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Page added on January 29, 2013
China’s environment: An economic death sentence
The hazardous conditions in Beijing and northern China is merely of one many wake-up calls for the Chinese government. Will it be enough to spark change?
For a long time, environmental activists, economists, and China scholars have warned about the coming environmental disaster in China. Such a catastrophe finally appeared in the most dramatic form in mid-January, when a thick layer of poisonous pollutants smothered much of northern China and made air in Beijing hazardous to breathe.
For the Chinese government, this was merely one of many wake-up calls. The question on everyone’s mind is whether Beijing will finally muster the political will to implement policies to avert an ecological calamity that will almost certainly spell the end of the Chinese economic miracle and potentially lead to the fall of the Communist Party itself.
Judging by the numbers, the scope of China’s environmental degradation is beyond shocking. Consider:
- The World Bank estimated, in a 2007 report, that pollution caused 5.8% of China’s GDP in premature deaths, health care costs, and material damages. Air pollution alone is estimated to kill 700,000 people a year.
- A 2012 MIT study estimated that air pollution in 2005 cost the Chinese economy $112 billion in lost labor and healthcare costs, roughly five times higher than it was in 1975.
- In 2010, airborne microscopic pollutants caused an estimated 8,600 premature deaths in four major Chinese cities: Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, and Xian.
- According to a Chinese vice minister of environmental protection, the water quality in five of the nine bays along China’s coast was “extremely poor.” Results from monitoring stations along 10 major river basins show that 40% of the water is polluted. And 55% of the underground water in 200 cities is polluted. On top of that, about 300 million rural residents do not have access to safe drinking water.
- Soil pollution is endangering China’s food chain. Roughly 10% of the country’s arable land has been contaminated by heavy metal, based on scientific studies conducted in the late 1990s. In 2006, the Chinese government began a nationwide survey of soil pollution. However, it has not released the results, most probably because the findings are too alarming for the government to release.
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Given decades of environmental neglect and China’s heavy reliance on coal — which produces 70% of the country’s energy — it would be difficult to produce a dramatic improvement quickly. Nevertheless, the Chinese government can take a comprehensive approach to environmental protection by adopting tougher environmental standards, changing their economic policy, increasing investment in the environment, and mobilizing the press and civil society to take part in these efforts.
Retrofitting the country’s coal-fired power plants with modern pollution control technology should cut down the emission of harmful particulates significantly. Adopting a higher clean-fuel standard for cars and other vehicles, which now contribute to the bulk of urban pollution, will almost certainly make a difference. Gasoline and diesel used in Chinese have much higher sulfur content than the fuel used in the West. And if authorities in China took enforcement of existing environmental regulations more seriously, they could also make a huge impact, as local authorities and Chinese companies routinely violate such rules to cut costs.
China also needs to shift its economy away from energy-intensive sectors, like the country’s fast-growing, mammoth steel industry, and toward more energy-efficient, high-tech, and service industries. Today, China produces 720 million tons of steel a year (46% of the world’s total), consuming hundreds of millions of tons of coal and discharging massive quantities of pollutants in the process. Another example is China’s automobile industry. After years of spectacular growth, China now has the world’s second-largest automobile sector (after the United States). The number of motor vehicles on Chinese roads is close to 230 million (including 110 million passenger cars). A slimming-down of these high-energy industries will likely yield another measurable improvement in China’s environment. Of course, China will bear significant transition costs with factory closures and job losses in these industries, but such restructuring can help expand labor-intensive and greener sectors, such as health care, tourism, and professional services.
China also needs to step up its investment in its environment. At the moment, China spends $91 billion a year, or 1.3% of GDP, on environmental protection. This is far from adequate. To remedy the consequences of past under-investment, experts believe China needs to spend 2-4% of GDP on its environment.
Unfortunately, these policy improvements — strict enforcement of environmental standards, a shift in industrial policy, and an increase in environmental spending — will not make a fundamental difference unless and until the Chinese government becomes more forthcoming and transparent and allows the media and civil society to play a far more active role in environmental stewardship. A sad and well-known fact intimately tied to China’s environmental disaster is its government’s secrecy and deception in dealing with pollution. Local authorities routinely cover up environmental disasters and fail to give timely warnings of toxic spills to the public. The central government in Beijing has been reluctant to release adequate pollution data, as they consider such information politically sensitive. Without transparency and candor, the Chinese government risks losing political credibility and public confidence, if it has not already done so.
One bright spot on China’s environmental front is the growing aggressiveness and activism of the media, non-governmental organizations, and ordinary citizens. More and more, Chinese journalists and NGOs have been doing the hard work of exposing environmental scandals. And Chinese citizens have become less tolerant of the policy of “economic growth at all cost.” In recent years, residents in several cities have successfully blocked the construction of multi-billion dollar polluting projects. Riots and collective protests sparked by pollution are now among the fast growing “mass incidents” in China.
To be sure, adopting environmental measures may be politically difficult, especially for a new leadership that is confronting challenges on all fronts. But the alternative would be too calamitous to contemplate. Horrendous humanitarian and economic consequences aside, business as usual on the environment could even spell the end of the Communist Party’s rule. The Chinese middle-class, which is particularly conscious of quality-of-life issues, could very well become a powerful source of opposition to the party if it concludes that the one-party state is responsible for their daily miseries: poisonous air, toxic water, and unsafe food.
The case for decisive and quick action is compelling. The question is whether China’s ruling party will actually act, both for the long-term survival of the country and itself.
Mixnin Pei is a professor of government at Claremont McKenna College and a non-resident senior fellow of the German Marshall Fund of the United States.
31 Comments on "China’s environment: An economic death sentence"
Plantagenet on Tue, 29th Jan 2013 9:14 pm
The author misses the obvious—-China should reduce its coal use the same way the US has reduced its coal use—by shifting to natural gas.
GregT on Tue, 29th Jan 2013 9:54 pm
If the US manufactured all of the consumer goods that they currently import from China, they would not have such a huge surplus of NG.
BillT on Wed, 30th Jan 2013 1:25 am
Looks like Pittsburgh, PA in the 60s.
The per capita use of coal is still greater in the US than in China. We use about 20% MORE coal per person than China and China now makes most of the goods sold here and in much of the world.
These articles are part of the new ‘war’ on China. You will read all kinds of negative ‘news’ about China as the Empire ramps up it’s hate China propaganda campaign. Keep it in perspective. China is 1,328,000,000 people to our 312,000,000 or about 4 times our number.
BillT on Wed, 30th Jan 2013 1:28 am
BTW: Planet, when the gas bubble bursts, which it will, the US plants will go back to coal. They use the cheapest fuel no matter how dirty.
DC on Wed, 30th Jan 2013 1:28 am
Hey, China, the US is on the phone, they want their smog and coal pollution back!
LT on Wed, 30th Jan 2013 3:22 am
Smog means money!
The more smog is produced, the more money china makes, and the higher china’s GDP!
It is a POSITIVE FEEDBACK LOOP at work!
Arthur on Wed, 30th Jan 2013 5:14 am
It is premature to announce a Chinese Century. 1300 million people are a handicap, a burden, not an asset. Who is going to feed these people, keep them warm in all these mega-cities in overpopulated eastern territories? Wait until the dragon gets into real domestic trouble, than it will behave exactly like 1941 resource starved Japan and try to expand. This time not Indonesia but Australia, provided they can create means of transportation by that time. After all, a plastic pedal bin is not a Liberty ship. Mayby Obama can station a fleet again in Pearl Harbor and if he is lucky it will get attacked. Neocons love New Pearl Harbors as witnessed in their PNAC documents.
BillT on Wed, 30th Jan 2013 5:22 am
Since the Chinese can live on rice and fish (farmed of course) they will manage. After all, they don’t have to cross oceans to expand. They are only a small part of a huge continent. And they have military to waste. Ever watch ants?
Whereas, the US is sandwiched between two stormy oceans and can only expand into Canada and Mexico. There is not much food in either place to feed the meat hungry hord when the mid west becomes a desert.
GregT on Wed, 30th Jan 2013 5:50 am
Just as the Mexicans have already been migrating northward into the US, I see the same happening with Americans into Canada. The next couple of summers should be a good indication of how long it will take, but my guess is within ten years.
Arthur on Wed, 30th Jan 2013 8:57 am
The US is slightly largers than China, yet has four times fewer people. China has far more desert NOW than the US. China can only expand into empty Mongolia, that cannot defend itself, like Tibet. Other neighbours like Russia and India are nuclear armed. As Greg says, the US neighbours empty Canada, that is larger than the US. If a Chinese can survive on a bowl of rise, so can an American… and lose a few pounds.lol Hey, I am living on one sober meal a day and still am three kilo heavier than I would like. No, the cards of the US population are far better than those of China, in the long term, even after the fall of the Bretton Woods dollar, when the US will be forced to address its endless deficits and has given up on empire military industrial complex and retreats in an isolationist mode and closes its borders.
BillT on Wed, 30th Jan 2013 1:17 pm
Really Arthur? And when the Midwest turns back into a desert in a few years, and the climate changes dry up the water for California’s garden economy. Then what? The Mississippi is already drying up. The Great Lakes are going down. The big aquifers are low and will soon be gone. Rain patterns are erratic and making growing any crops difficult. The Us imports 20% of their food today. What happens when they cannot?
And, yes Canada has a lot of land but most of it is worthless for any but the strongest wilderness types.
Do you think that the countries of S.E. Asia can stand against China? Or Even Russia? Yes, both are nuclear countries, but they will come to some agreement over land use. India is already a basket case so they will go around and let them starve. There are a lot of countries before they get to Europe when they head west, and then there is Africa.
Australian agriculture is dying. That will be a desert country soon.
I think that China is in much better position than the Us to weather the climate changes coming.
Hubard on Wed, 30th Jan 2013 1:40 pm
I love BillT’s usual Asia-centric rants. What happened to you Bill to make you so bitter about the US? Did IRS come after you?
Arthur on Wed, 30th Jan 2013 2:31 pm
Bill, I am sure the US has problems as identified by you, but I do not think the Mid-West or California will ever turn into another Gobi desert. In fact the largest US strategic asset has always been its large territory and food producing capabilities, that were decisive in winning both WW1 and WW2, combined with Anglo food blockades of Germany. Americas problem is too much food, not too little.lol The US can halt enormous amounts of food exports before food shortages will become a problem for the US itself. I stick with opinion that of all global players, the US holds the best cards for survival of its own population.
BillT on Wed, 30th Jan 2013 2:39 pm
Hubard, is reality too difficult for you to accept? I’m on the outside of the cage looking in after 60 years. I see the monkeys and how they are interacting in ways they cannot see.
Am I Asia-centric? I happen to live there now along with about 1,000,000 other Americans who also see reality close up. I also see Asia from a closer, clearer view point than the monkeys. The news does not have the mind bending spin here. Or at least not the same spin and volume.
China is not perfect, but they are holding most of the cards today. At least all the aces and face cards. The Us holds the jokers and a few low numbers. Europe holds a hand in between. Japan is out of the game.
So, how do YOU see America’s next few decades?
BillT on Wed, 30th Jan 2013 2:42 pm
Arthur, see “America’s Dust Bowl” for my reasoning and then look at today’s statistics on the area. We/they are headed for the same only this time there will be no coming back. The conditions are totally different than they were 80 years ago.
BillT on Wed, 30th Jan 2013 2:44 pm
BTW: Hubard…I was never even audited in my 50 years of paying US taxes. Does that answer your insinuation? The US Embassy here knows where I am. I checked in with them when I moved here. I get info e-mails from them regularly.
Arthur on Wed, 30th Jan 2013 3:14 pm
Answering Bills question to Hubard:
Life in India other South-Asian countries like Bangladesh and Pakistan is going to be very bad.
Then comes Africa, with Egypt most vulnerable.
Next comes China. Simply too many people and not enough resources. Intelligent and disciplined work force is an asset though.
Then South-America, which is not too overpopulated, and has a mild climate and a European upper layer. No major catastrophe to be expected here.
Next Europe. No resources except its population. Overpopulated: 500 million on a territory maybe half of that of the US, but huge Eurasian, thinly populated hinterland and dependence for resources on Russia. For this reason Russia will slowly replace the US as Europe’s most important partner. NATO is a leftover of the post WW2 period and is gradually becoming obsolete, as there are no pipelines under the Atlantic.
Russia. Good long term prospect. Endless resources that can be traded with European high tech and Chinese low-tech. Has the ambition and good prospects to become the worlds largest bulk food producer.
US. Best long term prospects, but will face a crash in the short term, could even temporarily fall back to Ukraine levels. The NWO will fail, initiated by the fall of the dollar after the rest of the world will no longer accept this currency after the US prints too much of them. This step will probably initiated by China, Russia, Iran, South-American nations. The US will be forced to abandon empire and foreign basis and isolationalism. Protectionism will enable US industry to recover within a decade or two. A major risk is ethnic troubles, but can be countered via devolution and halting immigration.
Kenz300 on Wed, 30th Jan 2013 3:23 pm
The Cuyahoga River in Cleveland, Ohio US caught fire and helped to spur the environmental movement of the 1960’s and 1970’s .The 1969 Cuyahoga River fire helped to initiate water pollution control activities in the US.
The recent pollution in China and the growing environmental movement there may be the turning point for China.
It the world is going to address Climate Change China will need to reduce its sources of pollution and move away from coal.
They have shown an increasing interest in alternative energy sources in their latest 5 year plan. We will see if they have the will and determination to tackle the problem.
Arthur on Wed, 30th Jan 2013 3:31 pm
I largely agree with this German army produced food security map:
http://energyskeptic.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/09/German-peal-oil-food-security-map.bmp
Arthur on Wed, 30th Jan 2013 4:18 pm
Just watched this video. This Greg Hunter does not look like your average sensationalist internet kook:
http://lewrockwell.com/orig13/hunter-greg8.1.1.html
2012 US fiscal deficit $6.9T!
Expects major global $ sell-off in the next 2-3 months.
Tip to countries like Iran or Syria… if the US invades do nothing, absolutely nothing, do not fight back, do not use IEDs, give roses to the soldiers, wave, applaud, airkiss, anything. They will start mutany after a few months as they get no paychecks from Washington, once the selloff has started. But… insist to be paid in local currency for services.
Your welcome))
GregT on Wed, 30th Jan 2013 6:27 pm
Arthur,
A great deal of our produce and meat comes from the US. The droughts from last summer, coupled with a tripling in energy costs over the last decade have increased our food costs by a factor of 2. The quality of our produce has diminished, and some items are not often available. Starting from last summer, we even have produce being imported from China in our supermarkets.
The word in the media is that we are to expect massive hikes in meat prices due to the cattle cull in Texas last year. Water shortages are becoming problematic in the grain belt in the US, and the Ogallala aquifer is drying up.
Unless trends dramatically change, I personally do not see food production in the US as being very secure in years to come.
LT on Wed, 30th Jan 2013 8:01 pm
Put politics aside, just concentrate on environments/land/water and food production capability, I would rank:
The USA is still number 1, the best!
The Federation of Russia and Canada are number 2.
Europe number 3.
Australia and South America number 4.
…
Last line is for both India and China. Go ask any Indian or Chinese to see if (s)he wouldn’t want to live in America!!! 🙂
BillT on Thu, 31st Jan 2013 1:29 am
LT, why are so many educated Chinese returning to China today? Because they have better opportunities there. You Western-centric jokers are in for a big surprise, I believe.
My friends here have a sister living in CA with her engineer husband who works for Apple. She has a daughter in private school. She plans to return to the Philippines for her daughter to go to the high school here because of the low level of discipline and morals in the US. THAT is the view that Asians have of America. Many will leave as the screws tighten. Wait and see.
DC on Thu, 31st Jan 2013 1:38 am
The US ability to produce all the low-quality psuedo-food that is does currently is directly tied to only 3 things that matter.
1) Massive subsidies to Big-Ag, No further elaboration should be required.
2) The US ability to print funny money and import the oil in which to fuel, literally, all that corporate mono-cropping. As the amount the oil the US can import, or afford shrinks, so will all those Big-ag amerikan ‘surpluses’. (US is a net food importer Arthur)
3) The Ogalla aquifer (midwest breadbasket) and the Colorado
River (California+SW desert region).
Which of these 3 things are problematic now, or will soon be?
#1 is not under any threat-barring economic collapse.
#2 …..vulnerable now, more so than any time in recent history. We talk about the symptoms all the time here! PO.COM!
#3 Both water systems mentioned are under a lot of stress. And many others in the US besides.
#3.5-Erratic weather is a wild card. Even the mighty US agro-corps with there veggy liable laws and paid enforcer thugs ala Monsanto, can do much about that if the weather turns against them.
LT on Thu, 31st Jan 2013 2:07 am
Mr.DC,
I agree with what you said. But that is because of America’s excessive life-style, which means, there is a lot of room to scale back if hard time comes.
As an example, People in America use fresh water (the water we use for washing meat, vegetables, showers…) just to water their lawns!!!
Or, when a baby pee pee just a tea cup of urine into the toilet, people still flush it it 3-4 gallons tank of fresh water.
Indian peasants and Chinese peasants would cry if they see it.
LT on Thu, 31st Jan 2013 2:29 am
Mr. Bill T:
I am neither pro-West nor pro-East. I like fairness.
As I said before and repeat now: Although America is not a paradise nor a perfect country, it is still better than many, many other countries, especially the communist ones.
Immorality, Crimes, drugs, violence, ….for these things… people will learn and find way to improve it over times. Peak oil will help in this aspect when things will be scaled back.
The bottom line is: Wherever one happens to live, personal self-reflection is more meaningful and lasting than material possession, which must be left behind once one departs from this world.
GregT on Thu, 31st Jan 2013 4:20 am
“Wherever one happens to live, personal self-reflection is more meaningful and lasting than material possession, which must be left behind once one departs from this world.”
How true.
Unfortunately, material possession tends to cloud personal self-reflection and spirituality. Maybe that is why so many people are afraid of losing business as usual, and returning to a more meagre existence.
LT on Thu, 31st Jan 2013 5:12 am
“Unfortunately, material possession tends to cloud personal self-reflection and spirituality. Maybe that is why so many people are afraid of losing business as usual, and returning to a more meagre existence.”
>> This happened due to
1. the discovery of oil and uranium, and 2. low population in the USA and Canada.
3. Vast and fertile lands in these two countries.
The USA and Canada are still very young countries and are still in transient mode. But as times go on, and as fossil fuels and other resources are getting less and less. Things will change. And people will have to learn (the hard way, though). People shall, more or less, pay a price for their own ignorance. Life is not for making a living, although we have to work to have food to live. But life is, after all, to learn to understand our own selves. Do we really understand ourselves yet? People knows life is too short, then why spend so much energy and efforts to possess so many things in just a short life span, and then others will take over it?
I have said too much today. 🙂
Arthur on Thu, 31st Jan 2013 8:29 am
@DC
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economy_of_the_United_States
the United States is a net exporter of food. With vast tracts of temperate arable land, technologically advanced agribusiness, and agricultural subsidies, the United States controls almost half of world grain exports.[136] Products include wheat, corn, other grains, fruits, vegetables, cotton; beef, pork, poultry, dairy products; forest products; fish.
Again, I know the US are going to financially collapse soon, along the lines this older gentleman from shadowstats.com predicts in the lewrockwell.com link with Greg Hunter as host, see post above. I was talking about the long term perspective. The US will relatively recover, within the limits of resource depletion, that apply globally. I was talking about area, population density, resources, climate, population skills. And all these factors are *relatively* favourable for the US. The US will probably manage to write off a lot of its debt in return for giving up on the reserve currency status of the dollar. The US will be able to make a fresh new start once it has thrown off the yoke of its own imperial ambitions, scale back on the military, exchange free trade for balanced trade and strive for autarky rather than global dominance and unsustainable dreams of ‘American Century’. There is a multipolar world emerging that is not going to be American, nor European, nor Chinese.
Arthur on Thu, 31st Jan 2013 10:24 am
http://original.antiwar.com/justin/2013/01/29/the-american-empire-rip-2/
“Our own CIA – never a friend to the neocons, but that’s another story – avers this condition is the single greatest threat to our national security: not Iran, not terrorism, but the very real threat of national bankruptcy.”
DC on Thu, 31st Jan 2013 3:37 pm
Yes, Arthur, I am aware that the US, for now, dominates Ag. But Again, I stress its ability to do so is almost utterly dependent on Oil, and water yes. US corporate ag is criminally wasteful of both fuel and water. Fuel is becoming more expensive, and water supplies are depleting AND degraded. This is occurring while the US continues to add 1 million moths to the table every single year.
At the point the US loses its ability to print money to buy oil, the Ag-system will also collapse. The math does not favour amerikan-ag any more than it favours fuelling 200+ million gas-burners on the 5.5 mbpb the US can actually produce vs the nearly 20 mpbd they are blowing in the atmosphere now.
I honestly dont know how the US will deal with its essentially dead soils, depleted and degraded water supply and fuels and fertilizers it can no longer afford. If the US had say, only 150 million moths to feed instead of 315+, AND wasnt trying to put the worlds farmers out of business with its subsidzed mono-crop\coercive free trade system, then yes, I would agree,some form of food stability might be possible. However, my own feeling is that all the benefits you list are real, but they come form the past! All those very real advantages have been largely squandered. We both know this. Trying to recover from a collapse with the degraded resources that are actually there now, will be, I think, not possible.
The only reason the level of degradation in the US is not as apparent as it is, is the US can continue to mask the fact by importing resources from the rest of the world, and ruthless suppression of dissenting views in the US itself. Criticizing the food system in the US is jailable offence. And there much to criticize. If the US food system is so secure, I cant help but wonder, why so many laws then shielding Corporate food from outside scrutiny?
I think that is a valid question to be asking yes?