China's donation of school buses to Macedonia has been inspiring public outrage and ridicule online, where most residents have described the gift as hare-brained given their country's inferior safety record as well as a recent unfortunate crash that killed 19 preschoolers.

The Chinese government's gift of 23 buses was bestowed Friday at a ceremony in Skopje, Macedonia's capital. Newscasts of the endowment set off a wave of outrage.

Many inquired as to how China could make the donation to a foreign country when Chinese schools have to deal with substandard transportation. Foreign Ministry spokesman Hong Lei would not comment on the online uproar but he said that the buses were given under a previous 2010 agreement.

According to Hong Lei, China had agreed to considerable amounts of foreign aid, including support from Macedonia, during a major earthquake in Sichuan in 2008 and was now merely imparting assistance of its own.

The donation comes less than two weeks after the accident concerning preschoolers; an accident that has drawn attention to the state of persistent underfunding of school systems. The accident took place when a minivan-turned-school bus with 54 people aboard crashed into a truck in a rural area of northwest China.

Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao guaranteed Sunday that new safety rules would be draw up within a month and said both central and local governments will bear the cost of bringing buses up to a higher code.

This shows how the authoritarian government can be so out of touch with the public. While that has not carried weight in the past, it simply will not do in this Internet age.

A statement from the Chinese Embassy in Macedonia about the buses was still accessible online Monday, although a similar statement had been eliminated from the China's Ministry of Foreign Affairs Web site.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/chinas-school-bus-donation-macedonia-derided-045917945.html