Man is bound to conquer nature' is one of the celebrated phrases of Mao Zedong. Yet how the Chinese have suffered dearly because of his misguided and disastrous policies, including the Great Leap Forward, in which millions of mainlanders perished.
Now President Hu Jintao preaches his theory of scientific outlook on development, trying to ensure policies are made based on scientific calculations instead of leaders' whims.
But Mao's spirit lingers on.
As the snow that has paralysed much of the northern and central provinces now advances menacingly south, serious questions have been raised over the authorities' reckless propensity to tinker with nature, and lack of preparedness and co-ordination to deal with disasters.
More specifically, mainlanders are asking whether the snowstorm could have been partly triggered by a few eager weather officials trying to induce snow to ease the drought, but the scheme got out of hand.
Why haven't officials learned from their disastrous handling of last year's snowstorms and tried to do a better job preparing and dealing with this snowfall, which is considerably less severe?