Imagethief

And that is exactly what your selection of items did, and why I reccommended it.

Sometimes a coherent narrative isn't necessary to get a sense of an event, especially an anxious and frantic event. A well chosen set of snapshots can do a very good job of it.

It's hard for me to tell you exactly how I would have handled the Harbin crisis as a PR expert because I don't have access to all the information, including the critical "what did they know and when did they know it?" question.

However, I will tell you that as a general rule, honesty and forthrightness are almost always the best approach in crisis management, and generally the core of the advice we give our clients. That is how you maintain trust, which is important if you want people to follow your advice. From what I can see, the Chinese people at-large generally have a fair degree of trust in their government, especially when it motivates to tackle crises. That's a valuable asset, which the government should not squander.

Which is exactly what it did by initially denying the pollution story and offering up some pablum about "testing". That was not credible, and the people in Harbin knew it. The absence of solid information and guidance allowed rumors to flow.

That was exceedingly dangerous because water is a necessity of life and when the supply is threatened people will become extremely anxious very quickly.

In brief, and off the top of my head, I think the government should have been honest about the problem as *soon* as it knew there was an issue. It should have explained why the water supply was being cut off, and why this was necessary to protect the safety of Harbin's citizens. At the same time it should have explained comprehensively what it would do to supply the citizens of Harbin (and other affected towns) with water in the interim, and where they should turn for more information. And it should provide regular updates on status and findings. This wouldn't have prevented a run on supermarkets, but it would have prevented rumor and speculation and minimized the damage to trust in government.

I realize the concept of "trust in government" is at odds with the idea of "what they can get away with". This is the perennial conflict of the Chinese government, which has an unfortunate tendency toward opacity that does not do it credit. Frankly, it's a miracle people trust the government here to the extent that they do. Ultimately people trust a government that they believe is operating in their interests. Any time a government abuses that trust, credibility is lost. At first glance, I'd say they took a knock on this one. But they can recover if they manage the aftermath well.

Note that this is PR advice, not operational advice. Operationally, I would expect the government to be arranging emergency water supplies the moment after it realized the quality of the river water was in danger. How it manages distribution and maintains public order are beyond the scope of my experience.

This is an interesting topic. Perhaps I'll devote a post to it. I'll have to think about it some more and see if there is precedent elsewhere in the world that I can look at.