With US absent, China steps in to help earthquake-hit Myanmar

Beijing dispatches medical workers, quake experts, field hospital workers, rescue dogs

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BANGKOK/BEIJING - After a 7.7-magnitude earthquake shook Myanmar on March 28, killing more than 3,000 people, foreign rescuers rushed into the devastated South-east Asian country.

The most ubiquitous among them have been Chinese relief workers, whose blue-and-orange uniforms appear across videos circulating on social media.

The posts are often accompanied by expressions of gratitude towards Beijing, whose first responders — as well as their Indian and Russian colleagues — have pulled dazed survivors and bodies out from the rubble of hotels, schools and monasteries.

The reaction marks a change in the negative reception that China often receives on Myanmar's social media because of its support for the unpopular military junta.

America's chief geopolitical rival has so far pledged to deliver 100 million yuan (S$18.4 million) worth of supplies. The first batch of aid, including tents, blankets and first-aid kits, arrived in Yangon on March 31, Beijing said.

The US, which was until recently the world's top humanitarian donor, has offered a relatively modest US$2 million (S$2.7 million). Washington also said it would send a three-member assessment team, though their arrival has been delayed by problems obtaining visas from the military regime.

In past years, when tsunamis, earthquakes and other disasters struck around the world, the US had regularly and rapidly deployed skilled rescue workers to save lives.

The American absence this time shows how President Donald Trump's moves to slash the size of the US government has hobbled its ability to act during disasters, three current and former US officials told Reuters.

With Mr Trump's blessing, billionaire Elon Musk's Department of Government Efficiency has enacted huge funding cuts and contractor terminations across the federal bureaucracy in the name of targeting wasteful spending.