LyrArc Article Gist
Why polluting industries and colluding local government officials who are judged on the rate of economic growth achieved have come together and become entrenched to thepoint where its hard for the central government to implement pollution control measures. Deng's response to a sluggish socialist bureaucracy was to give power to local government officals to promote growth and to be judged on that basis. The environmental ministry and the environmental protection departments are very small and lack the resources to control these industries. And NGO's and the informed public and citizens are powerless to demand change as they are seen by the government as risking social stability by risking growth. After the East Asian crisis China anticipating a slowing down in competition with recovering Asian economies pushed harder for more economic growth. As a result production of steel set new records and the addition of power generating capacity each year surpassed the total power generation of countries like Britain and France.But this power generation does not use the modern technology available as it is costlier and takes longer to build. So a lot of short run decisions are being made in the interests of growth. An effort to introduce Green GDP backed by President Hu Jintao was dropped after it ran into a lot of resistance. Using this about 3 points of GDP were deducted from the 10% growth as environmental cost. This was based on modest environmental costs estimates and did not take into account the entire cost of pollution to health and the environment. China's own environmental experts think that Western estimates of environmental costs are if anything on the conservative side as they are based on models used in the west and conditions in China have little precedent in the scale and range of environmental degradation. Coal is burned to produce two thirds of the energy and uses older technology for power generation, it is a big polluter of the environment. And the modest energy efficiency goals set by the central government are not being met as a result China is already expected to be consuming as much energy in 2010 as it was expected by its own planners to be consuming in 2020. To informed outsiders it appears that the polutting process is systemic in its nature and only political change that allows people who are suffering the worst effects of this pollution to make their voice heard, can lead to reversing the trends that have been set in place from the Deng period of economic change that started in the 80's.