China’s urgent clean-up act

The Chinese Communist Party’s congress that is going on now will shape the country’s policies on a variety of fronts. In the near-term, there is President Hu Jintao’s pledge to wean the economy off its dependence on exports and to expedite its climb up the technology ladder.

In the medium-term, there is political succession and relations with Taiwan. And in the very long-term, there is China’s - and the world’s - environment. China, Hu said, was determined to shift from a growth-at-all-costs trajectory to a more “balanced and sustainable” model of development. The world wishes him well - sincerely and prayerfully.

“China’s rapid development, often touted as an economic miracle, has become an environmental disaster,” writes Dr Elizabeth Economy in the latest issue of Foreign Affairs. Chinese leaders have acknowledged that is so. “The economic miracle will end soon because the environment can no longer keep pace,” said Pan Yue, a vice-minister of China’s State Environmental Protection Administration, in 2005. The Chinese government has announced a number of “green” measures over the past two years, but the situation has hardly improved. The primary reason seems to be that the central government - whose sincerity on this issue cannot be doubted - has had difficulty convincing provincial and local governments to heed its environmental mandates. One hopes Hu’s highlighting the environment in his address to the CCP congress will help bring the provinces on board.

By 2030, China will relocate 400 million people from rural areas to urban centres. Half of all the new buildings that will come up in the world over the next 25 years will be built to accommodate these millions. The air-conditioners, refrigerators and other assorted household items they will use will result in each consuming three-and-a-half times more energy than a typical rural dweller.

In the meantime, by 2020, China will have 130 million cars; and by 2040, even more cars than the United States. When one takes into account that China derives 70 per cent of its energy needs from coal and that it typically uses six to seven times more energy to produce a dollar of output than do developed economies, the extent of the calamity that may engulf China and the world becomes clear. And one has not even mentioned the problems posed by rampant desertification, polluted rivers, depleted ground water reserves and what not.

The Chinese people have as much right to become rich as do Americans, Europeans or Japanese. For their own sakes, as well as the world’s, one hopes they don’t choke before they become rich.

The Straits Times/ANN