstrating against excessive taxes.
Chinese leaders worry that the failure of more projects could make the situation worse. After the Rainbow Bridge collapse, officials in the sprawling municipal area of Chongqing -- of which Qijiang is a part -- inspected more than 300 structures. They shut down 47, including two footbridges.
"Building quality is not only a matter of people's lives, but of social stability," said the minister of construction, Yu Zhengsheng.
Qijiang, a county of 1 million people, is in Sichuan province about 900 miles southwest of Beijing. The drive from the Yangtze River port at Chongqing passes rock quarries, terraced rice paddies and groves of palm trees. Fires from brick furnaces along the roadside flicker through the dense fog, lending a Dickensian touch to the South China scene.
Wedged into the steep hillsides that line the Qi River, downtown Qijiang has the mud-spattered look of a West Virginia mining town, one jammed with look-alike, government-owned apartment complexes and filled with trucks hauling coal, aluminum and copper.
The trouble with the Rainbow Bridge began in the summer of 1996 while people were watching dragon boat races. Without warning, the span began to creak loudly, and crowds rushed to the shore for safety.
Welding joints had separated and cracks as wide as a finger appeared in the concrete. People say government officials, who refused to comment for this article, reassured them that the bridge was fine. They made no repairs.
Around 5 o'clock on the afternoon of Jan. 4, 10-year-old Huang Zhaoliang said goodbye to his father and headed across the bridge with his mother, Fang Yunxin, to do his homework at her clothing store on the other side of the river.
Two hours later, as Zhaoliang's father, Huang Guangyue, waited for their return, he received a call telling him the bridge had collapsed. He rushed to the darkened edge of the river in search of his family.
That night, he found his wife in a hospital -- dead. Two days after the disaster, police pulled his son's body from the river.
Victims' family members say the government initially tried to buy them off cheaply, offering compensation ranging from $1,700 to about $5,000 per person -- the going rate for loss of life in a traffic accident in China.
"Even an animal in the zoo is worth $5,000 or $6,000," says Huang.
A few days after the bridge collapse, several hundred relatives of victims gathered before the county government building, carrying photos of loved ones and demanding justice.
Government officials refused to allow the families to take the bodies for burial. Instead, in what many see as an attempt to quickly dispose of the matter, they insisted on cremating the remains themselves.
Keenly aware that corruption inspires hatred, Chinese President Jiang Zemin has spent the past year championing a very public crackdown on graft. Each week, the state-run press trumpets the arrest of greedy officials who are sentenced to lengthy prison terms or, sometimes, death.
'The wrong remedy'
Critics, though, say the strategy will never work because it doesn't address the causes of corruption: a one-party dictatorship.
Despite two decades of market-oriented reforms, the government still controls all the resources in China, including land. Manipulating the system for personal profit is regarded as a perk of government work.
The party's Disciplinary Inspection Committee is charged with investigating major corruption cases, but ultimately answers to Jiang. To root out graft, China's leaders would have to allow private ownership of land and a check on their own power -- the kind of fundamental change that could hasten their demise.
"They are using the wrong remedy," says one liberal intellectual. "I don't think the party even has the intention of eliminating corruption."
If that's the case, China's leaders are wildly out of touch with the nation's 1.2 billion people. In polls over the past six years, urban Chinese have consistently ranked corruption among their top three concerns. Last year, they rated it No. 2, behind unemployment.
Beijing's Horizon polling firm, which performs surveys in China's 10 largest cities, also has found strong support for what sounds a lot like democratic reform. According to the company's chief executive, Victor Yuan, college-educated people repeatedly say they want to see the rule of law, a system of checks and balances and greater freedom to publicly criticize the government.
In Qijiang, residents are exercising that right.
County officials told the families of victims not to talk to reporters, but anger overtook any fear of China's authoritarian system and many now speak in open defiance.
Despite the offer, the government has yet to pay any compensation and most people are waiting to see what happens to those who've been charged. Huang and the family members of other victims are looking into the possibility of a class-action suit.
'Nothing to do'
Huang spends his days alone in his quiet, fifth-floor walk-up apartment, trying to reconcile the loss of his family. His son's room remains much as he left it. A violin case and a small safe sit on a shelf above his desk. School notebooks filled with Chinese characters still clutter the drawers.
"They haven't admitted any wrongdoing," says Huang, 42, rubbing his swollen eyes with the heels of his hands. "There is nothing to do."
Faced with the regime's enormous power and the pervasiveness of corruption, most Chinese reach the same conclusion.
History, though, may be on their side.
Corruption contributed to the defeat of the Kuomintang, or Nationalists, by Mao Tse-tung's forces in 1949. It also led to the collapse of the last two dynasties, the Ming and the Qing.
More than three centuries ago, high unemployment and heavy taxation in Northwest China produced people such as Li Zicheng, a laid-off state worker.
In 1644, Li and hundreds of thousands of protestors marched on Beijing. After learning of their arrival, the last Ming emperor, Chongzhen, walked outside the walls of the Forbidden City, attached a cord to a tree and hanged himself.
Pub Date: 3/04/99