Source: http://www.abc.net.au/news/2013-03-25/mcdonell-chinasmog/4591584
More at the link, it's a pretty good read. Certainly an unexpected turn of events to me.
There is a central question that runs through nearly all analysis of China, and it is this: Can it keep going?
Can growth be maintained? Can the country hold together? Can the level of safety on the streets continue?
Most of all: can the Communist Party remain in power?
The amount of time journalists, students, professors and diplomats spend mulling over the various permutations of what is essentially the one big question is incalculably high - whether they fall in the "yes China can keep going" or the "no it can't" camp.
What could spark a challenge to the existing order?
A collapse in GDP growth? The overseas educated elite getting jack of having their Facebook blocked? Could it be when farmers protesting against local land grabs start burning down towns across the South? There are many hypothetical scenarios to be played out when trying to answer the sustainability question.
Yet I could not have said - amongst all this analysing, writing, talking and the sending of cables back to HQ - that air pollution would have featured very heavily. Until now.
A dramatic revolt from the floor of the Great Hall of the People has surely thrown the environment into the mix.
On the second last day of China's annual session of parliament came the time to rubber stamp the new ministers and also the make up of various committees. When the vote came to tick off the new Environmental Protection and Resources Conservation Committee, 850 delegates voted "no" and 120 abstained from a total of just under 3000.
For two days at the end of the National People's Congress Beijing was shrouded in a thick blanket of smog and, in the midst of it, a third of this country's senior Communist Party delegates from across the country were prepared to publicly humiliate the government and the Party over the handling of air pollution policy.
If this doesn't show the depth of concern here about the disastrous state of China's environment, I'm not sure what does.
Dr Wu Qiang, who teaches politics at the prestigious Tsinghua University told AM: "The reason for the vote is that these delegates not only realise the seriousness of environmental pollution but also because they are influenced by public opinion. Now, in China, it's not a certain group or a certain class but all people who are becoming involved in this environmental disaster".
During the annual Congress there are a series of press conferences held on the sidelines of the main proceedings. On the one hand they provide a rare opportunity to try and get a question in to the likes of the head of the reserve bank but, on the other, they can be quite rigged affairs with ministers reading from prepared notes in response to the questions they've known were coming.
At the Congress environment press conference Vice Minister Wu and his colleagues controlled the questions in an attempt to avoid looking as if they had been completely overwhelmed by the environmental challenges they're facing.
I say 'attempt to avoid' but, these days, local Chinese journalists are making a habit of diverting from the propaganda script. Increasingly they are firing off genuine questions which China's officials are more than happy to dodge in the same way that politicians the world over attempt to avoid genuine accountability.
Take this example from China Radio International to our environment panel: Q: "We have heard, on previous occasions, relevant government agencies releasing a time line saying that it will take China 18 years to meet new air quality standards, could you tell us the scientific basis for this time frame? And would your Ministry consider incorporating the treatment of pollution into the performance indicators used to measure the accountability of local officials?"
Two very good and straightforward questions.
In his reply Vice Minister Wu didn't even refer to what was asked of him. Instead he told us how all big cities have problems with pollution, "just take a look at London and Los Angeles". It's quite possible that he actually has no idea whatsoever what the scientific basis for this 18-year timeline might be. As for the second question, it goes to the very heart of China's predicament.
Any attempt to start measuring the performance of China's regional governments, not only by economic growth but by the extent to which they are reigning in pollution, will reveal the basic contradiction of the two. In China more growth simply means more pollution.
When you break it down to the basic geopolitical impact, Chinese people have given up their air, water and soil in order for you to be able to read this article on a cheap electronic device.
Professor Kerry Brown from the China Studies Centre at Sydney University told the ABC, "There are many people who argue that, in becoming the sweat shop of the world - as some bloggers call China - they've also managed to poison themselves and that their wealth in the last 20 years has been built upon a model where they've been exporting nice goods to the West and then taking the environmental hit from that."
So, with this increasingly bleak backdrop, the Congress delegates make their protest.
Interestingly the last time there was such dissent at the Congress was also over the environment, when the Government had to vote on the Three Gorges Dam in 1992. In that case, the huge hydro-electricity project was going to flood an enormous area, displacing millions of people and sending precious cultural relics underwater. When the vote came, 664 delegates abstained and 177 opposed it.
This time round, most of the dissenters went one step further than merely abstaining and, when the pollution committee vote results were announced, there was an audible "Wooooo" around the Great Hall as if people could not believe the size of the dissent.
For the Premier's annual press conference, as a matter of face, there must be a few questions from the foreign media and a French reporter was able to ask him: "Nowdays the environment and pollution have become very very serious issues - we can see the sky in Beijing this weekend - is it still possible for the Chinese Government to solve this problem while maintaining such a level of economic growth and will the Government give Chinese people and the Chinese media more space to monitor these issues?"
Premier Li replied that, in the course of upgrading the Chinese economy, his government would do its best to ensure that its people can breathe clean air with safe drinking water and food.
He went on: "In the recent period not just Beijing but extensive parts of Eastern China have experienced some hazy weather and like every one of you I was quite upset about that. This is a problem that's built up over a long period of time and this government will show even greater resolve and make more vigorous effort to clean up such pollution."
Describing Northern China's recent horrendous air pollution as "some hazy weather" must be one of the larger understatements uttered by a Chinese leader in recent times.
He said that his country needed to develop a new way of thinking on development, with environmental thresh holds raised and the phasing out of outdated production facilities. But compared to the economy, where you can tell he feels right at home, Premier Li's vision on pollution control is, at the moment, all vision with very little specifics. "It's no good to be poor in a beautiful environment," he said, "but nor is it good to be well off while living with the consequences of environmental degradation".
China's leaders can talk tough on pollution but its not easing the considerable discontent here about the quality of air, water and even soil.
When I mentioned the hypothetical scenario of regional revolts over land grabs, in reality many of the recent clashes of this type have been because entire towns have resisted polluting industries setting up in their area.
There was a time when Beijing could deliver strong economic growth and appear very secure and in control but now even China's state run media is full of stories about this country's massive challenge with pollution.
The administration of General Secretary Xi Jinping and Premier Li Keqiang does seem to have been taken completely by surprise at the depth of anger here over pollution control. At the moment its the most heartfelt challenge that they face.
More at the link, it's a pretty good read. Certainly an unexpected turn of events to me.
