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Despite blatant issues, China still has a political agenda to try and prove their safety concerns. A rare seen expression of caution for this week’s current event, Chinese Reject Imported Meat.
China has been blatantly putting its goals for economic growth at a premium while ignoring possible negative externalities. It is the policies themselves that in effect have further divided and created a rocky situation for China’s future. It is caused by the mess of being decentralized, having split urban and rural policies, locked in low-end industry, globalization and a division of benefits in which the exploitation of resources isn’t even evenly split among the rural and urban citizens. There have been changes in policy but no actual direction in enforcement.
Even though I study Chinese (Mandarin), I’ve always talked it down as being such a big opportunity. Since I had studied abroad there, China has always stood out as having a list of unresolved issues. They might have the money to make the Olympics in 2008 look good for Beijing and China but the issues are real and intense. It can be overlooked in the new and be a lot to follow. Most people see China as a land of growth and opportunity but with limited resources, social unrest, and the recent scandals with botched products there are still many obstacles to overcome. Each year there are more and more protests reported and recorded by the central government. You can assume underreporting and poor documentation of these things anyways. Recently over 70,000/yr. major protests were recorded. There is a high level of uncertainty with China. Hopefully these quotations can evaporate the dream clouds that many see over China.
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If you observed with your naked eye it would be hard to believe that 19 per cent of the surface water is polluted; this is fed by the untreated 82 per cent of used water that is discharged into the surface resources (Leeming, 19).
Leeming, Frank. The Changing Geography of China
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Arable land and fresh water in China are so scarce the country is thought to be approaching the limits of an environmentally sustainable economy. It is estimated to have only 2484 m3 of fresh water per person compared with 7744 m3/person for the world average, and only 0.08 ha of arable land per person compared with a world average of 0.26 ha/person (Jackson and Sleigh, 224).
Jackson, Sukhan and Adrian Sleigh. “Resettlement for China’s Three Gorges Dam: socio-economic impact and institutional tensions.” Communist and Post-Communist Studies 33(2000): 223-241.
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A sign of change?
China’s leaders recognize that they must change course. They are vowing to overhaul the growth-first philosophy of the Deng Xiaoping era and embrace a new model that allows for steady growth while protecting the environment. In his equivalent of a State of the Union address this year, Prime Minister Wen Jiabao made 48 references to “environment,” “pollution” or “environmental protection.” Although good to hear that problems are receiving government lip service, the Chinese government hardly has the track record of following through.
As China Roars, Pollution Reaches Deadly Extremes - New York Times
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Yeah right!
Provincial officials, who enjoy substantial autonomy, often ignore environmental edicts, helping to reopen mines or factories closed by central authorities. Over all, enforcement is often tinged with corruption. This spring, officials in Yunnan Province in southern China beautified Laoshou Mountain, which had been used as a quarry, by spraying green paint over acres of rock.
As China Roars, Pollution Reaches Deadly Extremes - New York Times
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But China is more like a teenage smoker with emphysema. The costs of pollution have mounted well before it is ready to curtail economic development. But the price of business as usual — including the predicted effects of global warming on China itself — strikes many of its own experts and some senior officials as intolerably high.
As China Roars, Pollution Reaches Deadly Extremes - New York Times
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An internal, unpublicized report by the Chinese Academy of Environmental Planning in 2003 estimated that 300,000 people die each year from ambient air pollution, mostly of heart disease and lung cancer. An additional 110,000 deaths could be attributed to indoor air pollution caused by poorly ventilated coal and wood stoves or toxic fumes from shoddy construction materials, said a person involved in that study.
As China Roars, Pollution Reaches Deadly Extremes - New York Times
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For the Communist Party, the immediate challenge is the prosaic task of forcing the world’s most dynamic economy to conserve and protect clean water. Water pollution is so widespread that regulators say a major incident occurs every other day. Municipal and industrial dumping has left broad sections of many rivers “unfit for human contact.”
Water Scarcity Threatens China’s Future - Environment - New York Times
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Today, the region, comparable in size to New Mexico, is parched. Roughly five-sixths of the wetlands have dried up, according to one study. Scientists say that most natural streams or creeks have disappeared. Several rivers that once were navigable are now mostly dust and brush. The largest natural freshwater lake in northern China, Lake Baiyangdian, is steadily contracting and besieged with pollution.
Water Scarcity Threatens China’s Future - Environment - New York Times
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Water in Shijiazhuang, which has more than 800 illegal wells, is as scarce as it is in Israel, he said. “In Israel, people regard water as more important than life itself,” he said. “In Shijiazhuang, it’s not that way. People are focused on the economy.”
Water Scarcity Threatens China’s Future - Environment - New York Times
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China’s authoritarian system has repeatedly proved its ability to suppress political threats to Communist Party rule. But its failure to realize its avowed goals of balancing economic growth and environmental protection is a sign that the country’s environmental problems are at least partly systemic, many experts and some government officials say. China cannot go green, in other words, without political change.
As China Roars, Pollution Reaches Deadly Extremes - New York Times
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The New York Time is doing a special on this particular issue. It’s nice to finally see some intense reporting on something I’ve been advocating on. I hope to get back there (to China) and to expand my knowledge of all the changes
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