China: Locals Turn to Environmental Activism
By Christine Xu, April 2008
China’s rapid industrial development over the past quarter of a century has resulted in heavy pollution and environmental degradation. In fact, 20 of the 30 most polluted cities in the world are in China. One of the primary concerns for the Chinese people is pollution: the safety of the air they breathe, the water they drink, the food they eat. Even the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) itself acknowledges that China is not only responsible for high levels of pollution, but also suffers significantly from it. According to a report by CNN in 2007, it is estimated that about 300 million people drink contaminated water on a daily basis, and that 400,000 premature deaths each year result from sulfur dioxide pollution due to coal combustion. While China has become a world leader in environmental problems, its government is falling far short from responding to the crisis. To this day, local officials consistently prefer to further China’s economic growth than to heed Beijing’s environmental mandates. The costs of public health and the inability of the government to turn the environmental situation around are brewing social discontent.
Beijing air on a day after rain (left) and a rainless day (right)
In May of 2007, students and professors at Xiamen University sent out a million text messages urging citizens to protest the planned construction of a $1.4 billion petrochemical plant nearby. On June 1st, 2007, between 7,000 and 20,000 people marched through the city, despite threats of expulsion from school or from the CCP. The event was even videotaped and uploaded onto YouTube, which prompted a response by city authorities who launched their own campaign to discredit the protesters and the video. Nonetheless, this public demonstration is evidence that the Chinese people are starting to take action and are no longer waiting for the government to respond to the environmental issues.
Who are China’s Environmental Activists?
Before 1994, China had no environmental non-governmental organizations (NGOs). As of 2005, the number exploded to approximately 2,000 NGOs that were officially registered. The oldest registered environmental NGO, Friends of Nature, initiated its first annual report on China’s environment in 2006. Other groups like the Center for Legal Assistance to Pollution Victims have engaged in extremely complex public interest legal work. Yet, the grassroots movement in China is not solely thriving because of NGOs; there are a number of citizens who are taking small but equally significant steps. In Dalian, a city in Northeast China, a doctor feared that batteries in a local dump were leaking mercury into the soil, which would poison the fruits and vegetables consumed by her young daughter. Taking matters into her own hands, she was able to persuade local stores to accept batteries for recycling. Another example is the leading environmentalist, Ma Jun, who developed a sophisticated website mapping water pollution across China.
NGO leaders in China tend to be educated individuals who have spent time abroad and have received training with various U.S.-based environmental NGOs. While many Chinese NGOs are based in Beijing, they also work throughout the country to address local concerns. In addition, the active participation of college students in the ecological involvement has been vital, as demonstrated in 2004 when 100,000 Chinese college students from 22 provinces participated in environmental activities on Earth Day.
Volunteers in Southwest China’s Chongqing Municipality collecting garbage on Earth Day
The Nature of Environmental Activism
Chinese environmental activism has evolved since 1994. While initially they were primarily concerned with politically “safe” issues such as education and biodiversity protection, environmental activists have expanded their reach over the last decade. Activists now voice their discontent over rising pollution levels through various means, including protesting dams, filing lawsuits against corporations, and exposing corruption practices affecting the environment. There are also increasingly more Chinese NGOs that regularly expose polluting factory cases, help village victims of contaminated water with lawsuits, give seed money to emerging NGOs, and go undercover to denounce multinationals that ignore international environmental standards. Such organizations often protest to the CCP via letters, campaigns on the Internet, and newspaper editorials.
Environmental education and biodiversity protection, however, remain the core mission of NGO activities. For instance, Friends of Nature supports educational vans that travel throughout the country to provide region-specific environmental knowledge, while NGOs such as Green Earth Volunteers and Wild China launch campaigns and educational material to promote biodiversity protection. Interestingly, Chinese grassroots organizations are now also supported by the strong presence of various international NGOs in China with similar interests, such as World Wildlife Fund (WWF), Conservation International, and Nature Conservancy.
Relations Between Environmental Groups and the Chinese Government
Although the CCP has tolerated NGOs and media outlets for exposing local level environmental abuse, it remains vigilant in overseeing that the party itself is not directly criticized and that other lines are not crossed. All registered NGOs are required to be sponsored by government agencies, commonly referred to as “mothers-in-law,” to supervise their activities, membership, and funding sources. NGOs are not allowed to have branch organizations in different provinces, and persons labeled as political dissidents cannot join NGOs. Certain parts of the Chinese government are still concerned that NGOs may be subversive entities. Yu Xiaogang, winner of the Goldman Environmental Prize for honoring grassroots environmentalists, was banned from travelling because of his involvement in educating villagers about the potential downsides of a proposed dam relocation in Yunnan Province. In 2002, Friends of Nature was forced to remove one of its founding board members, Wang Lixiong, due to his support for two Tibetan monks who were sentenced to death.
One of the main challenges for Chinese environmental NGOs lies in the lack of incentives for local officials to make environmental protection a priority. Even when the central government emphasizes the need to protect the environment, local officials often turn a blind eye to pollution out of self-interest. Often, they have a direct financial link or personal relationships with factory owners. Environmental laws and regulations exist, but their implementation is problematic, especially in poor areas.
Local protectionism is a widespread obstacle. In one instance, a lead smelter that had been violating standards for ten years had only been exposed when hundreds of children were hospitalized for high levels of lead in their blood. Because the local government was benefiting from the factory’s business, it ignored the violations of the regulation for years. Though the factory was eventually shut down after gaining national attention, there are likely thousands of similar cases across the country. Moreover, fines for polluting or for violating environmental standards are so low that factory owners often prefer to pay rather than implement cleaner technologies.
Additionally, NGOs face considerable challenges due to the lack of reliable information and data on environmental performance. Many factory owners will either turn on their pollution control equipment only when inspection is imminent, or have found secret underground pipes to divert pollution far downstream for discharge. Environmental NGOs are working to refine a system that seeks to publicize factories’ environmental performances as well as redirect business from the United States toward more environmentally friendly performers in China.
The Future for NGO Activists
While NGOs and grassroots organizations have gained greater influence since the mid 1990’s, some delicate issues have emerged between international donors and Chinese grassroots organizations due to different cultures and strategies. In general, donors refuse to acknowledge Chinese NGOs’ leadership by imposing their own agenda and ideas, which often fail to address critical problems on the ground. Donors have also been criticized by Chinese NGOs for their shortsighted vision and their refusal to admit that substantial progress can only be made gradually.
Moreover, Chinese environmental NGOs remain largely dependent on international funding, which can tarnish their image domestically and lead to criticism for being a foreign-directed enterprise. Although no real strategies have yet been developed to attract funding for Chinese NGOs from domestic sources, one positive trend that has emerged is the establishment of an association of Chinese businesses dedicated to supporting environmental protection.
Paralyzed by fear of seeing their movement being shut down, the range of action by NGOs will remain significantly limited unless the Chinese government ceases to act as a watchdog on their activities. Despite gloomy perspectives, optimism seems to prevail among a growing number of citizens who continue to take steps toward an exciting new stage of environmental protection in China.
Additional Resources
Natural Resources Defense Council