MCLC: 'beautiful China'

[Denton, Kirk]

MCLC LIST
From: kirk (denton.2 at osu.edu)
Subject: 'beautiful China'
***********************************************************

Source: The Guardian (3/18/13):
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/mar/18/campaigners-sceptical-china-env
ironment-changes

Activists voice doubts over politicians' vow to 'build a beautiful
China'Premier Li Keqiang says China should not pursue economic growth at
expense of the environment
By Jonathan Kaiman in Beijing

Officials at Beijing's stately National People's Congress, an annual
conclave held by China's political leadership, were full of promises to
"build a beautiful China" of blue skies and pristine rivers – promises
which, as the air in adjacent Tiananmen Square settled into smoky grey,
critics derided as more talk than action.

In early March, the deputy foreign minister, Fu Ying, said the conference
would "revise and improve" the country's environmental protection
legislation, adding that she keeps anti-pollution face masks for herself
and her daughter.

At the end of the NPC on Sunday, premier Li Keqiang told reporters that
China "shouldn't pursue economic growth at the expense of the environment
<http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/china/2013-03/04/c_132206837.htm>".

Yet China's environmental policy remains as it was when the conference
began two weeks ago. Fu did not provide a timetable for revisions, and Li
did not describe how the government would follow its own advice.

"They always speak eloquently about how the environment should be
protected," said Li Bo, head of the Beijing-based environmental NGO
Friends of Nature. "But as soon as there is an issue dealing with whether
to protect the environment or give the go-ahead to a specific development
project, the development initiative wins."

Popular anger about China's poor environmental record has reached fever
pitch within the past few months. Beijing spent much of this winter
smothered in record levels of smog.

Authorities recently revealed that the country's soil pollution levels are
classified as a state secret, and more than 13,000 rotting pig carcasses
were discovered last week in a river that cuts through Shanghai and
supplies tap water to more than a fifth of its people.

This weekend, almost a third of delegates to the NPC refused to
rubber-stamp a fresh batch of environmental committee appointments,
suggesting that the issue has become as unbearable among some government
officials as it has among ordinary
<http://www.globaltimes.cn/content/768697.shtml#.UUaQ81tLUwM> people.

Out of 2,944 delegates, 850 voted against the new lineup of the congress's
environmental protection and resources conservation committee; another 125
abstained. According to the South China Morning Post, the delegates
"greeted the result with a long boo". Zhou Shengxian was re-elected as the
minister of environmental protection
<http://www.scmp.com/news/china/article/1192581/new-environmental-team-booe
d-amid-pollution-woes>after spending five years in the position.

Ma Tianjie, the head of toxics campaign at Greenpeace East Asia, said that
despite the lack of concrete anti-pollution action at the congress, bold
environmental legislation may yet emerge over the next five years as new
leaders acclimate to their roles and cement their alliances.

"Because they're changing a lot of positions at the top, they have been a
bit cautious in revealing their agenda," he said. "The problem is not that
the top doesn't get it – they have got it for a while now. The problem is
with lower level authorities, whether they can translate that kind of
top-level consciousness to actual actions on the ground."

Yet some official responses at the meetings belie the question of who,
exactly, will lead the charge. The deputy environmental protection
minister, Wu Xiaoqing, refused to answer a question about soil pollution
at a tightly scripted press conference
<http://blogs.wsj.com/chinarealtime/2013/03/15/china-environment-ministry-n
ot-breathing-easy/>on Friday.