CONTAMINATION AND BLIGHT IN THE MARKET PLACE - Page 1
January 25, 2008 @ 3:41 PM
Laws control the lesser man. Right conduct controls the greater one? (Chinese proverb)
A SLEEPING GIANT AWAKENS
China is one of the world’s oldest civilizations, consisting of states and cultures dating back more than six millennia. It has the world’s longest continuously used written language system, and it is the source of some of the world’s great inventions, including the Four Great Inventions of ancient China: paper, the compass, gunpowder and printing.
Since 1978, the People’s Republic of China (PRC) government has been reforming its economy from a Soviet-style centrally planned economy to a more market-oriented economy while remaining within the political framework provided by the Communist Party of China. This system has been called “Socialism with Chinese characteristics” and is one type of mixed economy. The People’s Republic of China now has the fourth largest economy in the world when measured by nominal GDP. Its economic output for 2006 was $2.68 trillion USD, and although its per capita GDP in 2006 was approximately only US $2,000 (quite low by world standards) it has been rising rapidly. As of 2005, 70% of China’s GDP was in the private sector. The smaller public sector is dominated by about 200 large state enterprises concentrated mostly in utilities, heavy industries and energy resources.
PRICE OF PROGRESS?
China’s mercurial rise to economic power has been the fastest industrialisation in history, with the past six years of growth equating to double the total annual economic output of India. This growth has taken close to 400 million people out of poverty in China, but the environmental impacts have been nothing short of devastating.
More than half of China’s 1.3 billion population, including 278 cities, live without any form of sewage treatment, and eight of those cities have populations of more than 500,000. It has become the world’s top emitter of acid-rain causing sulphur dioxide and many analysts expect it to overtake the United States this year as the biggest greenhouse gas emitter. This pollution has taken on greater urgency as Beijing tries to clean up its notoriously toxic air before hosting the 2008 Olympics next August.
EXPORTS IN EFFLUENCE
Pollution is hitting the two major Chinese rivers (the Huai and the Yangtze) as well as all of their tributaries. Control points stretched along the waterways reveal a level of pollution equal to 5 (on a scale of 7) or worse: in many cases, the waters are so polluted that physical contact is advised against. According to Mao Rubai, chairman of the National People’s Congress (NPC) environment and resources protection committee, the volume of waste pumped into China’s rivers is “enormous”. This situation is directly related to the fact that water pollution standards for the country’s industries are either too low or nonexistent, and the sheer volume of toxic waste pumped in far exceeds the capacity of the river basins to replenish themselves.
Either way, whatever controls and limits imposed by the government are generally completely ignored by the industries. The South China Morning Post in Hong Kong cites as an example the Jinyuan chemical company on the banks of the Han River. Operating since the 1970s, it has collected numerous official complaints from local authorities, which have frequently ordered the cessation of all production and the application of government standards for waste treatment. Yet Jinyuan has never stopped production, not even for one day.
