BEIJING: China is placing disaster resilience higher on its development agenda, with President Xi Jinping stressing that disaster prevention, mitigation and relief should be viewed from the strategic perspective of both high-quality development and high-level security.
Xi, who is also general secretary of the Communist Party of China Central Committee, made the remarks on Tuesday while presiding over a group study session of the Political Bureau of the CPC Central Committee.
He called for efforts to enhance China’s capacity to prevent and respond to natural disasters, and to effectively safeguard people’s lives and property.
The emphasis comes as climate-related disasters are becoming a growing challenge to global development. The World Meteorological Organization has said that 2015 to 2025 were the hottest 11 years on record, while the United Nations Office for Disaster Risk Reduction has warned that the true cost of disasters could exceed $2.3 trillion a year when wider economic ripple effects and ecosystem damage are taken into account. China, with its vast territory, complex geography and diverse climate conditions, is prone to frequent natural disasters, Xi said.
According to official data, natural disasters ranging from freezing conditions to earthquakes affected about 750,800 people in China in the first quarter of this year, causing direct economic losses of 1.04 billion yuan ($152.2 million). Xi stressed at the meeting that reducing disaster risks as well as minimizing losses hinges on preventive steps before disasters occur. He said that safety and resilience requirements should be integrated into territorial spatial planning and various construction plans, and that safety standards for critical infrastructure in major cities and disaster-prone areas should be raised in a reasonable manner.
Xi also called for firmly upholding bottom-line thinking and worst-case-scenario thinking, and for continuously improving the country’s capacity to respond to major disasters and catastrophes.
Continuous efforts should be made to strengthen monitoring and early-warning systems and refine emergency response plans, he said.
China has launched a number of key projects in recent years to tackle core technologies and strengthen disaster prevention and mitigation. As a result, its disaster response capacity has continued to improve, enabling the country to effectively cope with major natural disasters, such as Super Typhoon Yagi in 2024, while significantly reducing casualties.
Emphasizing on Tuesday the need to strengthen scientific and technological support and legal safeguards for disaster response, Xi urged efforts to promote technological and industrial innovation in the emergency management sector.
He also called for improving grassroots emergency rescue systems and raising public awareness of and preparedness for disasters.
Chen Zhenlin, head of the China Meteorological Administration, said at a news briefing on Tuesday that extreme weather amid global climate change is affecting food security, energy security and global industrial and supply chains, while also threatening human survival and development.
“No country can remain immune from global climate change, which is a common challenge facing all humanity,” Chen said. “Practice has shown that meteorological early warning is a highly effective measure that requires relatively low investment and delivers quick results.”
According to Chen, since 2024, nearly 1,000 people from more than 100 developing countries and regions have received training in China on early-warning technologies, and national meteorological agencies in more than 40 countries are already using the cloud-based services of China’s MAZU — multihazard alert, zero-gap and universal — early-warning system. –The Daily Mail-China Daily news exchange item
