Beijing Briefs

View of Mandarin Oriental in central business district, Beijing

A fire that erupted Monday around 8:30pm in downtown Beijing was started by fireworks set off during a light show organized by Chinese state television station CCTV to celebrate the last day of Chinese New Year celebrations. The ensuing blaze lit up the sky in something far grander than the usual lanterns and fireworks that clutter the sky. Authorities have confirmed that the fireworks used for the CCTV show were too powerful for a construction site and unsuitable for the urban environment where they were set off. According to authorities, the station had been denied permission to set them off. Policeman were ignored after they tried to stop the show.

The building, just north of the new CCTV headquarters, was the unfinished Mandarin Oriental Hotel. One firefighter has died and seven other people were injured. The entire debacle is not only a major PR disaster for the state-owned TV station, but it has also forced Beijing citizens to reconsider a ban on fireworks in Beijing.

For two weeks straight now the city has been under siege, it’s attackers thousands of firecrackers and fireworks. Over the Spring Festival holiday Chinese nation-wide are given temporary permission to set off fireworks in approved areas. Ask any Chinese person on the street and they’ll tell you this is a centuries-old tradition. Ask any foreigner on the street and they’ll tell you there is no apparent restriction on fireworks, which often ricochet off everything, from apartment windows to sidewalk trees.

A long tape of explosives set off on a side alley downtown

Another explosion downtown Beijing

From 1993 until 2006 fireworks were banned in urban areas, but authorities eased up, granting certain areas permissible in 2006. The last official day for fireworks was set for this last Monday, and as I set off to the scene of the fire, the firework police were lurking in the shadows, in large numbers ready to arrest anyone still firing crackers past midnight.

A Chinese newspaper, the China Youth Daily, published commentary presenting one side of so-called Chinese sentiment: that allowing citizens to set off fireworks shows the authorities’ respect for social, cultural and traditional customs. The article goes on to say that the solution shouldn’t be to ban fireworks, but rather to beef up Beijing’s emergency services.

This is just half the story, the other side being that CCTV is now the brunt of a jeering Chinese online community, pointing out the fact that while the fire was started by the station, it failed to report on it. According to University of California’s China Internet Project, many Chinese have expressed frustrations in online forums about the lack of transparency at the state TV station in covering stories like recent milk scandal.

Whether the subject of ridicule, or just a blaring sign that something needs to change, it’s clear this blaze has, ironically, instigated change for the New Year. But not the kind of change anyone anticipated here in Beijing.