First Quake-Related Lawsuit in China

The first Sichuan-quake-related lawsuit is being filed. Briefly there seemed to be a promise of Chinese glasnost after the Sichuan quake, with an unusually open Chinese government; then the openness stopped, and it was back to business as usual. And obviously, no one noticed this more, or suffered more as a result, than the people of Sichuan Province.

Far from being a cynical celebration that another nation has joined the U.S. in litigiousness, I welcome this as a test to see if China is a modern state, a nation of laws and not of men, with citizens entitled to demand redress from their government for shoddy buildings that took human lives. If it is indeed the People's Republic of China, they should be.