Food Safety Scandals Bring Reality-Check to “Chinese...
CHINADIALOGUEIn the wake of China’s recent food scandal, Chinese premier Li Keqiang has vowed to enforce the toughest food safety regulations.“We need to crack down on practices that violate laws and regulations with a heavy fist, and make the lawbreakers pay an unaffordable price for...
Water-Trading Could Exacerbate Water Shortages in China
CHINADIALOGUELarge-scale engineering projects and rigorous state control are hallmarks of the Chinese developmental model, and both have been apparent in the country’s approach to water management.A US$62 billion project to divert water from the south to the parched north is under way,...
China Tops Table for Disaster-Induced Displacement of...
CHINADIALOGUEMore than a third of all people forced from their homes by disasters such as floods, storms, and earthquakes in the past five years were in China, says a new report from the leading international body on displacement.Around 49.8 million Chinese people were displaced by natural...
China: What’s Going Right?
MICHAEL ZHAO, JAMES FALLOWS, ORVILLE SCHELL (& authors)Michael Zhao:On a recent trip to China, meeting mostly with former colleagues at the Chinese Academy of Sciences, I got a dose of optimism and hope for one aspect of the motherland. In terms of science, or laying down a solid foundation for better science to come, things are...
Singapore’s Growth Story Holds Lessons for Water-...
CHINADIALOGUEWhen the tiny city-state of Singapore gained independence in 1965, its social, economic, political, and environmental constraints appeared so formidable that many of those looking in from outside predicted a future of dismal dimensions.Forty years on, the reality looks very...
Why Can’t China Make Its Food Safe?—Or Can It?
ALEX WANG, JOHN C. BALZANO, ISABEL HILTON (& authors)The month my wife and I moved to Beijing in 2004, I saw a bag of oatmeal at our local grocery store prominently labeled: “NOT POLLUTED!” How funny that this would be a selling point, we thought.But 7 years later as we prepared to return to the US, what was once a joke had...
Time to End Secrecy Over Chinese Overseas Fishing
CHINADIALOGUEIt is well-known that overseas fishing fleets are more cavalier in terms of respect for laws and regulations than their domestic counterparts. There are innumerable examples from all over the world of fishing with gears that are not part of agreements, or catching amounts of fish...
China and the Environment
SAM GEALLSixteen of the world’s twenty most polluted cities are in China. A serious water pollution incident occurs once every two-to-three days. China’s breakneck growth causes great concern about its global environmental impacts, as others look to China as a source for possible...
The Long Battle Over “White Pollution”
TEA LEAF NATIONIn the past weeks, Chinese citizens have learned that the styrofoam boxes from which they eat their lunches will soon be legal. On February 16, the National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC), China’s highest economic policy-making body, changed the Industrial...
Why Has Water-Rich Yunnan Become A Drought Hotspot?
CHINADIALOGUEYunnan’s drought continues. During China’s annual parliamentary session in March, the deputy party secretary of the southwest Chinese province, Qiu He, blamed spring floodwaters that flow through Yunnan and on into other countries for the water shortages. He proposed a...
Poor Rural Residents in China Seen as Easy Target for...
CHINADIALOGUEChina today boasts a collection of ninety-five environmental courts, all of which were set up over the past six years. It is a trend that promises to re-shape Chinese environmental law.But simply trumpeting this initiative is no guarantee the environmental courts will live up to...
Why It’s Time to End China-Bashing on the Environment
CHINADIALOGUEThe major impact that international summits and treaties have had on China’s environmental governance is often overlooked. Environmental protection first emerged as an issue in China in 1972, after the country dispatched a delegation to the U.N. Conference on the Human...