World Watch: In China, a filthy growth
In less than two decades, China has transformed itself from a poverty-stricken nation to an economic powerhouse, but the meteoric growth has depleted the country's natural resources and produced rampant pollution and environmental degradation. This is the subject of a new book by Elizabeth Economy, senior fellow and director of Asia studies at the Council on Foreign Relations.
The River Runs Black: The Environmental Challenge to China's Future (Cornell University Press, a Council on Foreign Relations book, May 2005) examines the effect of an unrestrained, booming economy and lax environmental standards. For example, according to statistics from China's Environment Ministry, the country is home to five of the world's 10 most polluted cities. Over 25 percent of China's land is now desert, and nearly 10 percent of gross domestic product is lost annually because of environmental degradation. Economy spoke with U.S. News Associate Editor Ilana Ozernoy about the growing global concern over the world's most populous country. Below are excerpts from the interview:
On cause and effect:
It's fairly direct and concrete. One of the things that have enabled the Chinese economy to grow so rapidly over such a short period of time, but at a severe cost for the longer term, has been the relative inattention to things like labor standards and environmental standards. [But] what we are beginning to see now is that the environment is [starting] to bite back or to impinge on economic growth in a number of ways. For example, China's overuse of water now means that factories don't have enough water to run, so China estimates that it loses $28 billion a year in lost industrial output because factories can't operate [and] they lose $13 billion a year from acid rain. In Qinghai, 2,000 lakes and rivers have simply dried up over the past decade. That has enormous implications for continued economic development, for hydropower, for farmers, and for industrial development.
On air pollution:
Air pollution is one of the things that is most visible the minute that you land in China. The World Bank said a few years back that China had 16 of the world's 20 most polluted cities. You look at the capital, Beijing, for example, where they've been putting forth enormous effort to get Beijing ready for the 2008 Olympics because one of the things the International Olympic Committee was concerned about was whether or not the air quality would be suitable for the athletes. In the end, halfway to the target date, they were unable to meet their air-quality targets last year.
On corruption:
For a few decades now China has been passing law after environmental law, but the real issue is one of implementation and enforcement. For a few decades it has been development at the expense of the environment, and there really hasn't been a priority placed on environmental protection. They have an enormously difficult time implementing their laws because there really aren't the proper incentives in place. Local environmental protection bureaus are typically very weak actors within the local bureaucratic power structure. Factories evade laws. Corruption is endemic to the Chinese political system, and it certainly affects the environment. Local officials will strike deals with factories and permit them to simply dump their waste directly into the rivers or to pollute the air without using appropriate pollution-control technology.
On public health:
One of the things that most concerns the Chinese government at this point is the impact of pollution and environmental degradation on the Chinese people. First, there is the issue of public health. The World Bank estimates that 300,000 people in China die prematurely every year from respiratory disease related to air pollution. There are thousands of villages and towns along China's seven major river systems where the incidence of cancer and tumors, stunted growth, spontaneous abortion, diminished IQs [is] much higher than the norm because of the water pollution, because the soil is polluted and contaminated from heavy metals, for example. The second [issue] is migration. Chinese and western analysts estimate between 30 and 40 million people in China are going to have to migrate between 2000 and 2020 just because of environmental reasons. Finally, the environment is very often a source of unrest in the country. Over the past year, we've seen many violent demonstrations because of polluting factories or failure to compensate people.
On a possible solution:
The Chinese government knows what needs to be done. It comes down to two things: One is strengthening the environmental enforcement bureaucracy, training the people properly, funding them, and putting into place the appropriate incentives to make it worth it for people to do the right thing. The other, [which] is far more challenging for the Chinese government, has to do with reform of the Chinese political system and bringing transparency and openness to environmental protection in the country. If they don't make progress, they are quite concerned about the potential for major social upheaval.