Chinese Urbanites Speaking Out Against Pollution

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Confronted with deteriorating environmental pollution, China’s urban middle class has started expressing its anger through mass protests, achieving an initial success that is still rare throughout the country. On June 1 and 2, large protests broke out in southeast China’s Xiamen City as thousands of residents took to the streets and forced the local government to put a temporary halt to a new chemical plant. A few days later, Beijing, China’s capital, saw a similar mass-protest incident.

Construction on the Xiamen plant began in November 2006, but the local government and investors had kept it a secret until early this year. Scientists and citizens are now concerned that the US$1.4 billion chemical plant will spew out poisonous emissions. The plant is located only 4 kilometers from a 5,000-student school, and more than 100,000 people live within a 5-kilometer radius.

Concerned residents sent letters and reports to various stakeholders of the project but received no active response. Neither China’s National Development and Reform Commission, which administers the project’s investment, nor the local government have shown any intention of stopping the plant. But more residents started to learn about the project through relatives and friends, and on May 23 a cell phone message began circulating calling on residents to participate in street protests. Although the Xiamen government decided to suspend plant construction on May 30, residents hit the streets for two days in early June, demanding complete dismantlement of the project. To quench citizens’ anger, the government has pledged to carry out an environmental impact assessment.

Over the past decade, China has seen a variety of environmental protests by rural residents, rallying mainly against chemical pollution or the loss of housing and land to dam construction. But no large-scale protests took place in cities. According to one Beijing environmentalist who prefers to remain anonymous, the protests in Xiamen are significant because they illustrate that China’s urban middle class has realized the inadequacy of soft measures in countering large interest groups that damage the environment. The urban middle class is the pillar of Chinese society and has great influence. The initial success of the Xiamen protests will encourage the middle classes of other large and medium-sized cities to better safeguard their interests.

It is likely due to this encouragement that on June 5, some 1,000 residents of Beijing rallied around the State Environmental Protection Administration (SEPA) offices asking the environmental authority not to approve a US$100 million garbage incineration power project. This project was to be sited only a few hundred meters from housing areas, and residents are concerned that the plant will harm their health. Their actions brought rapid results. Two days later, Pan Yue, the deputy director of SEPA, suggested that Beijing’s municipal government suspend the project. He also recommended that Xiamen adjust its industrial layout.

Serious environmental pollution has caused social instability in China. And the Chinese government, which has been stressing “stability above everything else,” is not happy to see the brewing unease among its populace. When talking about the Xiamen incident, Pan Yue pointed out that some local governments did not really take into account the environment and natural resources in their strategic decision-making and overall planning for industrialization and urbanization. “This has set profound lessons,” Pan says.

Jianqiang Liu is a senior investigative journalist with . Outside contributions to China Watch reflect the views of the author and are not necessarily the views of the Worldwatch Institute

China Watch is a joint initiative of the Worldwatch Institute and Beijing-based Global Environmental Institute (GEI) and is supported by the blue moon fund.