China's latest woe: locusts

BEIJING - First there was the freak snowstorm in February. Then the Tibetan riots in March. Then in rapid succession the controversial torch relay, Sichuan earthquake, widespread flooding and an algae bloom that's tarnishing the Olympic sailing venue. Just when it seemed that nothing else could go wrong this year in China, the locusts have arrived.

Locusts? What is going on here? The litany of near-biblical woes would only seem to lack a famine, a plague and smiting of the first born.

The Middle Kingdom's parade of problems has threatened to put a major damper on China's moment of glory less than five weeks before the start of the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games.

Authorities have been working overtime to tackle, contain and spin their way out of each setback. But the sheer volume of calamities would challenge any government, let alone one that has staked so much on pulling off the perfect Olympics.

Last week, China sent out an all-points bulletin for exterminators. About 33,000 professional pest killers were dispatched to Inner Mongolia in hopes of preventing a cloud of locusts from descending on Beijing during the Games.

The vermin have eaten their way through 3.2 million acres of grassland in three areas of the countryside near Beijing. With the Chinese leadership in no mood to take chances, some 200 tons of pesticide, 100,000 sprayers and four aircraft have been thrown into this battle of the bugs.
China is no stranger to disasters, natural and man-made. But such a concentration of woes in this high-profile year has fanned rumors and superstition in a nation where people pay huge sums for lucky license plate numbers and feng shui consultants do a booming business.

China sought in advance of next month's Olympics to bank as much good luck as possible. The opening ceremony begins at 8:08 p.m. on the eighth day of the eighth month of 2008. Eight is considered a lucky number among the Chinese because in the language the number and "prosperity" sound alike.

The government also built the Olympic Village on a meridian directly north of Tiananmen Square and the Forbidden City, consistent with core feng shui principles.

These supplications to the gods of fortune by an officially atheist Communist government, however, apparently weren't enough. This year has also seen rising prices, a falling stock market, a foot-and-mouth disease outbreak and a major train collision.

The slaying of six policemen in Shanghai last week and a riot involving up to 30,000 people in Guizhou province, southwest of Beijing, after the mysterious death of a high school girl have raised fears of more problems to come.

"There's no such thing as luck, these are just natural disasters," said Zhao Shu, a researcher in the Beijing Literature and Historical Research Institute. "These rumors will be disproved over time."

But some say the government may share the blame.

"Even as they decry rumors and superstition surrounding all this bad news, they laid the groundwork with their focus on 8s and by calling the torch a sacred flame," said Zhou Xiaozheng, a sociology professor at People's University in Beijing.

"What can you do?" said Liu Feng, a 39-year old salesman. "Some people are superstitious, and some are not. China always has disasters."