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China said Monday that it no longer would treat the death toll in natural disasters as a state secret, a step that could lead to greater transparency in a country that has a long history of providing partial or misleading data about diseases, accidents and state-directed atrocities.
The National Administration of State Secrets, a government agency that oversees the vast array of data deemed secret, announced the declassification of disaster-related death tolls, which the agency said had been carried out last month.
“Declassification of these figures … is conducive to boosting our disaster prevention and relief work,” said Shen Yongshe, a spokesman for the agency.
