The scale of grief in China’s Sichuan Province is almost unimaginable as the region struggles to come to terms with the catastrophic earthquake.
In many cases, that grief is now leading to tough and embarrassing questions for Communist Party officials.
Some questions concern slow-paced rescue efforts.
Even more lasting damage to the Chinese regime may come from the anguished fury of thousands of parents whose children died when poorly constructed schools collapsed.
Nearby buildings remained standing, mute testimony to the many lives that might have been saved by much safer school buildings.
There is a lesson here for the many other developing countries where slipshod methods are also used in school construction.
Why, critics of the Chinese government ask, did the state fail to better protect the children?
It is a particularly painful question given Bejing’s stringent restrictions on child-bearing.
Chinese officials are seeking to buy time with promises of thorough investigations.
But these are likely to produce additional tales of corruption, a problem that has already brought enormous embarrassment to the government in recent years.
Many parents are also frightened about their own futures in a society that relies heavily on children to take economic responsibility for their elderly parents.
The U.S. and the rest of the world should be generous in helping the Chinese people recover from this catastrophe.
Beijing, however, should heed its internal critics and reconsider some of the policies that have made a bad situation worse.