China's Pollution and Social Change
30-minutes, 2007
Ref: 630

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Just over two decades of runaway economic growth have turned China into a by-word for pollution. While the government ineffectually tries to grapple with the country’s growing environmental problems, rising discontent among the masses augurs political changes. Reforms in the 1980s made economic growth the Number 1 priority. As a result, China is now the world’s fourth biggest economy. As Li Hengyuan puts it, “In just 20 years, China has made economic strides that it took other countries 200 years to make.” Even so, the giant leap forward has come at a heavy price. The report starts close to the city of Chongqing, on the Yangzte River. It is one of the most industrialised and polluted areas in China. Drinking water supplies for the local population are precarious at best. Some 360 million Chinese find themselves in the same boat. Luo Liquan, an entrepreneur, lost 450 tons of fish as the result of illegal dumping. His business was wiped out overnight. Six years of legal action to bring the polluting industry to justice have come to nothing. “During the case, the corrupt authorities had it in for me and made my life hell" he tells our reporters. For the dissident Hu Jia, currently under house arrest, “Environmental officials are either bribed or have shares in the factories." The second part of the report takes us to Linfen, one of the world’s most polluted cities. The country’s growing dependence on coal to fuel its industrial revolution takes its toll. Cities like Linfen will soon become the biggest source of greenhouse gases. Now residents in the area have had enough and are demanding solutions. “We have complained to the government over 60 times” says peasant leader Zhang Xinmin. “The local authorities keep promising action and say they will take the companies to task but they just sit on their arses." The chances of China cleaning up its act look slim in a country where the Law is a dead letter and the Ministry of the Environment has neither the will nor the resources to tackle the polluters. That is why grassroots campaigners are demanding a real say in how decisions are taken. For those seeking political changes in the world’s biggest dictatorship, these protests are a small ray of light amid China’s dark, satanic mills.