Wed, Aug 18, 2004 page9

• China's industrial revolution a great leap into polluted water

  The country's bounding growth has resulted in rivers full of industrial and human waste, and air pollution which kills an estimated 400,000 people a year

  • By Jonathan Fenby / THE OBSERVER
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  For all the imagery of cloud-shrouded mountains, rocky gorges and graceful rivers, China has never paid much attention to preserving its environment. Taoists advocated going with the natural flow but, from the early emperors to chairman Mao Zedong (毛澤東), the emphasis was on mastering nature -- both from necessity and as a symbol of man's superiority.

  Now the battle between the world's most populous nation and its environment has reached an unprecedented pitch, posing fundamental questions for the leadership in Beijing.

  Experts calculate the price of the damage China's environment is suffering at from 5 percent to 12 percent of GDP -- the flip side of its emergence as a world economic power. On one side lies the bounding growth -- official figures show a 9.7 percent rise in the first half of this year -- on the other is a looming major disaster.

  There are still vast swathes of untouched countryside; huge areas in the south-west and many mountain ranges. But, for many of China's 1.3 billion people, the cost of growth is already all too evident.

  Rivers are full of industrial and human waste. Forests essential to the ecosystem have been felled for timber, grasslands are being ploughed up. Desertification is spreading through northern provinces.

  Sandstorms blow through Beijing. Demand from factories and urban housing developments accentuate long-standing water distribution problems. Big rivers have had dry spells, while the building of the Three Gorges Dam on the Yangtze river has created a huge lake in which parasitic worms dangerous to humans are endemic.

  In a survey of China's environment challenge, Elizabeth Economy of the Council on Foreign Relations in New York reports that 60 million people have limited access to water; 10 times as many drink contaminated water.

  The movements of tens of millions from the countryside in search of work in rapidly expanding cities puts a major strain on urban infrastructure while the explosive growth in the use of cars and trucks adds to air pollution.

  Forty percent of the rural population lack sanitation and the dangers of epidemics were shown dramatically by the spread of SARS.

  The government has launched plans to try to turn back the degradation and pursue sustainable development. But too often the effects have been limited. Officials report a successful outcome when investigation shows major difficulties remain.

  In encouraging the move from Maoism to the market, the patriarch Deng Xiaoping (鄧小平) devolved the job to local officials who frequently have investments in factories, giving them a vested interest in not applying too strictly regulations that could reduce output. Equally, it is easy for them to tip off factory managers when an inspection is due.

  China produces an estimated 60 billion tonnes of polluted water a year. The saga of the Huai river, as recounted by Economy, is an example of how things go wrong. The size of England, the fertile Huai valley is home to 150 million people. Under Mao, 200 dams were built to stop flooding -- 200,000 people drowned when two collapsed in 1973.

  After Deng changed China's course at the end of the 1970s, tens of thousands of factories set up along the river and its tributaries. In 1994, some tanks were emptied into the river, flooding it with toxins, turning the water black, killing more than 11,000 tonnes of fish and making thousands of people ill. Five thousand factories were shut down; half subsequently re-opened.

  "Towns and villages continue to build small paper mills, dye works, tanneries and chemical works with crude equipment," a local environmental officer reported. A clean-up campaign began in 1998. As it got going, waste again turned the water black. In 1999 and 2000, the Huai river ran dry for the first time in 20 years.

  In 2001, the State Environmental Protection Administration declared the water good enough for drinking. A local expert found it was not even suitable for irrigation. Only six of 52 planned treatment plants had been built.

  Torrential rains that summer sent 143 billion liters of water flooding over locks, covered with yellow foam, garbage and industrial waste. Another campaign was ordered, but in last year the water was still unsuitable for drinking, fishing or even, in some cases, industrial use. The clean-up cost is now put at US$100 billion.

  In the south, roads in booming Guangdong Province are lined with mounds of industrial garbage and stagnant pools. The water by one site used to strip and burn circuit boards contains lead levels reported to be 2,400 times higher than World Health Organization drinking guidelines. In Lanzhou, capital of Gansu Province, the water has to be so heavily chlorinated that the local beer is virtually undrinkable.

  From the summit of Shanghai's tallest building, the city 100 floors below can barely be seen through the haze. In Hong Kong, air pollution is boosted by the industrial zones across the border.

  Nowhere is the problem worse than in the energy industry that struggles to keep up with insatiable demand. Coal-fired stations provide 75 percent of China's electricity. Cheaper to build than nuclear plants (and China has plenty of coal), as well as smoke, they emit dioxins and other pollutants that cause acid rain and breathing disorders estimated to kill 400,000 people a year.

  After half a dozen Chinese cities were ranked among the 10 most polluted on Earth in the late 1990s, the government launched a clean-up campaign. From 2000 to 2002, levels dropped, but last year showed a 12 percent increase.

  The prime reason is the sheer scope of development and things are made worse by spotty enforcement of pollution controls; it is often cheaper to pay pollution levies than to refit plants with cleaning equipment. Even more coal is likely to be used after recurrent energy blackouts, including a 30,000-megawatt shortfall, the worst for two decades. Adding to that are the hundreds of millions of homes using coal.

  China's neighbors are suffering. In South Korea, estimates put the share of air pollution originating in China at up to 40 percent.

  There is also speculation that the effects may be felt in the US -- sand from the desertification of northern China is known to have crossed the Pacific. China is a signatory to the Kyoto Protocol, though, in its present state of development, is not bound by it.

  Its leaders claim a dedication to environmental improvements, yet action has been, at best, halting. Optimists hope that, as the country gets richer, it will give more power to environmental agencies. The present situation, they argue, is the natural outcome of its fast-track development. Pressure from abroad will also come as Beijing integrates more closely into global markets.

  For a country so focused on material progress, ecological degradation takes second place. The regime's calculation that growth is the route to legitimacy gives economic factors great political weight. Some figures in the hierarchy of the world's last major Communist nation appreciate the need for environmental reform. The irony is that, for all the monopoly power of the Party, change is becoming increasingly difficult, with terrible effects for the country itself, and a growing threat to others as well.

  Jonathan Fenby is a former editor of the South China Morning Post in Hong Kong and author of Generalissimo: Chiang Kai-shek [蔣中正] and the China he Lost.
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