Progress?

The 'New York Times' reports that the Chinese government has admitted that poor construction may have been responsible for a lot of the deaths in the Sichaun earthquake. However, it is blaming, "the rush to build schools during the country's recent economic boom"1 rather than corrupt officials giving contracts to their "friends" and "families" and in the process also accepting bribes. Still, it is rare for the government in China to admit that cutting corners exists and one wonders at what even this limited confession might lead to. Interesting too is the fact that despite the government trying to order the news media to stop reporting on the schools collapsing even 'Xinhua', the state news agency, is continuing to do so.2 The article in the 'New York Times' goes on to write that "grieving parents or families of survivors will have a hard time suing construction companies or local governments, a well-known civil lawyer said in an interview on Thursday."3 Of course, they will, nevertheless, it might be interesting to follow their attempts to do so. What we do have, at least for the time being, is the government confessing shortcomings, lawyers taking the government, albeit local government, to court and the state news agency not following government orders.
1 http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/05/world/asia/05china.html?hp
2 http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/05/world/asia/05china.html?pagewanted=2&hp
3 Ibid