In China City, Protesters See Pollution Risk of New Plant
05/8/08 8:04 PMFrom: New York Times
In China City, Protesters See Pollution Risk of New Plant
BEIJING — Residents took to the streets of a provincial capital over the weekend to protest a multibillion-dollar petrochemical plant backed by China’s leading state-run oil company, in the latest instance of popular discontent over an environmental threat in a major city.
The protest, against a $5.5 billion ethylene plant under construction by PetroChina in Chengdu, the capital of Sichuan Province, reflected a surge in environmental awareness by urban, middle-class Chinese determined to protect their health and the value of their property. A similar protest last year, against a Taiwanese-financed petrochemical venture in Xiamen, in China’s southeast, left that project in limbo.
The recent protest, which was peaceful, was organized through Web sites, blogs and cellphone text messages, illustrating how some Chinese are using digital technology to start civic movements, which are usually banned by the police. Organizers also used text messages to publicize their cause nationally.
The protesters walked calmly through downtown Chengdu for several hours on Sunday afternoon to criticize the building of a combined ethylene plant and oil refinery in Pengzhou, 18 miles northwest of the city center. Some protesters wore white masks over their mouths to evoke the dangers of pollution. About 400 to 500 protesters took part in the march, witnesses said.
Organizers circumvented a national law that requires protesters to apply for a permit by saying they were only out for a “stroll.”
Critics of the Pengzhou plan said in interviews on Monday that the government had not done proper environmental reviews of the project, which could pollute the air and water and lead to health hazards.
“We’re not dissidents,” said Wen Di, an independent blogger and former journalist living in Chengdu. “We’re just people who care about our homeland. What we’re saying is that if you want to have this project, you need to follow certain procedures: for example, a public hearing and independent environmental assessment. We want a fair and open process.”
Fan Xiao, an environmental advocate who is a geologist with the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences in Chengdu, sent out a mass cellphone message that had been written by one of the movement’s leaders and was being widely circulated across the country. “Protect our Chengdu, safeguard our homeland,” it said. “Stay away from the threat of pollution. Restore the clear water and green mountains of Sichuan.”
In an interview, Mr. Fan said, “People have been hoping this issue would get more attention.”
The protest captured the national spotlight on Monday when it was reported in The Beijing News, a newspaper that is popular with intellectuals and sometimes reports on issues that other state-run publications do not mention.
The plant is a joint venture of the Sichuan provincial government and PetroChina, the publicly traded subsidiary of the state-owned China National Petroleum Corporation, the country’s main oil producer. Approved last year, the plant is expected to produce 800,000 tons of ethylene and refine 10 million tons of crude oil a year, according to a Web site set up by the Pengzhou city government. Ethylene is widely used in the production of goods like packaging and trash liners.
Repeated calls to the joint venture company, PetroChina Sichuan Petrochem Industry, went unanswered. The project’s Web site said that $565 million of the total investment would be dedicated to environmental protection.
The march appears to have put government officials on the defensive. A brief front-page article arguing the merits of the project appeared Monday in a state-controlled newspaper, Chengdu Business News. The article said the project had been approved by the National Development and Reform Commission as part of a long-term plan to expand the country’s refining industry.
“The Sichuan refinery project will install advanced equipment and improve environmental protection facilities with strict pollution prevention,” the article said.
Police officials in Chengdu, reached by telephone, declined to comment on the march.
Rural protests by farmers have taken place for years, sometimes prompting heavy-handed suppression. Civil action by wealthier urban residents are still relatively rare, but the movement in Chengdu is at least the third widely publicized groundswell in the past year.
Construction of a Taiwanese-financed chemical plant outside the city of Xiamen, a port in Fujian Province, was halted last year after thousands of residents held street protests. Last winter, residents in Shanghai protested construction of an extension to the high-speed rail line called the Maglev, forcing officials to put that project on hold as well.
In each of those cases, residents complained that the project was situated too close to a major population center and had received only cursory environmental review despite serious environmental and health risks. The protests in Xiamen and Shanghai got prominent attention on Web sites and in the Chinese news media, which, despite state control, have sometimes encouraged more public participation in environmental issues.
Protest organizers in each city appear to have no formal links, but they have formed a tight-knit blogging network that they use to trade ideas in an online world that the police, particularly at the local level, have trouble trying to control.
One outspoken critic of the Chengdu project posts regularly on one site that is frequented by Lian Yue, a blogger who was instrumental in organizing the Xiamen protests.
“We’re definitely inspired by the events in Xiamen and Shanghai,” said the critic, who asked to be identified only by her family name, Wu, because she said she worried about attracting the attention of the authorities.
“Chengdu is in a basin,” she said. “If there’s a chemical plant there, it’ll bring pollutants. Also, Pengzhou is upstream from Chengdu, and the river provides the city’s drinking water.”
On Sunday night and Monday, a flurry of messages and photos from protesters excited by the march appeared across the Internet. One person calling himself Devil Xiaomi seemed to sum up the complaints of Chengdu residents.
“What Chengdu people demand is very simple,” he said. “This is a policy closely related to people’s interests, so why was it not open to the public?”
化工：成都的危险拐点？
05/8/08 7:27 PM印象中的中国地图
05/8/08 2:19 PM
Children’s Day
05/5/08 11:24 AM
二战前，这个节日被称为“端午节”（端午の節句)，并且只是男孩的节日。1948年，当这个节日成为公众假日的时候，便成了庆祝所有儿童的日子。
Angry China
05/4/08 5:33 PMAngry China
May 1st 2008
From The Economist print edition
The recent glimpses of a snarling China should scare the country's government as much as the world
CHINA is in a frightening mood. The sight of thousands of Chinese people waving xenophobic fists suggests that a country on its way to becoming a superpower may turn out to be a more dangerous force than optimists had hoped. But it isn't just foreigners who should be worried by these scenes: the Chinese government, which has encouraged this outburst of nationalism, should also be afraid.
For three decades, having shed communism in all but the name of its ruling party, China's government has justified its monopolistic hold on power through economic advance. Many Chinese enjoy a prosperity undreamt of by their forefathers. For them, though, it is no longer enough to be reminded of the grim austerity of their parents' childhoods. They need new aspirations.
The government's solution is to promise them that China will be restored to its rightful place at the centre of world affairs. Hence the pride at winning the Olympics, and the fury at the embarrassing protests during the torch relay. But the appeal to nationalism is a double-edged sword: while it provides a useful outlet for domestic discontents (see article), it could easily turn on the government itself.
A million mutinies
The torch relay has galvanised protests about all manner of alleged Chinese crimes: in Tibet, in China's broader human-rights record, in its cosy relations with repellent regimes. And these in turn have drawn counter-protests from thousands of expatriate Chinese, from Chinese within the country and on the internet.
Chinese rage has focused on the alleged “anti-China” bias of the Western press, which is accused of ignoring violence by Tibetans in the unrest in March. From this starting-point China's defenders have gone on to denounce the entire edifice of Western liberal democracy as a sham. Using its tenets to criticise China is, they claim, sheer hypocrisy. They cite further evidence of double standards: having exported its dirtiest industries to China, the West wants the country to curb its carbon emissions, potentially impeding its growth and depriving newly well-off Chinese of their right to a motor car. And as the presidential election campaign in America progresses, more China-bashing can be expected, with protectionism disguised as noble fury at “coddling dictators”.
China's rage is out of all proportion to the alleged offences. It reflects a fear that a resentful, threatened West is determined to thwart China's rise. The Olympics have become a symbol of China's right to the respect it is due. Protests, criticism and boycott threats are seen as part of a broader refusal to accept and accommodate China.
There is no doubt genuine fury in China at these offences; yet the impression the response gives of a people united behind the government is an illusion. China, like India, is a land of a million mutinies now. Legions of farmers are angry that their land has been swallowed up for building by greedy local officials. People everywhere are aghast at the poisoning of China's air, rivers and lakes in the race for growth. Hardworking, honest citizens chafe at corrupt officials who treat them with contempt and get rich quick. And the party still makes an ass of the law and a mockery of justice.
Herein lies the danger for the government. Popular anger, once roused, can easily switch targets. This weekend China will be commemorating an event seen as pivotal in its long revolution—the protests on May 4th 1919 against the humiliation of China by the Versailles treaty (which bequeathed German “concessions” in China to Japan). The Communist Party had roots in that movement. Now, as then, protests at perceived slights against China's dignity could turn against a government accused of not doing enough to safeguard it.
Remember the ides of May
Western businessmen and policymakers are pulled in opposite directions by Chinese anger. As the sponsors of the Olympics have learned to their cost, while consumer- and shareholder-activists in the West demand they take a stand against perceived Chinese abuses, in China itself firms' partners and customers are all too ready to take offence. Western policymakers also face a difficult balancing act. They need to recognise that China has come a long way very quickly, and offers its citizens new opportunities and even new freedoms, though these are still far short of what would constitute democracy. Yet that does not mean they should pander to China's pride. Western leaders have a duty to raise concerns about human rights, Tibet and other “sensitive” subjects. They do not need to resign themselves to ineffectiveness: up to a point, pressure works: China has been modestly helpful over Myanmar, North Korea and Sudan. It has even agreed to reopen talks with the Dalai Lama's representatives. This has happened because of, not despite, criticism from abroad.
Pessimists fear that if China faces too much such pressure, hardliners within the ruling elite will triumph over the “moderates” in charge now. But even if they did, it is hard to see how they could end the 30-year-old process of opening up and turn China in on itself. This unprecedented phenomenon, of the rapid integration into the world of its most populous country, seems irreversible. There are things that could be done to make it easier to manage—including reform of the architecture of the global institutions that reflect a 60-year-old world order. But the world and China have to learn to live with each other.
For China, that means learning to respect foreigners' rights to engage it even on its “internal affairs”. A more measured response to such criticism is necessary not only to China's great-power ambitions, but also to its internal stability; for while the government may distract Chinese people from their domestic discontents by breathing fire at foreigners, such anger, once roused, can run out of control. In the end, China's leaders will have to deal with those frustrations head-on, by tackling the pollution, the corruption and the human-rights abuses that contribute to the country's dangerous mood. The Chinese people will demand it.
韩国版的anti-cnn
05/1/08 10:16 AMQueen’s Day
04/30/08 10:22 PM
Great Art Themes
04/30/08 9:21 PM
中国经济为什么被俄罗斯迅速超越？
04/30/08 11:29 AMGoons and Thugs
04/28/08 12:45 PM
ANZAC Day
04/25/08 11:31 AM
描述:ANZAC Day 澳新军团日
Girl’s Day
04/24/08 8:30 PM
“女孩节”是由德国联邦教育部、德国工会联合会和一些私营公司发起的，目的是为了培养女孩对多种职业的兴趣，促进工作上的性别平等。“女孩节”的概念由美国引入，并得到许多学校的支持。
德教育部长埃德尔加德·布尔曼女士说，她希望更多的女孩能够在一些由男性占主导的科学、技术等有前途的领域培养起兴趣。
德国工会副主席乌尔苏拉说，德国许多女孩仍觉得她们的选择被局限在少数低收入的职业中。她说，“我们必须承认，有50％的女孩仍选择如理发师、花匠或秘书等10个典型女性职业，这很大程度上是由社会偏见造成的。”
St. George’s Day
04/23/08 11:28 PM
Doodle 4 Google Turkey Winning Logo
04/23/08 11:26 PM
少一些戾气，多一些温情
04/23/08 9:53 PM阅读王千源有感
04/23/08 5:23 PM豆瓣上的人肉炸弹
04/22/08 2:55 PM房产崩盘路线图
04/22/08 11:13 AMEarth Day
04/22/08 9:54 AM