A message of unity in the face of adversity was prominent in state media and on the streets of the hard-hit city of Shifang. Huge billboards stood in the shopping district in the center of the city, showing pictures of the quake's damage, including collapsed buildings and injured people. A huge slogan read: "Everyone come together with one heart."

In nearby Xinhua, a community of farmhouses and low-rise apartment blocks, a dozen soldiers milled around the protesting crowd of farmers, while others guarded the government office.

State-run media, which conducted unusually probing reporting in the first days after the May 12 quake, shifted to a more positive tone. Deng Yaping, four-time Olympic gold medalist in table tennis and a national hero, was shown on state TV talking to children in the city of Mianyang, where many refugees had been taken from nearby mountains.

"This is the traditional way of doing things for the Communist Party's propaganda department. They always try to use the information to legitimize the government, and don't try to reflect, summarize experiences or prevent disasters from happening again," said Li Datong, the ousted editor of a once-thoughtful weekly supplement to the China Youth Daily newspaper.

With the torch relay for the Beijing Olympics set to resume Thursday after its mourning-period hiatus, the government appeared set on getting the country back on track for the Aug. 8-24 games. No mention was made whether the government's spending cuts would affect the Olympics, although most construction is already finished.

A need for a tighter grip and a stronger government response is especially urgent in the smaller, rural communities of quake-shattered Sichuan. Distrust of local officials seen as corrupt and indifferent is already high in such areas across China, causing protests to soar in the past decade.

Families in at least two towns where schools collapsed and killed their children have protested or threatened to take local officials to court, suspecting shoddy construction.

Their cries amplified by state media under the freer constraints last week touched off a national outcry over chronic underfunding of schools, poor construction and corruption. Newspapers ran reports saying seismologists previously predicted a massive quake in Sichuan and raised questions whether the government failed to warn people. Web sites ran comments accusing local officials of taking relief supplies for their relatives first.

Such suspicions were evident in Xinhua. "I've been waiting here for two hours for a tent and the government hasn't told us anything. The local government has really been useless," said a woman surnamed Chen who refused to give her name because she was afraid of government harassment.

No government officials turned up to talk with the farmers, who mixed their anger at the officials with praise for the soldiers.