In China, angry protesters force government to reconsider chemical plant
| Beijing
Five days of rowdy protests in a southern Chinese city against a planned chemical plant have forced the authorities onto the back foot and underscored that breakneck economic growth no longer rides roughshod over public opinion in the world's second largest economy.聽
But that doesn't necessarily mean that policymakers are incorporating environmental issues into their planning, nor that such protests, which can turn violent and challenge the writ of local government, are a passing phase of China's industrialization. 聽
On Sunday demonstrators overturned and torched vehicles while police in riot gear resorted to clubs and teargas to impose order on the streets of Maoming, in Guangdong province.
By Monday聽the local government was taking a softer line. 鈥淲e will not make a decision contrary to public opinion鈥� on whether to build a new plant to make paraxylene (PX), a chemical used to make plastic bottles, it said on its official microblog site.
The unrest in Maoming is the latest in a series of recent protests against PX plants and other potentially polluting factories around the country. Many have succeeded: five major projects have been canceled in the past two years in the face of local opposition.聽
鈥淓nvironmental protests often succeed if they are big enough,鈥� says Wang Canfa, an expert in environmental law at the University of Political Science and Law in Beijing. 鈥淪ome local officials do not understand that force cannot solve everything. People today are more aware of their health and of the environment.鈥�
An opinion poll last year by Jiao Tong University in Shanghai found that 77 percent of urban dwellers said they thought environmental protection was more important to China now than economic development.
But even environmental activists are not always happy to see industrial projects halted by public pressure.
鈥淓ither a project gets forced through without proper public consultation or review or it gets scrapped, also without proper review,鈥� says Ma Jun, head of the Institute for Environmental and Public Affairs, a prominent Beijing think tank.
Neither outcome is a success, he argues. 鈥淲e need a new form of environmental decision making鈥� to take account of public opinion 鈥渙r else we will continue to have problems like Maoming.鈥�
Listen more, says PM
Some of China's top leaders appear to have got that message. Only last week, in a speech in Inner Mongolia on the importance of 鈥渕ass work鈥� 鈥� outreach to the citizenry 鈥� Prime Minister Li Keqiang insisted that the government 鈥渕ust listen more, even when we do not like what we hear.鈥�
And a commentary published聽Wednesday聽in the People鈥檚 Daily, the mouthpiece of the ruling Communist party, argued that if local authorities 鈥渄evoted the same passion to mass work as they do to development it would not be difficult to eliminate barriers and misunderstandings鈥� in situations such as Maoming.
Environmental problems, though, are just one part of a broader question that Chinese officials face, says Gong Wenxiang, a professor of journalism at Peking University.
Local officials are often torn between their two top priorities, economic growth and social stability, the key criteria by which their performance is judged by superiors. That is a tough call, especially when the popular mood in China is changing and more affluent urbanites are no longer ready to trade their health for more jobs.
In the end, Prof. Gong says, most officials put their political interests on top. 鈥淭o crack down鈥� on public protests against a new factory 鈥渋s the worse choice, because it risks social instability and that is a danger to their positions,鈥� he suggests.
In the face of unrest that might draw unfavorable judgment from higher authorities, 鈥渋t is easier for an official to cancel a project and relieve public pressure,鈥� agrees Prof. Wang.
Factories put on hold
That is what has happened in a number of cases over the past two years. Street protests forced officials to cancel PX plants in Kunming in southwestern China and in Ningbo on the east coast; to scrap plans for a paper mill in Jiangsu in southern China; to abandon a copper processing project in Shifang, Sichuan province; and to halt construction of a lithium battery factory in Shanghai.
That does not sit well with environmental activist Ma. 鈥淎llowing these questions to be decided by street action is not the best way forward for China,鈥� he says. Instead, he argues, the law should offer opportunities for consultation with affected citizens.
Since Jan. 1, a new law requires developers of all big industrial projects in China to publish full environmental impact assessments. But it gives the public only ten days in which to lodge comments on technical documents that often run to hundreds of pages.
And local governments often finesse their obligation to submit industrial plans to public scrutiny by consulting small groups of experts instead of a broader range of stakeholders.
When the city of Chengdu, in Sichuan province, was planning a PX plant a few years ago, it invited fewer than a dozen environmental activists and scholars to a closed door meeting, refused to show them the project鈥檚 environmental impact assessment and dodged tough questions, according to Yang Yong, an environmental scientist who attended the symposium.
鈥淧eople protest against these PX plants mainly because there is not enough public information about them,鈥� Mr. Yang says.
鈥淚f there were open channels for public complaints, and if people could raise their problems openly, there would be fewer demonstrations,鈥� adds Wang. 鈥淏ut without those channels, and with problems left unaddressed, there are going to be more and more protests.鈥�
