Tuesday 31 July 2007

Obstacles to taming the "Dirty Dragon"

H/T Time China for a post that makes reference to 4 obstacles to the greening of China. Time reiterate that the following list amounts to nothing more than saying that the entire problem is related to "corruption". I disagree with this statement.

China has already come on a remarkable journey in the last 20 years. The speed of development is bound to lead to teething problems and China is on a very steep learning curve. As incomes rise China's environmental record will improve. Corruption can be tamed. This however all takes time. China needs support to achieve its environmental goals. The 4 obstacles listed below are all valid however and whilst change will not be rapid (and certainly not as quick as the West would want) it will eventually happen in my opinion.

China has a lot of problems to deal with from food prices, creating jobs for millions each year, censoring blogs (like this one) and environmental degradation on a vast scale.

My feeling is that the environment was seen as the least of its problems although it is quickly moving up the list of priorities.

Ranking the Obstacles to Sustainable Development in China

Obstacle #1 The biggest obstacles are unrealistic economic goals defined in economic terms (GDP) which are then exaggerated at lower levels. Economic growth goals need to be relaxed, said Zheng. The development ministries such as the State Development Planning Commission, the State Economic and Trade Commission are much more powerful than the protective ministries such as the State Environmental Protection Administration (SEPA), the State Forestry Bureau (although some Chinese experts say that Forestry is more of a forest-exploiting than a forest-protecting agency.)

Obstacle #2 The second greatest obstacle to sustainable development is the private interest group-like behavior of ministries and local governments. This results in conflicting goals as each ministry and local government seeks its private advantage first and prevents a coherent policy from being implemented. This second obstacle is related to the weakness of law and the ineffectiveness of the central government in imposing policy upon different ministries and upon local government.

Obstacles #3 The third obstacle is the widespread corruption of Chinese government officials. This is closely related to obstacle #2 above. The perception of widespread corruption by government (that the government does not obey the law) probably also makes it harder to persuade Chinese people to comply with laws and weakens the authority of government generally.

Obstacle #4 The fourth obstacle is the poor quality of decision-making by Chinese government officials. This fourth obstacle is due to limitations in personal integrity, education and knowledge of many officials [Note: The Chinese term that expresses a person's quality (suzhi) is a blend of personal integrity, education, and general knowledge. End note] but also to the poor quality of the statistics they base their decisions on. Some Chinese academic say that the elimination of the social sciences from university curricula in the early 1950s (but making a comeback today) has resulted in very narrowly educated officials and scientists who don't understand the big picture. Premier Zhu Rongji's government in 1998 launched a campaign still underway to stop the widespread falsification and exaggeration of statistical data that local governments send to the central government.

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