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TechnoratiBEIJING - The head of China's environmental agency has blamed the rising number of riots, demonstrations and petitions across the country on public anger at pollution.
Echoing the language of the Cultural Revolution, Zhou Shengxian called for a "struggle" against polluters, and said the public refused to accept the increasing degradation of the environment.
His unusually outspoken comments underscore the frustration of state mandarins at local government officials who ignore environmental standards in order to attract investment, jobs and bribes.
Breakneck growth has turned China into a huge environmental disaster area. A soon-to-be-published World Bank report says some 500,000 people die each year as a result of pollution.
Beijing is trying to shift the economy on to a more sustainable development track. The state council - China's cabinet - tightened the water pollution law to require more testing, licensing and stiffer penalties, the state-run Xinhua news agency reported yesterday.
But factory owners who violate state guidelines are often protected by local officials. According to Mr Zhou, the state environmental protection administration chief, many plants build secret pipes to discharge polluting chemicals. Others release toxins when locals are asleep.
The China Daily quoted him as saying: "Some businesses don't rest deep in the night when they have no scruples about dumping pollution in rivers."
In a recent inspection of 529 firms along the Yellow, Yangtze and other major rivers and lakes, 44% had violated environmental laws, while almost half of the 75 waste water treatment facilities underperformed or did not work. Mr Zhou said some waterways resembled "sticky glue".
The absence of protection has stirred up discontent, he said, and prompted a growing number of "mass incidents", the term used to describe protests. He said petitions received by his agency this year were up 8%. While not endorsing protests, Mr Zhou called for local environmental officials to stand up to violators.
Demonstrations against power and chemical plants have become increasingly common in recent years. In May, thousands took to the streets of Xiamen, in Fujian province, leading to the suspension of a petrochemical plant. In 2005, police killed at least three villagers in Dongzhou, Guangdong province, while quelling a riot over a planned power plant.
Anger has been fuelled by unfair land grabs and health fears. According to the government, two-thirds of China's 595 cities now have unhealthy air.
Pollution scandals are common. Earlier yesterday, state media reported that tap water had been restored to 200,000 residents of Shuyang county in Jiangsu after a chemical spill halted supplies for 40 hours. The environment agency said more than a quarter of the seven main river systems were so polluted that the water was unfit for human contact.
The tendency towards secrecy has increased concerns. According to the FT, officials have tried to remove figures from a World Bank report that suggest up to 400,000 people in China die each year from outdoor air pollution, 30,000 from indoor air pollution, and 60,000 from water pollution. The government denies it has tried to interfere.
Guardian Unlimited © Guardian News and Media Limited 2007
11 Comments so far
Show AllI spent a month in China 2 years ago - 2 weeks in Beijing staying at a University, and the next 2 weeks traveling [following Confusious/Menchus and visiting ancient sacred sites - This was a college course, btw].
Beijing has little pollution in early summer [I chose the early trip for that reason] by August, it's intolerable. In the winter and early spring, the sand from the Gobi desert is covering every thing. The Gobi is moving towards Beijing by something like 10 miles a year because of desertification.
The people were interesting and very open. There was little evidence of heavy-handed party influence, and little discussion or interest in politics. Tianamen Square got that point across... Beijing was probably as clean as NYC, and has a wonderful subway system.
Nanjing was a different world: Capitalism was in full-bore development. Our tour guide and her husband make about $40,000 US, they own a town house and hope to buy a 2nd one. They drive a new car, and she works two jobs. Talking to her was like talking to any yuppy in LA.
The farmers around the city [beautiful countryside, btw] were being tossed out [literally] and the land sold to developers before the cook stove went cold.. If there was a Commie around, I sure never saw one.
Shanghai was the filthiest place I've ever seen. The river is unbelievably polluted and as our river tour boat made its way thru the garbage floating by, a tug and barge piled high with garbage passed us heading up river. FYI, 2 or 3 bodies are fished out of the river daily.
In Mao's Little Red Book is a quote about how long it would take to remove Capitalism from the Chinese culture. Mao expected it to take several generations, but like the rest of us, he was only alloted one lifetime.
RadicalConfucian wrote...If drinking water and breathing become a challenge I don't think the CCP will stay afloat very long.
By the CCP, do you mean the Chinese COMMUNIST Party, or the Chinese CAPITALIST Party? It seems to me that the so called Communist leadership has defected and fully embraced Capitalism. Not that it makes much difference, human greed, and the lust for power, money and domination operate regardless of the moniker we apply.
Zoya wrote...Just think of the courage it must take the Chinese to protest their oppressive system!
Just think how much more courage it will take for citizens of the US to protest their oppressive system! It seems that oppression is tolerable as long as the standard of living is high enough. See the third stanza of Paul Simon's, Have A Good Time.
Watch China carefully, people in the US have too much to loose to revolt and overthrow their government; at lest for now. That's not the case with the Chinese. What you see happening in China may well be a precursor to what will happen in the US when the situation deteriorates enough. However, that won't happen until the "good life" is gone.
What the paper calls a "demonstration" is more likely nothing less than a small scale revolt. There aren't going to be too many people parading around with banners and slogans. The authorities would pounce on them in no time. Without a democratic channel to voice their grievances, the Chinese people will either keep silent or resort to violence. Petitions are almost useless.
China also plans to order a million cars off the streets of Beijing to clear up the air before the Olympics, but that's only for two weeks.
I visited Shanghai in 1997. I wrote in my journal at the time, "The Chinese no longer bury their dead in the Yangtze river. It just smells that way." The pollution (both air and water) 10 years ago was horrible. I can only imagine how it is now.
"The people are like water and the gov't is like a boat. The water can either keep the boat afloat or capsize." -Xunzi, Warring States Period
If drinking water and breathing become a challenge I don't think the CCP will stay afloat very long.
If the Chinese are experiencing "mass incidents", that is, large groups of people protesting their squalid lives, then things are much worse than the Party is letting on.
The World Bank report is probably a gross understatement because of a lack of reliable data. There is likely a rising death rate and a decline in the growth rate not attributable to a "one child" policy, although the Party may spin the data as a success story.
It would be difficult to impossible to get accurate data to contradict the official Party view. The happy face frowns and speaks the truth only after the problem has morphed into a disaster.
Those who like to debunk overpopulation concerns should pay attention. There is a population threshold. Cross that threshold and chaos rules for which there is no political solution. China is a laboratory in which this hypothesis is being proven.
Those who imagine that China will eventually become a global super power are very much mistaken.
China is already an unreported scene of vast human misery that will only intensify. The Party and its lackeys, that elite minority that primarily benefits from capitalism with Chinese characteristics is so preoccupied by the effort to manage the anger and the anguish of the overwhelmihg mass of the population that it will remain an inward looking society as it devotes more and more of its energy to one program of social stabalization after another that will not succeed.
As we bear witness to the collapse of Chinese society we can find a message there about our own, but this message might just as well be written in Chinese. Our own Party is oblivious.
Just think of the courage it must take the Chinese to protest their oppressive system!
Singer and song writer Paul Simon summed it up pretty well in 1975 in his song "Have A Good Time".
Paranoia strikes deep in the heartland
But I think it's all overdone
Exaggerating this and exaggerating that
They don't have no fun
I don't believe what I read in the papers
They're just out to capture my dime
I ain't worrying
And I ain't scurrying;
I'm having a good time
Have a good time
Have a good time
[these lyrics are found on http://www.songlyrics.com]
Have a good time
Have a good time
Maybe I'm laughing my way to disaster
Maybe my race has been run
Maybe I'm blind to the fate of mankind
But what can be done?
So God bless the goods we was given
And God bless the U. S. of A.
And God bless our standard of livin'
Let's keep it that way
And we'll all have a good time
Repeat and fade:
Have a good time
Have a good time
Have a good time
Have a good time
Sound familiar?
Crapping in ones own nest? Even animals know better. But the human greed animal thinks that crapping on anothers nest is OK.
Wasn't it Jack Welch, of GE fame, who said the ideal capitalist factory would be a powered island, moving its polluting bung hole to the shores of third world nations, bringing the .50 cents an hour labor on board for their shifts, and sending them home to a filthy enviroment, until the place was so far gone that it was now time to fire up the engines and find another place to exploit?
Yeah - think I'll go shopping -
We all live downstream. Their pollution is going to go outside their borders more and more. The air pollution from their coal plants, and hundreds more of planned future ones, drifts over the US and around the world. Not as if the US is very pristine but their pollution does affect us.
Seems like yet another harsh cost of globalization, the increased trade is driving a lot of their "growth" and "development"/destruction of Earth, combined with what US corporations already do around the world makes it look like complete doom for this planet.
Why is it so hard for people to respect and take care of their own home/the planet?
Wow, the people of China are like us. I believe they are just as concerned about the quality of their land.