The Beijing News
May 23, 2008

For the five million people who are left homeless by the earthquake, tents, among many other things, are urgently needed and in short supply. Today's front page story in Beijing News reported on President Hu Jintao's visit to the tent manufactures in Zhejiang Province.

However, while President Hu is urging the businessmen to speed up production of tents, people are talking about how many of the relief tents have fallen into the wrong hands.

An article inside the newspaper reports that some tents with "earthquake relief" written on them have been spotted in various residential compounds in Chengdu, a city that is relatively unaffected by the quake. The article cited a report from South Metropolis which suggested that some relief resources have been misappropriated. The local authorities confirmed the appearance of the tents and promised to investigate.

According to another article in the newspaper, some vendors around the country are raising the price of tents in order to profit from the sudden high demand. In Beijing, some people who wanted to buy tents to send to the earthquake victims found that the items are more expensive than usual. In response, the government has said that vendors found artificially inflating the price of tents would be punished severely.