ESTH Report

The Fading of Chinese Environmental Secrecy

A report from U.S. Embassy Beijing March 1998

Summary: Despite a 1989 law requiring regular environmental reports by all levels of Chinese government, local governments kept environmental information secret until 1997 when 27 cities began making weekly air pollution reports. A 1997 World Bank report co-authored by Chinese experts pointed to severe health effects of pollution in major Chinese cities including Jinan, Chongqing and Beijing. The central government had great difficulty in persuading local governments, fearful of embarrassment and popular discontent about worsening environmental conditions, to issue the regular reports on local environmental conditions required by the 1989 Environment Law. Some local Environmental Protection Bureaus are still more open than others. Some cities like Shanghai report the concentration of sulfur dioxide, nitrous oxides and particulate levels. Other cities such as Beijing report the concentration of the one pollutant of the three which has the highest Air Pollution Index (API), a scale unique to the PRC. Environmental secrecy not only dulled public awareness of the problem but has also deprived government policy-makers and scholars of the accurate information needed to find the most appropriate, lowest-cost solutions to the very different pollution problems faced by various Chinese cities.

Limitations such as little manpower (NEPA has only 400 employees), weak financial resources (the central government has only seven percent of all PRC government spending), poor coordination horizontally with other agencies and vertically with nominally subordinate environmental protection bureaus, all combine to make it difficult for the PRC National Environmental Protection Administration (NEPA) to get reliable information about the environmental situation throughout China and to see that local governments enforce environmental laws and regulations. For example, only in December 1997 was NEPA able to conclude that township and village enterprises, which contribute half of PRC GDP but have been excluded from NEPA statistics for lack of information, accounted for half of all PRC pollution. The NEPA strategy to improve environmental law enforcement is to use media reports on pollution to form an environmentally-aware public opinion that will put pressure on polluters and local governments. The fading of environmental secrecy appears to be part of a general opening trend. Chinese scholars and even some political leaders have referred to 1997 the �third period of ideological liberation? after 1978 and 1992. A February 1997 PRC magazine article referred to here and available in full on the Embassy Beijing EST section web page reflects local government resistance to openness on environmental matters and the determination of NPC Environment Chairman Qu Geping to see that environmental laws and regulations are implemented throughout China. Two recent PRC books examined in the bibliography place the new openness in environmental matters in the context of the general opening of Chinese society. End summary.

Environmental Law Required Reports to the Public: Eight Years From Enactment to Implementation

Concern by local and some national-level officials about public reaction to news of the worsening of environmental conditions has delayed implementation of the 1989 PRC Environmental Law which requires regular environmental reports by all levels of government until 1997. The 1989 PRC Environmental Law stipulates �The departments with administrative responsibility for environmental protection of the State Council, each province, autonomous region and municipality directly subject to the central government should periodically publish reports on the environmental situation? The State Council has for several years issued annual reports about the state of the environment in the PRC. Local governments however, with the notable exception of Shenyang in China�s northeast, have long resisted informing their citizens about local environmental conditions.

1997 Brought Much Greater Openness on Air Pollution

A big change came about during 1997. A Guangdong Environmental Protection Bureau (EPB) official told ESTOFF in September 1997 that air quality figures for Guangdong cities were confidential until publication began in 1997. During 1997, twenty-seven cities began weekly air pollution reports. Beijing began weekly air pollution reports on February 28, 1998 just before the opening of the National People�s Congress in early March. (Ref A also http://www.redfish.com/USEmbassy-China/sandt/bjplca.htm Other related reports are on the EST subpage at http://www.redfish.com/USEmbassy-China/sandt/sandt.htm). Some cities, including Beijing, report only the API number corresponding to a pollutant concentration of one three major pollutants measures. Pollutants measured are sulfur dioxide, NOx and total particulates. The API number for the pollutant that scores the highest on an Air Pollution Index (API) unique to the PRC is released for the weekly report to the mass media. Beijing also reports the top API figure among the three pollutants at seven monitoring stations in the urban districts of Beijing. Other cities, like Shanghai, report the API of all three pollutants. The API index can be converted into a concentration per cubic meter and then compared with values for other cities and with literature on pollution health hazards using the method explained in Appendix two. See Appendix One for a list of WHO and U.S. healthful exposure limits to sulfur dioxide, nitrous oxides and total suspended particulates.

Chinese Experts Co-Author World Bank Report on Air Pollution Health Risks

Chinese and World Bank experts worked together on the China portions of the late 1997 China air pollution and health study �Can the Environment Wait??The report, which links air pollution to many cases of bronchitis and other respiratory ailments, was published in China in late 1997 and reviewed favorably the national health newspaper [Zhongguo Jiankang Bao] and other papers. According to the World Bank report �Can the Environment Wait?? eliminating pollution above WHO guideline levels would cut annual premature deaths by 10,000, chronic bronchitis cases by 81,000 and events of respiratory symptoms among the seven million inhabitants of Beijing�s urban district by 270 million symptoms each year.

Comment: Rising Public Concerns About Air Pollution and Health

Given the growing concern of Chinese people about the effects of air pollution and the obvious, although indirect criticism of Chinese under-investment in environmental protection in the report, the publication of the World Bank report is another sign of rapidly increasing PRC openness on environmental matters. Air pollutants are becoming a great public concern in China, not for their effect on climate change but for their effect on human health. Air pollution epidemiology is one field that can take advantage of newly available air quality data to help PRC policy-makers address air pollution problems more effectively.

PRC Pollution in Fifteen Year Perspective: Particles Down Sharply But More Autos So Nitrous Oxides Up

Snapshot descriptions of Chinese environmental problems often fail to bring out real progress made in some areas over the last two decades. Shenyang, not only well-known for pollution but also much more open about it environmental problems than most cities, is among the cities which have made the most progress. The barrier forest belts of northern China as well as the planting of large numbers of trees has sharply reduced the desert dust blowing into northern cities. A 1993 NEPA publication, �Twenty Years of Environmental Monitoring in China?provides year by year annual comparisons of total suspended particles (TSP), sulfur dioxide, and NOx levels in Chinese cities. According to NEPA between 1981 and 1992 the average TSP in northern cities fell from 900 to 400 mcg per cubic meter; nitrous oxides held steady at an average of 58 mcg per cubic meter; and sulfur dioxide rose from approximately 100 to 150 mcg per cubic meter. Levels of suspended particles and sulfur dioxide are much higher during the winter heating season than during the Summer and Fall.

Specific examples of TSP reductions in Northern Chinese cities between 1981 and 1992 are as follows: Xi�an dropped from 1400 mcg/cubic meter to about 530 mcg/cubic meter, Jinan from 1600 to 600 mcg/cubic meter, and Shenyang from 350 to 280 mcg/cubic meter. A few cities such as Chengdu (up from 280 to 330 mcg/cubic meter) saw sulfur dioxide pollution increases between 1981 and 1992.

WHO Top TSP Pollution ?5: Beijing, Shenyang, Xi�an

More recent PRC official information is found in the China Energy Development Report 1997 [Zhongguo Nengyuan Fazhan Baogao] published in June 1997. By contrast with the NEPA publications discussion of the previous decade, Chinese emissions of TSP and SO2 increased at 1.66 percent and 5.11 percent annually from 1991 to 1995. These figures exclude pollution generated by the township and village enterprises which account for roughly half of China�s GDP. According to the report, the level of TSPs in northern Chinese cities averaged 392 micrograms/cubic meter, well above, says the report the �WHO recommended limit of 60 - 90 micrograms per cubic meter? A 1995 WHO comparison of TSP levels in world cities put five Chinese cities -- Beijing, Shenyang, Xi�an, Shanghai and Guangzhou among the ten cities with the worst TSP pollution. [Note: The level of total suspended particulates, especially levels of inhalable particles under 10 microns in diameter, is one of the aspects of air pollution regularly cited as being of most concern in the literature on health and air pollution. End note]

Under One Percent of Cities Meet Strictest Air Standard

In 1995 fewer than 1 percent of the 600-plus cities in China meet the Class 1 PRC air pollution standard. This is the strictest PRC air pollution standard. The PRC Class 1 Ambient Air Quality standard specifies an annual average pollution level not to exceed 20 micrograms per cubic meter of sulfur dioxide, 80 mcg/cubic meter TSP and 50 mcg/cubic meter nitrous oxides. According to the report, nitrous oxides have already become the most serious wintertime pollutant in Beijing and Guangzhou. [Note: ESTOFF has heard and read differing opinions from PRC environmental officials on this point. Some say that sulfur dioxide remains the most severe wintertime Beijing air pollutant. End note]

World Bank Reports : Beijing Air Worse Than Shenyang But Less Harmful than Chongqing

�Can the Environment Wait??used Chinese local environmental data and current understanding of the health effects of pollution to estimate the health costs of pollution relative to a percentage of the average urban incomes people would be willing to pay to escape the pollution in their city. Among China�s biggest cities the ranking was Jinan (38), Chongqing (30), Beijing (28), Xi�an (26), Harbin (24), Shenyang (23), Chengdu (22), Tianjin (21), Guangzhou (10), and Shanghai (8). For comparison, the corresponding figures for several other Asian cities are Jakarta (12), Bangkok (7), Manila (7), and Seoul (4). �Can the Environment Wait??included estimates of annual premature deaths, chronic bronchitis cases, and respiratory symptoms associated with air pollution for each city.

Comment: World Bank Report Challenges Preconceptions

The World Bank report surprises by ranking Beijing one-fifth more polluted than Shenyang on a scale based upon health damage caused by pollution. Press reports and reporting from U.S. Consulate Shenyang point to a significant improvement in Shenyang�s air over the past several years. Now that air quality information for many Chinese cities is being made public, better quality information on seasonal and local variations in air pollution will gradually emerge. Even if the health cost analysis in �Can the Environment Wait??were to be prove faulty, the relative ranking of cities is very interesting. Reports from U.S. Consulates General in Shenyang and Guangzhou as well as PRC media reports describe increasing concern about environmental issues. End comment]

The Problem: NEPA Lacks Local Information, Direct Power to Enforce Regulations on Local Level

The Chinese National Environmental Protection Agency, unlike its counterparts in many Western countries, does not control the budgets or the operations of provincial and local environmental protection bureaus (EPB). The budget of the provincial environmental protection bureaus is controlled by the provincial government. The head of the provincial EPB is named by the provincial governor. A Chinese academic who frequently serves on advisory panels to the State Council told ESTOFF recently that the pattern of weak center-local and horizontal interagency links holds true for many Chinese government agencies. The academic went on to say that the Chinese central government itself is relatively small and only accounts for seven percent of all government spending. The academic said that as a result of poor communications both horizontally with related agencies and vertically with nominally subordinate local agencies, many ministries at the center have little information about what is going on around the country and little ability to see that central government directives are implemented. Especially difficult for NEPA, a Chinese Academy of Sciences scholar who often writes on environmental matter told Embassy ES&T officer, is the enforcement of regulations against state-owned enterprises or against the many township and village enterprises. [Note: NEPA announced in December 1997 that the TVEs contribute both half of China�s GDP and half of its pollution. End note]

Comment: How Much Does the Central Government Know?

EST section has noted many instances in which the central government apparently has little information on what is going on in the health and environment fields around China. This appears to be true for many ministries. Embassy officers are often told that high officials are big fans of investigative reporting on Chinese television, with the implication that the TV reports are an important source of information for the officials. The just-published best-selling book �Confrontation: An Account of the Three Periods of Ideological Liberation in China?[Jiaofeng: Sanci Sixiang Jiefang Shilu, see bibliographic note at end] (p. 232) notes that over the past three years Jiang Zemin, Li Peng and Zhu Rongji made 40 inspection tours over the past three years to understand what is really going on and to evaluate the progress of reform. An early 1980s Deng Xiaoping quotation �Feel the rocks as you cross the river?is invoked to underline the importance of these inspection tours. The National People�s Congress (para. 20 below) also relies on inspection teams to see if laws are being enforced. Embassy ES&T officer, in giving improptu talks to two different groups of middle-ranking Chinese officials and academics recently, tested the argument that very poor circulation of information and very poor coordination among work units (and government agencies) is the root cause of much of the inefficiency and ineffectiveness in Chinese government. In both cases, the Chinese audience agreed strongly. One professor told ES&T officer that these are very important points and that �we have become numb to this fact because it is so much part of our daily lives.?The closed nature of Chinese work units and their unwillingness to share information and cooperate with other units is one manifestation of what many Chinese leaders and academics call �fengjian?a word often mistranslated as feudal. Chinese Academy of Social Sciences researcher Shen Jiru argues in his recent book that the commercialization of Chinese society will gradually solve this problem. See bibliography entry for the February 1998 �China Doesn�t Want to Be �Mr. No?for an examination of Shen�s analysis. The relationship of the central government to local governments is a very important and poorly understood matter central to the understanding of environmental policy and its enforcement as well as in many other areas.

Comment: Media Controls, Local Government Block Flow of Information to the Center

Not only is enforcement difficult, but media controls and the power of local governments often prevent information about local environmental problems from reaching the national government. An example is the devastation of the nature preserve habitat of the golden monkeys in Deqing Prefecture, Yunnan Province. The nature preserve was clear-cut by a state-owned timber company in part to benefit the treasury of an impoverished local government. The central government authorities only learned about this matter when a nature photographer, contacted State Councilor Song Jian with the help of some prominent environmentalists.

Paradoxically, tight links between local governments and ministries and even ostensibly private enterprises impedes the enforcement of environmental regulations. Government ministries and agencies have often used their influence to protect enterprises under them from regulations and so earn more money for the ministry and its officials. One of the principles of China�s sweeping government reorganization is the separation of business operations from government regulatory organizations [zhengqi fenkai] in order to remove structural incentives to corruption from the Chinese government system. The reform program, if thoroughly implemented, might remove impediments to the accurate reporting of pollution statistics. [Note: See the translations �The Pathological Expansion of the Selfish Interest of Government Departments? from the Chinese newspaper Southern Weekend [Nanfang Zhoumou]on the Embassy Beijing EST section web page at http://www.redfish.com/USEmbassy-China/sandt/dptcrpt.htm and dptwhy.htm for examples. End note]

Environmental Secrecy, Gov�t Layers and NEPA Surveys

Environmental secrecy not only keeps information away from the people, it has also to a certain degree blind the Chinese central government to the seriousness of environmental deterioration in many areas. ESTOFF asked a NEPA official in Spring 1997 what the proportion of PRC pollution was made by the township and village enterprises (TVE) and another official about differences in pollution patterns in various Chinese cities. The official told ESTOFF that NEPA did not know how much pollution was made by the TVEs but had been sending out survey teams to study TVE pollution. NEPA statistics have excluded TVE pollution because of lack of information, although TVEs now produce half of the Chinese GDP. The second official said that air pollution information was not collected centrally and that if ESTOFF wanted the information he would have to ask the EPB of each city. [Note: According to a report in the newspaper Southern Weekend [Nanfang Zhoumou] central collection of urban air pollution data began in January 1998. End note]

TVEs: Half of PRC Pollution and Rural Environment Decline

A NEPA two year study of township and village enterprise (TVE) pollution completed in December 1997 found that the TVEs produce about half of Chinese air pollution and that rural pollution by TVEs increased rapidly during 1991 - 1996. The two year survey, conducted jointly by NEPA, the Ministry of Agriculture, the Ministry of Finance and the State Statistical Bureau, which ran from January 1996 to December 1997 and collected 20 million data items. The report appeared on the front page of the December 25, 1997 issue of China Environment News [Zhongguo Huangjing Bao] a national environmental newspaper published by NEPA. The report found that industrial dust and solid waste produced by TVEs had increased by 182 percent and 552 percent since 1989. Chinese pollution statistics have thus far excluded TVE pollution because of the lack of data. A NEPA official explains to ESTOFF last Spring that a TVE is an enterprise which has its ownership in a village or township regardless of where the enterprise is located. Although most are in the countryside, some TVEs are in cities. See 97 BEIJING 018025 paragraphs 9 - 10 also available on Embassy Beijing web page at http://www.redfish.com/USEmbassy-China/sandt/envlaw.htm

Comment: TVEs, Rural Air Pollution and Health

Fragmentary information in the China Health Annual [Zhongguo Weisheng Nianjian] published by the Ministry of Health suggests that respiratory problems are as common in the countryside as in the city. The rate of women having respiratory problems is similar to that of men although men are much more likely to be smokers. Air pollution, possibly from household stoves, may play some role in rural respiratory disorders. The most serious and least understood part of China�s pollution problems may well be in the countryside and not in the cities.

Reduce Rural Environmental Deterioration, Stop It By 2010

The target year for stopping environmental deterioration throughout the country in speeches by national leaders is generally 2010, although a target for improving environmental conditions most cities well before then is often expressed. Often in a discussion of China�s goals, leaders place emphasis on development for the first decade of the 21st Century and call for halting environmental deterioration in the Chinese countryside as a current objective but one not expected to be achieved until the year 2010. An example is the NEPA Administrator Xie Zhenhua to the 1998 National Environmental Working Conference put it this way: �The 15th Party Congress set the economic and social development goal of doubling Chinese GDP in the first decade of the 21st Century.... In accordance with this the state has already set the goal of a general halt to environmental deterioration by the year 2010 and to achieve by that year already a net improvement in urban and rural areas. For the year 2020 to reverse the environmental deterioration trend to achieve even more improvements in the urban and rural environment. By 2030 to achieve an environment in which a virtuous cycle for steady improvement is well-established and harmony between economic and environmental development.?

Xie called for people to avoid the trap of �laxness in enforcement? and �pollute first, and clean up later? Xie, echoing Premier Li Peng�s talk at the Fourth National Environment Conference, called on environmental officials to adopt a win-win approach that served the goals of both economic development and environmental protection in order to win the support of society and the leadership. The clearer picture of environmental deterioration in the countryside and TVE pollution emerging as a result of the two year TVE survey will probably help policy-makers attack the problem of rural environmental deterioration more effectively. [Note: NEPA Administrator Xie�s speech appeared in the February 15 issue of China Environmental Work Bulletin [Zhongguo Huanjing Gongxuo Tongxun] a NEPA publication very useful in following Chinese environmental policy and its implementation. End note]

Where Does Openness Come From? A Weak Center Seeks Support From An Environmentally-Aware Citizenry

National Environmental Protection Agency officials have told the U.S. Embassy that the campaign to increase public awareness on environmental issues is part of a deliberate strategy to put pressure on local governments to enforce environmental regulations.

Qu Geping: NPC Uses Surveys and Publicity to Improve Compliance

NPC Natural Resources and Environment Committee Chairman Qu Geping, who earlier served as the first NEPA administrator, told visiting U.S. senators in Fall 1997 that the conception of obedience to law is still quite weak in China. Qu said that the National People�s Congress of China may be the only parliamentary body in the world that needs to send investigation teams through the countryside to see if the laws are being obeyed. Qu told the U.S. senators that the NPC had sent out 30 study teams over the previous five years to examine the enforcement of the laws. Qu said that using the media to expose violators and to praise enforcers of environmental regulations was the main tool the NPC could use to get local government compliance with national environmental protection regulations. Qu said that if the NPC did not send inspection teams throughout the countryside, it would be very hard to ensure compliance with central government laws and regulations.

Qu: The Transition from Rule of Man to Rule of Law

Qu said told the visiting senators that Chinese have a weak conception of law but that China was moving rapidly away from the rule of man to the rule of law and democracy. As an example, Qu said that the NPC had passed only 23 laws between 1949 and 1979 but 324 between 1979 and late 1997. The study teams and publicity are part of a strategy to use the media to supervise the enforcement of environmental regulations in the countryside, said Qu. In the August 1996 State Council �Decisions on Environmental Protection? which states ?..The general public [should] participate in the work of environmental protection and to report and expose various offenses against environmental laws and regulations.?and �Exposing those economic units and individuals which have caused serious pollution and ecological damage is part of the supervisory role media institutions should play.?Implementing the August 1996 State Council decision has not been easy.

Why Did Local Officials Keep Air Pollution Secret?

Many local officials have strongly opposed implementing the requirement of the 1989 NPC law calling for regular reports on the environment be made to the public. Many local environmental bureau officials, with the notable exception of Shenyang officials, favored environmental secrecy in interviews published over one year ago in a February 1997 issue of the PRC magazine Sanlian Life Weekly [Sanlian Shenghuo Zhoukan]. The article was published before Shanghai and twenty-seven other cities began releasing regular environmental notices to the mass media beginning in May 1997. The interviews give a good picture of the local government attitudes that NEPA and other environmental players such as Qu Geping in Beijing have had to overcome. The full text of the interview is on the U.S. Embassy EST web page at http://www.redfish.com/USEmbassy-China/sandt/art.htm

Local Environmental Officials Explain Openness Fears

Here is what the local officials told the two Sanlian Life Weekly reporters in early 1997:

Shanghai: Fear of the Question �Why Did the Government Give Us Such Bad Air??/H4>

�Deterioration or improvement in the environment doesn�t happen over just a year or two. If we were simply to release environmental information to the public, the disadvantages would outweigh the advantages. The environmental consciousness of people today is very weak. Even if we sent the environmental quality notice to every home in Shanghai, many people wouldn�t read it. But maybe the people who did read it would cause some social unrest. They might say, �The government did a bad job. Why did you give us such bad air??/P>

Beijing: International Image, Fear Civil Disorders

�It [publishing notices about the environmental situation] is linked to social stability, the public image of Beijing and to other matters such as foreign affairs.?and �Let me give you an example. Beijing Municipality has three seriously polluted rivers. We call them �The Three Roundworms? Today, after a great deal of effort, we have solved the pollution problems of two of these rivers. But we will not be able to solve the problem of the third river anytime soon. If we were to tell the eople, �This river is very seriously polluted but we can�t be able to do anything about it.? wouldn�t that be encouraging civil disorders??/P>

West China: We Need Poverty Alleviation, Not Environment

West Central China: �The main objective of the undeveloped areas is poverty alleviation. With our human and financial resources so weak, we need to do something. Moreover, some environmental data is kept secret out of diplomatic necessity.?/P>

Air Monitoring Official: Public, Investor Reaction Feared

An environmental monitoring official: �Just because we can do it doesn�t mean we should do it. We should make public environmental quality information, but we need to think about the consequences. For example, Beijing does not release its environmental quality information out of concern for its public image. Moreover, we are developing our economy and attracting foreign investment. But foreign investors are more and more concerned about the environmental quality of the region in which they are investing. If we were to release the environmental quality notice, the foreign investor would cancel investment plans. This would result in unnecessary harm to China�s economic development and especially to the economic development of the coastal provinces.?

Shenyang: Frankness Pressures Polluters, Improves Air

Gao Jizhong, former Vice Mayor of Shenyang in charge of environmental protection, spoke out in favor of openness. Gao said ?..The [air pollution forecasts] helped spread knowledge about environmental protection and to make people more aware of the importance of environmental protection. ...[They] brought a lot of pressure to bear on the polluters. For example, the Shenyang Smeltery [Shenyang Yelianchan] �contributes?forty percent of Shenyang�s sulfur dioxide pollution. Our broadcasts made the plant more conscious of this.?and ��Shenyang�s pollution is written all over the face of the city. Even if you say nothing, people will still know about it. Shenyang�s air pollution problem is the result of many historical factors. If we want foreign merchants to trust us, we need to attack the problem at its root.?/P>

NPC Environment and Natural Resources Committee Chairman Qu Geping Says Just Excuses!

National People�s Congress Environment and Natural Resources Committee Chairman Qu Geping, a former head of China�s National Environmental Protection Agency told the journalists bluntly, �These are really just excuses. The real reason behind them is that the quality of the environment is all messed up and that some don�t want to tell the Chinese people that this is so.?/P>

Qu: Gain Trust of Chinese People, Foreign Investors By Telling Truth on Environment

Qu Geping told the journalists, �Today many people are worried that foreigners knowing about China�s environmental problems will affect China�s foreign relations. Although I can�t deny that there is some environmental information that is not suitable for publication, but that is a relatively small part of the information about China�s environment. These is no contradiction between releasing information on environmental quality while still protecting certain environmental information. I believe that saying that publishing environmental quality information can affect foreign investment is just the same as saying that we gain the trust of foreign business people by hiding the truth. Doing that would just be a kind of trickery. Acting in this way would harm China�s reputation and do great damage to the country. Some people say that if the people find out about the environmental situation they�ll either have not reaction at all or start a �rebellion? This is lacking trust in the people. This is a people�s government. We should never forget that in our work. We must trust in the people and rely on the people. Giving the relatively poor characteristics and inadequate education of the Chinese people, the publication of environmental quality information is a good way to get people to take the initiative and involve themselves in environmental protection.?/P>

Qu: China is a Developing Country, But Opposes Develop First and Clean Up Later

Qu Geping continued, �Some countries use environmental problems to attack China. But in fact, China has made much praiseworthy progress in environmental protection over the past few years. China is a developing country. As such it has no special responsibility to take on more arduous environmental protection responsibilities. But China decided to turn away from the old road of developing first and cleaning up later. As a result China has already racked up some impressive results. For example, the �Three Barrier Forest Belts?project which has been recognized by foreign environmental protection experts as an �unbelievable?accomplishment. We can hold our heads high in the international arena. The more you try to hide things, the more people will think that you have something to be ashamed of.?/P>

Qu: Success of Environmental Work Depends Upon Public Participation

�Chinese environmental protection work has had its accomplishments but also has its problems. The most important thing is how we handle those problems. Treating the Chinese people like �opponents in a guerrilla war? is no way to build trust in the government. If there are achievements, we want to tell people about them; but if there are difficulties we need to explain to the people about them. Environmental protection is the job of all society. It is not something the environmental protection authorities can do on their own. Every single victory in environmental protection in China has come about because of the broad support of the Chinese people. I�ll put it this way: the degree of popular participation in environmental protection work is an important indicator of the success or failure of environmental protection in that country.?/P>

Financing Air Monitoring Stations Has Been Difficult

While official anxiety about the public reaction to news of how bad environmental conditions has probably been the main reason for environmental secrecy, other reasons are to be found in the difficulties in funding the environmental monitoring system needed to collect reliable air and water quality data has been difficult. NEPA Vice Administrator Wang Yangzu [STC: 3769 2254 4371] told the Fifth National Working Conference on Environmental Monitoring last Fall that the total initial cost of the monitoring equipment totals 650 million RMB. The national environmental monitoring system reports 30 million data items each year. Half of the environmental quality monitoring equipment China uses today was made before 1985 said Wang.

US - PRC Energy and Environment Cooperation Initiative

The Department of Commerce and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, as part of the U.S. - China Energy and Environment Cooperation Initiative (EECI) have made USD 145,000 technical assistance grant available to NEPA. NEPA can use the grant as soon as NEPA selects a U.S. contractor for the environmental monitoring equipment purchase. A U.S. company is now discussing the sale of USD 5 million in air quality monitoring hardware to the PRC.

Comment: Not Just Government Orders But Citizen Allies Key

NEPA officials have told the U.S. Embassy that raising public consciousness about environmental issues is part of a deliberate strategy to encourage citizens to put pressure on local government to enforce environmental regulations. This theme is reflected in the State Council �Decisions on Environmental Protection?of August 1996 and in the words of Qu Geping. Public pressure for the enforcement of environmental laws and regulations is a strategy to overcome the great difficulty the central government has in enforcing central government regulations throughout the country.

Indirect Enforcement Through Government Layers is Difficult

Unlike many other countries including the United States, the central government does not enforce central government laws directly but indirectly through several intermediate layers of government which mirror the organizational structure of the central government. Circulars arrive with guidance from the central government but these are not always followed closely. Some of these circulars are confidential orders or regulations that can only be read by people at or above a certain level. Restrictions on journalism and the free flow of information sometimes make it hard for the central government to understand local conditions in detail. NEPA and the NPC Environment committee send out survey teams to study the implementation of environmental laws and regulations.

Release of Pollution Data Part of a Wider Trend

As the NEPA official told Embassy Beijing Environment, Science and Technology officer last Spring, much local environmental information is not collected centrally. According a press report, central collection of much local environmental data began in January 1998. The public is being given more and more once confidential information about the quality of their local environment. However, there remain degrees of openness. Little discussion of the very complex subject of the relationship between air pollution and health has appeared as yet in the Chinese press. The fading of secrecy in the environmental realm over the past year marks important progress towards increasing public participation in environmental protection that fits into larger trends towards greater openness in PRC society. The publication in February and March 1998 of the first two books listed in the bibliography below is another sign of this opening.

One Step Beyond: NEPA Calls For Daily Air Quality Reports

NEPA has called for daily reporting of air quality information beginning this summer; it will be interesting to watch which local governments will be willing to implement this policy. NEPA expects that the number of cities making daily air quality reports will gradually increase.

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Appendix One

Maximum Healthful Air Pollution Levels of the WHO and the USA

The WHO healthful maximums for 24-hour exposure the maximum healthful levels for both sulfur dioxide and particulates is identical. The maxium is a concentration in the air of 125 micrograms per cubic meter. The annual average level for both is also identical: a one year exposure the an average level of 50 micrograms per cubic meter should not be exceeded. These maximum healthful levels apply to situations where significant levels of both sulfur dioxide and particulate matter are present as is generally the case in China. The WHO 24-hour nitrogen dioxide limit is 150 micrograms per cubic meter. According to Chinese environmental officials, the wintertime sulfur dioxide levels in Beijing are often considerably higher than during the Summer and Fall (ref A). Maximum healthful exposure levels depend upon length of exposure and sometimes on the presence of other pollutants which may interact to aggravate health effects. [reference: �Urban Air Pollution in Megacities of the World?Earthwatch, the Global Environmental Monitoring System. Published 1992 for the World Health Organization and the United Nations Environment Program by Blackwell Publishers, Oxford, England.]

The U.S. National Ambient Air Quality Standards (NAAQS) 24-hour and annual exposure maximums are nitrous oxides (1978) 100 micrograms per cubic meter; for sulfur dioxide 365 micrograms per cubic meter 24 hours and 80 mcg/cu-m annual; and total suspended particulates 260 mcg/cu-m 24-hours and 75 mcg/cu-m. A stricter U.S. standard applies to inhalable particulates of 10 microns diameter or less (PM-10) where the limit for a 24-hour exposure is of 50 mcg/cu-m. The U.S. annual nitrogren dioxide healthful exposure limit is 100 micrograms per cubic meter.

A good recent reference on the very complex issue of air pollution and health is �Health Effects of Air Pollution?published in the American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Vol. 153, pp. 477 - 498, 1996.

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Bibliography

Confrontation: An Account of the Three Periods of Ideological Liberation

[Jiaofeng: Sanci Sixiang Jiefang Shilu] by Ma Licheng [STC:7456 4539 1004] and Ling Zhijun [0407 1807 6511]. Beijing, March 1998, Today�s China Publishing House [Jinri Zhongguo Chubanshe].

The foreword to �Confrontation?is by Liu Ji, Vice President of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences and reputed to be a member of President Jiang�s brain trust. The book is part of the China�s Problems series -- earlier volumes are devoted to issues such as unemployment and other economic and social issues. The three periods of ideological liberation are the beginning of opening and reform in 1978; Deng beating back the conservatives in 1992; and accelerated opening during 1997 climaxed by the Fifteenth Congress of the Communist Party. The heart of the book is the struggle between reformers and the obstructionism of Communist Party ideologues (the latter cast as the unnamed bad guys). The last two hundred pages is devoted to 1997. This best seller (a first printing of 50,000 copies is very large in China) gives some insights into power struggles and the ideological issues which have marked key points of contention between reformers and ideologues in an never-ending struggle.

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�China Doesn�t Want to Be �Mr. No?-- Problems of International Strategy for Today�s China?/I>

[Zhongguo Bu Dang "Bu Xiansheng" -- Dangdai Zhongguo Guoji Zhanlue Wenti] This is one of the ten books published thus far in the China�s Problems series by Jinri Zhongguo Chubanshe [Today�s China Publishing House]. The book was published in February 1998 with a very large initial press run of 20,000 copies. Author Shen Jiru [STC: 3088 7535 1172] is a researcher at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences World Economics and Politics Research Institute. Foreword by Liu Ji, Vice President of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences

This 400-page book covers a wide range of the international political and economic problems China confronts and examines how changes in how reform is changing China�s idea of the society on how it needs to cooperate politically and economically with other countries. Shen Jiru calls for China to involve itself as a full-fledged cooperative partner in world affairs working towards a world that is multi-polar rather than dominated by one country (the USA). Shen sees convergence between capitalism and Chinese-style socialism, and remarks on the considerable social progress in capitalist societies over the past century. At one point (pp. 36 - 42) Shen compares Marx�s Communist Manifesto to the practice of western societies and finds that much of Marx�s social program has been realized in the West.

Ideologues Stifled Thinking, No-one Has that Right

Most relevant to placing the above report on recent opening on environmental matters in the context of larger changes in Chinese society is Shen�s statement that there can be no forbidden areas in the search for truth. Shen added that for a long time Chinese have had been forbidden to discuss these ideas by certain authorities on theory since they were seen as an attack on socialism.

Shen writes (p. 42) �It is very regrettable that in the past some authorities on theory didn�t allow people to discuss new developments in contemporary capitalism. Even more strictly forbidden were efforts to explore the deep reasons for this progress. The reason for these restrictions is that it would nourish an evil capitalist wind, destroy the morale of socialist society and make people wish for capitalism. Therefore, for quite a long period, any discussions of the causes for progress of capitalist society were restricted to studies of the progress of capitalist societies in science and technology.

�If we do not acknowledge all the changes and progress in capitalism as a result of peaceful evolution (heping yanbian) how will we ever be able to accept our inheritance of the culture of all humanity as Deng Xiaoping taught us? If we do not acknowledge the changes and progress in capitalist society over the past century, that how will we be able to co-exist and cooperate with capitalism over the long term? The test of truth is the practice of the people of each country. No authority on theory has the right to establish a monopoly over the right to make judgments on what is true and what is false.?/P>

Shen calls China�s biggest problem not foreign affairs but confronting the parochialism and rigid hierarchies in Chinese society which vastly reduce efficiency in the economy and society. Shen calls this fengjian (often mis-translated as feudal -- it is not Western feudalism) a word Chinese leaders and intellectuals regularly use to characterize the closed nature of Chinese work units and their unwillingness to cooperate and share information.

Critical Role of the Market in Transforming Values

Shen on p. 226 writes �the heart of the fengjian thinking is to destroy the independence and initiative of the individual. In fengjian thinking people are not treated as human beings but as slaves to be formed to be subservient to a leader so that the majority is just the appendage or a mere follower of the leader. Over a long period of time these ideas permeated into the psychology of the Chinese people and became part of their way of thinking and their values as they look at, think about and solve problems. But the values such as independence, initiative, equality, competition and spirit of enterprise established during the formation of the market are directly and fundamentally opposed to the fengjian values of dependence, subservience, foolish loyalty and endurance of hardships.?The report above notes how the set of attitudes and behaviors (generally called �fengjian? in China) make it difficult for the central government to get information about environmental problems and to see that environmental regulations are enforced. Shen makes a much broader point -- that this phenomenon is a serious one for Chinese society as a whole (pp. 222 - 227).]

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China Energy Development Report 1997

[Zhongguo Nengyuan Fazhan Baogao 1997], edited by Yan Changle [STC: 7051 7022 2867] published Beijing, July 1997, Jingji Guanli Chubanshe. This annual surveys developments in the coal industry, petroleum industry, natural gas industry, electric power industry, rural energy, new and renewable energy, energy consumption and energy markets, energy conservation, and energy transportation as well as energy exploitation, utilization and environmental protection. In his foreword to the volume, prominent retired scientist and former NPC Environment Committee Vice Chairman Yang Jike [STC:2799 4787 3784] argued that China should maintain and not reduce its reliance on coal. Yang wrote that if the pace of oil imports and more offshore oil exploration continue to increase, China will, like the United States, get entangled in Middle East politics. Moreover, difficult conflicts would also arise with South Asian neighbors and Xinjiang�s Uighurs who resent exploitation of oil resources they see as their patrimony. [Note: a prominent PRC energy scholar told ESTOFF in November that Yang�s views are not widely shared among officials. End note] Yang called for greater efforts on clean coal technology to reduce pollution and greenhouse gas emissions.