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Elizabeth C. Economy - The River Runs Black: The Environmental Challenge to Chinas Future

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The River Runs Black: The Environmental Challenge to Chinas Future: summary, description and annotation

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Chinas spectacular economic growth over the past two decades has dramatically depleted the countrys natural resources and produced skyrocketing rates of pollution. Environmental degradation in China has also contributed to significant public health problems, mass migration, economic loss, and social unrest. In The River Runs Black, Elizabeth C. Economy examines Chinas growing environmental crisis and its implications for the countrys future development.

Drawing on historical research, case studies, and interviews with officials, scholars, and activists in China, Economy traces the economic and political roots of Chinas environmental challenge and the evolution of the leaderships response. She argues that Chinas current approach to environmental protection mirrors the one embraced for economic development: devolving authority to local officials, opening the door to private actors, and inviting participation from the international community, while retaining only weak central control.

The result has been a patchwork of environmental protection in which a few wealthy regions with strong leaders and international ties improve their local environments, while most of the country continues to deteriorate, sometimes suffering irrevocable damage. Economy compares Chinas response with the experience of other societies and sketches out several possible futures for the country.

This second edition of The River Runs Black is updated with information about events between 2005 and 2009, covering Chinas tumultuous transformation of its economy and its landscape as it deals with the political implications of this behavior as viewed by an international community ever more concerned about climate change and dwindling energy resources.

Elizabeth C. Economy: author's other books


Who wrote The River Runs Black: The Environmental Challenge to Chinas Future? Find out the surname, the name of the author of the book and a list of all author's works by series.


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Elizabeth C. Economy
The River Runs Black: The Environmental Challenge to Chinas Future

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THE RIVER RUNS BLACK THE ENVIRONMENTAL CHALLENGE TO CHINAS FUTURE Second - photo 1
THE RIVER RUNS BLACK
THE ENVIRONMENTAL CHALLENGE TO CHINAS FUTURE
Second Edition
ELIZABETH C ECONOMY A COUNCIL ON FOREIGN RELATIONS BOOK CORNELL UNIVERSITY - photo 2
ELIZABETH C. ECONOMY
A COUNCIL ON FOREIGN RELATIONS BOOK
CORNELL UNIVERSITY PRESS
ITHACA & LONDON
To my family
CONTENTS
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
For nearly three decades, I, along with the rest of the world, have watched as the Chinese people have transformed their country from a poverty-stricken nation into an economic powerhouse. Equally striking, however, has been the terrible price Chinas environment has paid for this impressive transformation. Today, the environment is exacting its own toll on the Chinese people, impinging on continued economic development, forcing large-scale migration, and inflicting significant harm on the publics health. When The River Runs Black was first published in 2004, these issues were still well below the radar of many in and outside China. In the six years since, events such as the Beijing Olympics and issues such as climate change have made Chinas environmental challenges a house hold concern. The result has been an explosion of interest and activity surrounding the challenge of how China can more effectively integrate economic development and environmental protection. Senior Chinese officials, business leaders, and civil society are all engaged in transforming the way their country does business. This second edition of The River Runs Black captures this new dynamism: Beijings drive for green technology, the growing activism of the Chinese people, and the innovative efforts of Chinese planners and their international partners to establish eco-cities throughout the country. Still, powerful political and economic forces within Chinas system continue to impede change. This book illuminates not only the exciting changes but also the continuing challenges to realizing real progress in Chinas environmental effort. They are challenges that neither the Chinese people nor the rest of the world can afford to ignore.
For the past fifteen years, I have been a Fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations. During this time, I have benefited immeasurably from the support and guidance of the former Council president Leslie Gelb and the current president, Richard Haass. Both have challenged me to be better, without ever impinging on my freedom to set my own research agenda. They, together with the Councils director of studies James Lindsay, have also created a dynamic community of Fellows at the Council, and my work has benefited in every way from my interaction with these talented scholars. Adam Segal has been particularly generous in taking time from his own research to challenge me and my ideas throughout the process of writing and revising this work.
Many Chinese environmentalists, scientists, and officials have been extraordinarily patient in helping me navigate the world of Chinas environmental politics and have shared their expertise with me for more than fifteen years. Many have become close friends, and, while they remain unnamed, I owe them a special debt of gratitude.
Throughout my tenure at the Council, I have also been blessed by an outstanding group of research associates and interns. In the process of producing this second edition, I have relied above all on the first-rate research abilities, good humor, and unflagging patience of my research associate Jaeah Lee and intern Sarah McGrath. They have spent countless hours delving deeply into Chinese statistical materials and helping me to see a forest from within all the trees. Sarah Miller and Paull Randt also provided important research assistance at an earlier stage of this edition. Nancy Yao, Vanessa Guest, Eric Aldrich, and Laura Geller all contributed significantly to the first edition.
I thank Roger Haydon at Cornell University Press for his enthusiasm for my manuscript and willingness to move quickly to bring it to fruition. Jonathan Hall provided excellent support for the first edition once it was published. Their continued encouragement has made the process of revisiting and rethinking my first work a plea sure.
No amount of counsel and guidance, however, could substitute for the support and love of my family. For that, I thank my parents, James and Anastasia, and siblings, Peter, Katherine, and Melissa. Together, they created a loving and intellectually stimulating family in which to grow up. I am most fortunate now to have another wonderful home with my husband, David Wah, and our three children, Alexander, Nicholas, and Eleni. They make every day an adventure.
ELIZABETH C. ECONOMY
New York City
CHAPTER ONE THE DEATH OF THE HUAI RIVER In late July 2001 the fertile Huai - photo 3
CHAPTER ONE
THE DEATH OF THE HUAI RIVER
In late July 2001, the fertile Huai River ValleyChinas breadbasketwas the site of an environmental disaster. Heavy rains flooded the rivers tributaries, flushing more than 38 billion gallons of highly polluted water into the Huai. Although the authorities quickly proclaimed the situation under control, the incident represented a stunning failure for Chinas leadership. Only seven months earlier, the government had proclaimed its success in cleaning up the Huai. A six-year campaign to rid the region of polluting factories that dumped their wastewater into the river had ostensibly raised the quality of the water in the river and its more than one hundred tributaries to the point that people could once again fish, irrigate their crops, and even drink from the river.
The story of the Huai River over the past five decades epitomizes the saga of environmental change in China. Its a paradoxical tale, one that holds out the promise of significant change in the future, while exposing the failures of Chinas current environmental practices, many of which are rooted in centuries-old traditions.
The Huai River Valley, including Anhui, Jiangsu, Shandong, and Henan Provinces, is a fertile region in eastern China. It is roughly the size of En gland with a population of over 150 million people, all of whom depend on the Huai for their water supply. The river originates in Henans Tongbai Mountain and flows east for over six hundred miles through Henan, Anhui, and Jiangsu Provinces before flowing into the Yangtze River.
The Huai River Valley is a relatively prosperous region, with average per capita incomes in 2007 ranging from about $950 in Anhui to almost $1,680 in Jiangsu.
The Huai River boasts a dramatic and tumultuous history. In 1950, disastrous flooding prompted Mao Zedong to create the Huai River Basin Commission. As part of Maos campaign to control rivers, the Commission commandeered tens of millions of Chinese to construct no fewer than 195 dams along the Huai.
The dams have also contributed to the numerous pollution disasters that have plagued the Huai River for more than two decades. Local officials upstream have repeatedly opened the sluice gates of the dams, releasing polluted water that has poisoned crops and fish downstream thereby ruining local farms and fisheries. The problem is compounded by the roughly four thousand reservoirs constructed along the river, which limit the rivers capacity to dilute the pollutants. In many stretches of the river, the water is unfit for drinking.
Despite relatively high average annual rainfall of thirty-four inches, many parts of the river basin are also prone to drought,
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