The U.S. Pacific Command is mobilizing to bring supplies to victims of China's killer earthquake in Sichuan. Two U.S. military C-17 Globemaster aircraft based in Hawaii are slated to land today at Chengdu airport loaded, with pallets of food, water containers, blankets, lanterns, generators and hand tools. 

Beijing's being quite candid about its need for help with the relief effort in Sichuan -- and unusally receptive to offers of international assistance. After initially declining offers of foreign relief personnel - the same policy stand that Burma's generals first took after Cyclone Nargis hit - China's leaders last week reversed that decision.

They welcomed a Japanese team of firefighters, police, coast guard and relief officials -- a noteworthy step given the prickly state of Sino-Japanese relations until recent moves towards rapprochement climaxed with Hu's recent state visit to Tokyo, the first by a Chinese president in a decade. The Japanese were joined by Russian, South Korean, Singaporean, and Taiwanese rescue experts as well. On the weekend the Russian rescue experts were able to free a quake survivor from the wreckage, the first to be rescued by a foreign team.

 But they're not in the right place at the right time, and the battered conditions on Sichuan's roads means just getting them close to the disaster zone will be a huge logistical exercise. "This is only a beginning of this battle, and a long way lies ahead of us," Vice Health Minister Gao Qiang told reporters in Beijing.

The government's remarkably frank appeal stands in stark contrast to its response to China's 1976 Tangshan earthquake which killed hundreds of thousands of people in northern China. People's Liberation Army soldiers arrived on the scene in droves, but lacked appropriate machinery, experience and training to mount a swift and effective rescue effort. Nonetheless, the extent of the disaster was covered up for years, and China's paranoid Maoist leadership refused all offers of international assistance.

Now Chinese officials must feel gratified by the outpouring of grassroots volunteerism and domestic charity in the wake of the Wenchuan quake.  "Ordinary people are engaged in an unprecented humanitarian drive," said Prof. Gong Weibin of the School of Government Administration, "I was in a taxi where the driver said he'd donated blood for people in the stricken area. That moved me deeply."

    In the quake zone, the highway from Dujiangyan to the provincial capital of Chengdu, our colleague Mary Hennock saw the road thronged with vehicles driven by volunteers ferrying injured to Chengdu hospitals.  Outside Dujiangyan's collapsed market, a chain of young adults with yellow ribbons tied round their wrists held hands Woodstock-style to keep back distressed spectators. The Communist Youth League (CYL) - a nationwide party network that nurtured many top leaders, including President Hu - organized volunteers at rescue sites. Mu Jin, an economics student taking part in the human chain, said, "We're all trying our best to help."