China's industrial boom blows ill winds of pollution

By Irawati Wisnumurti

BEIJING (JP): The 50-mile drive from central Beijing to Zhoukoudian, the site of Peking Man, is a journey through both time and massive air pollution.

A short distance from the city, the urban skyline looms large but is almost invisible as the myriad office blocks and civic buildings disappear into the thick haze.

It is doubtful whether Peking Man would have been able to survive the effects of the smog without choking and coughing to his grave.

Pollution in Beijing is the ugly product of modern man and development.

According to an Environmental Protection Bureau report issued last year, China's dirty environment is contributing to a rising number of deaths from cancers and respiratory diseases. The rate of deaths caused by cancer in cities was 12.8 per 10,000 or about 21.8 percent of urban deaths, the report said.

Cerebrovascular and respiratory diseases and cancers, particularly lung cancer, are major causes of death in China.

According to an Inter Press Service report, Chinese officials admitted to the seriousness of Beijing's air and water pollution levels, but said that publicly acknowledging the true gravity of the situation could provoke "social unrest". The government felt that public disclosure could hurt Beijing's foreign relations and its image as a capital.

The report says that the pollution level in Beijing was "very serious" based on an eight-day investigation by a group of officials and environmental protection experts. Members of the investigating team appealed to city residents to curb pollution.

In terms of air pollution, scientists are quoted by the Global Environmental Information Locator Service as predicting that China, as one of the world's largest coal producers, will emit more carbon dioxide and sulfur dioxide, two products from coal burning, by 2025 than the United States, Japan and Canada combined.

Coal accounts for about 70 percent of China's total energy consumption. With 81 percent of the coal used for households unwashed, coal utilization increases the levels of acid rain and various cancers and respiratory diseases, and contributes to global warming.

With 80 percent of coal resources located in mountainous areas far from industrial regions, coal has to be transported over long distances. An armada of open trucks passes around the Great Wall in the Pataling area outside Beijing as they transport the fuel to the capital.

As China moves from being a socialist society towards a market economy and continues down the road to industrialization, economic growth has taken priority over environmental concerns.

Contradictory

Considering the Chinese philosophy of Taoism, which reveres nature, the rampant environmental degradation seems to be contradictory. With the complexities of its people and its history, many paradoxical twists are present.

According to Taoism, the Chinese believe that human beings are minor compared to nature, and this is reflected in Chinese paintings of towering cliffs with running rivers and streams under immense skies, with a small nondescript man at the bottom corner of the scroll, holding a thin, insignificant fishing rod.

Nature provides everything for the people and it, therefore, should be revered, for it determines people's fate. The individual should conform to the rhythm and heartbeat of the universe, as a Taoist believer would say.

Man is considered one with nature, in the Taoist concept of wu shing, meaning five agents of water, fire, wood, metal and earth, which are also considered "breaths" or "energies." They are connected to other aspects of nature, as well as five inner organs of the human body. The concept ties with the Taoist idea of harmony between man and nature.

The power of this ancient philosophy can be seen in the respect Chinese citizens have for some elements of the natural world around them. At the Ming Tombs and other historic sites in China, many aging cyprus trees are propped up with metal rods to prevent them from falling.

At the Tiantan (Temple of Heaven), an ancient complex of temples built during the Ming Dynasty, a cyprus tree is fenced off in an act of reverence. Taoist and other believers regularly crowd before the tree with outstretched arms, and often report tingling sensations traveling from the tip of the fingers through the arms and shoulders.

"The tree gives out energy, which you can feel through your arms," a tour guide explained recently. "People come from miles around just to see the tree, asking for good fortune. They believe the tree has power."

This respect for nature's power is not extended to protecting the environment. The Chinese have not fully implemented the cabinet-level State Council's order on a crackdown on polluting industrial plants threatening health and creating environmental chaos due to primitive manufacturing techniques and equipment, excessive use of resources and blatant discharge of industrial wastes into lakes and rivers.

Lu Xinyuan, director for supervision and management of the National Environmental Protection Agency, was quoted by UPI as saying that "although most local governments strongly supported the campaign and took immediate action to enforce it, several provinces failed to carry out the closure order (of such factories)".

Unfortunately, the pollution spreads easily. Beijing shares Chicago's reputation of being a windy city and hazardous pollutants from industrial sites, motor vehicle emissions and coal ashes are carried by the winds around the city.