On May 12, 2008, a massive earthquake struck China's Sichuan province, leaving eighty thousand dead or missing and millions homeless. In the disaster's wake, China's government presented a new face to the world, permitting increased media coverage, accepting international aid, and expressing sympathy for the quake's victims. Was this the beginning of a new openness in China? And what is the future for the people of Sichuan? China’s Earthquake examines these questions through the stories of four survivors.

Sichuan TV reporter Zhang Qian finds herself in the middle of the disaster zone, filing her first ever uncensored live reports. China watches transfixed as she interviews Chen Jian, a twenty-six-year-old trucker who had been pinned down by massive concrete slabs for three days. Lin Hao, a nine-year-old, becomes China's hero for rescuing two classmates near the quake's epicenter. Another survivor, Sang Jun, mourns his eleven-year-old son who perished when his school became one of the twelve thousand that crumbled in the quake. When distraught parents push for investigation, the government appears initially cooperative, but soon retreats behind its former veil of secrecy, demanding media to halt coverage of the story. Devastated citizens are left wondering what happens next, and whether the transparency that emerged following the disaster was simply a fluke.