Samclem, you might want to just admit you had a brain fart of epic proportions, and then email a mod to have this thread closed.
Maybe, you’re kinda confusing Maoist China with the China of today. I can understand how that’s easy to do. Or maybe confusing Maoist China and modern Myanmar, and they are neighbors at least.
In reality, the 20k Zillion dollars is really about $200B (maybe it’s up to $300B, I don’t remember) in foreign reserves. It’s not that hard to look up. And since China has more than a billion people, that’s about $200/person.
According to Bloomberg: Just 5 percent of the more than $20 billion of damage from the quake in Sichuan province is covered by insurance, according to estimates from an official at the China Insurance Regulatory Commission.
China has mobilized 120,000 troops into the earthquake zone. The majority of the earthquake zone is in the Aba Tibetan and Qiang Autonomous Area, which is an impoverished and extremely rugged mountainous area that makes the Appallacia (sp?) look wealthy and flat. Most areas hit by the quake are reachable only via helicopter or on foot since *all * the roads have been wiped out.
Wen Jiabo, the Chinese Premier, was in the earthquake zone IIRC that same evening (quake was at 2:33 pm local time). Chinese President Hu Jintao arrived on Thursday (Friday?). [How long did it take the FEMA chief to go to NO?]
Unsubstantiated reports put the civilian volunteers at least as many as the troops. I’ve seen the outpouring of civilian aid in Shanghai - from medical personel traveling to the zone, volunteers collecting donations, blood drives, etc.
The amount of money raised within China keeps rising. IIRC the last news I saw was about $400M in donations. The multinational I work for in China has about 1,500 employees. Local employee contributions were over $200k in 72 hours, which was matched by corporate. Corporate also kicked in some additional cash.
The Chinese government has earmarked aid, and keeps raising the amount. Not up to a billion yet but will be. and that doesn’t count the actual cost of the relief effort going on as I type this.