Environmental Problems In China

“The Great Wall may not, after all, be visible from space – but Chinese air pollution is.”

Angel Hsu, 2012. The Guardian

I – INTRODUCTION

China has become the world’s factory, but also its chimney. In its race to re-produce the Industrial Revolution that made the West rich, China has encompassed most of the major industries that once made the West dirty. Driven by strong state support, Chinese companies have become the dominant makers of steel, coal, aluminum, cement, chemicals, leather, paper and other goods that addressed high costs, including tougher environmental rules, in other parts of the world.

This welcome of polluting industries has triggered China’s economic rise. Very high growth rates have done less to improve people’s standard of living when the threats to the air, land, water and human health are considered. Old production equipment will have to be repurchased or retrofitted at high cost if the country attempts to reduce pollution.

The level of pollution China has reached is a matter of interest to both the Chinese people and the rest of the world. Although environmental damage is not exclusive of China, its case is very remarkable. This happens due to the magnitude of the problem and the challenge it poses to the country and to the international system.

To the pressure Chinese population has been putting on for millenniums on the environment, it must be added the unprecedented acceleration of the last half century, which is product of the economic growth and industrialization. In this country, where the population

increases by 10 million people a year, the effect of this growth on the environment is inevitable when meeting the needs of a population of over 1,300 million. The outstanding economic growth, achieved in recent decades, has provided a significant increase in the standard of living of hundreds of millions of Chinese people, but has also unleashed an environmental disaster.

The Chinese leadership recognizes the scope of the problem and seeks corrective solutions. However, the priority of maintaining high growth economic rates has postponed the implementation of crucial solutions that could affect the path of the economy. The necessity to find a balance between economic development and ecological care, like the one reached by other countries with high demographic density and industrial development, is an unfinished business in China. In fact, although in general terms Chinese leaders recognize the seriousness of the ecological problem, a great number of them accept the theory that environmental degradation is a necessary evil that accompanies economic development, and that the reversion of the pollution (I mean, the cleaning of the environment) will eventually have to be at some time.

Some economists suggest that China is an excellent test case for the theory known as the “environmental Kuznets Curve” (EKC). The EKC holds that the relationship between environmental quality and economics growth is an inverted U-shape, according to which environmental conditions deteriorate during early stages of economic growth but begin to improve after a certain threshold of wealth is achieved. This can be seen in the figure below.

Figure 1: Environmental Kuznets Curve

Internationally, China has played an important role in the organizations responsible for addressing environmental problems. However, this has not been showed into more effective measures as required by such a pollution this country holds. Specifically, the main source of environmental pollution is coal, but the country remains out of the Annex 1 from the Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, which means it does not accept commitments to reduce carbon dioxide emissions established by the Kyoto Protocol.

II – HOW IMPORTANT IS THIS PROBLEM?

One may wonder whether this issue really matters and if it is as significant as I am saying. I am going to provide some examples to reinforce my statements.

In November 2005 the chemical spill in the Songhua River in north central China resulted in shutting off the water supply to the city of Harbin (a city of 3.8 million of people).

In April 2005, the New York Times reported on a riot in the southeastern province of Zhejiang where a crowd of up to 60,000 people protested of pollution from chemical plants by burning police cars, smashing windows, and injuring more than thirty government workers.

In July 2005, the New York Times also reported another environmental incident in Xinchang, a city 290 km south of Shanghai, where an estimated 15,000 people rioted for three days “in a pitched battle with authorities, overturning police cars and throwing stones for hours, undeterred by thick clouds of tear gas.” They protested of a ten-year-old pharmaceutical plant.

The Times reported that there are 74,000 incidents of mass protest in China in 2004.

III – THE OFFICIAL VIEW OF CHINA ON THE ENVIRONMENT

During the early years of the People's Republic, China's leaders argued that pollution and environmental degradation were the result of capitalism, and socialism did not contaminate; held that capitalism encouraged the pursuit of short-term utilities, which directly and negatively impacted to the environment. By contract, socialist central planning was seen as a mechanism to facilitate decision-making that fit the long term needs of the society with their environment. This perspective, loaded with a high degree of dogmatism, began to change in 1972. In that year the Chinese leaders, who participated in the Stockholm Conference on the Human Environment, admitted that no system was immune to the problems of resource depletion, environmental pollution and ecological imbalance. Over time, the Chinese leadership has accepted that these problems may be even more severe in China than in other countries.

Chinese press published the opinion of Yang Chaofei, chief engineer of the Ministry of Environmental Protection, who acknowledged that the ecological environment of China is degrading in its general functions and in its ability to bear natural disasters. Yang said that about 90 percent of the grasslands of China are being degraded at various levels, and the desertification of the land has grown by 52,000 square kilometers in just the five-year period 1994 – 1999. Meanwhile,

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