How to Make a Film About Tibetans That Has appeal in China
“Nowhere to Call Home” is the kind of documentary about Tibetan people in China made by foreigners, in this case an American and former NPR journalist, that has intrigued audiences. The film does not engage in self-righteous rhetoric or polemical attacks against China’s “human rights” record. It is rather a fair and personal portrayal of ordinary Tibetans and their trials and tribulations trying to eek out a living in the nation’s capital.
Tibetans face discrimination in Chinese cities, in part because of traumatic events such as self emulations that have occurred over the past few years which the Dalai Lama and his supporters fail to condemn. Only by seeing Tibetans as ordinary human beings with the same problems, albeit more acute, as people among the Han majority have will more Chinese be encouraged to see the film and be empathetic to their plight. And that’s the main purpose of the film.
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An American filmmaker has made a documentary on Tibet. Those two elements alone might seem grounds for China’s Communist Party to ban it, but instead the film — Nowhere to Call Home — quietly has been making the rounds in China and winning praise from local audiences.
The reason? The film is an even-handed, deeply personal story that steers clear of politics. Journalist Jocelyn Ford spent years documenting the life of Zanta, a Tibetan migrant who fled her poor, mountain village to build a life for herself and her son in Beijing.
The film, which is simply shot, depicts the abuse Zanta faces in her Tibetan village because she’s a woman and the discrimination she faces in the Chinese capital because she’s Tibetan.
Part of the movie’s appeal is that it demystifies Tibet, which has long held a special place in the Western imagination. In the 1930s novel, Lost Horizon, a British diplomat crash lands in Tibet’s snow-covered mountains and discovers peaceful Buddhists who never age.
“Shangri-La. It was a strange and incredible sight,” says the diplomat, played by actor Ronald Colman, in a 1941 radio play based on the novel. “A group of colored pavilions clinging to the mountainside, like flower petals impaled upon a crag. It was superb and exquisite.”
“We have an expression,” says Zanta, referring to her community. “‘Women aren’t worth a penny.’ Our men are ferocious. If a woman misspeaks, they belt her.”
Zanta, a widow, is battling her father-in-law for custody of her son. The old man, who lives in a largely pre-industrial village, sees no need for the boy, Yang Qing, to attend school. He holds onto Zanta’s and her son’s government-issued ID cards as a way to control them.
Despondent, Zanta moves to Beijing with the boy to seek a better life but has trouble finding long-term lodging. Landlords, who often see Tibetans as oafish and uncivilized, discriminate against her. In one scene, Zanta complains to police after a landlord reneges on renting her an apartment.
“This is an insult to all Tibetans. I’ve lost face,” says Zanta.
“We are all Chinese,” responds a police officer, who is Han Chinese, the country’s dominant ethnic group.
“Chinese bully Tibetans,” Zanta replies bitterly.
Ford, a former China correspondent for public radio’s “Marketplace,” met Zanta while she was selling jewelry on the streets of Beijing in 2005. They exchanged phone numbers. Two years later, Zanta called out of the blue.
Short of money and struggling to raise Yang Qing, she asked if she could give him to the journalist. Instead, Ford began helping finance the boy’s education and documenting Zanta’s life.
Ford is open about crossing the traditional line that separates journalist and subject and even notes when her presence influences the outcome of scenes. By being transparent about her friendship and support of Zanta, Ford says she leaves it to the audience to decide whether her involvement is appropriate.
“When I started making the film, I didn’t think I had a hope in high heaven of showing it in China,” said Ford, following a screening in Shanghai this week. Ford says Chinese audiences seem able to accept the film because it’s a personal journey — not a polemic.
The story can be listened at:
China On Top Again in Clean Energy Investment: Bloomberg
Many foreigners, especially Americans, mock China for its atrocious air pollution but few realize the extent to which the government and Chinese companies are investing in clean energy solutions. Here is a synopsis:
China kept the crown for global clean energy investment in 2014, particularly solar and wind. The Bloomberg New Energy Finance report said the country’s investment in clean energy last year hit a record US$89.5 billion, a 32% jump over 2013 and accounting for about 28.9% of the world’s total. Investment worldwide totaled US$310 billion, up 16%, driven by surges in investment in solar energy in China and the United States, and offshore wind energy in Europe.
In 2013, China generated more than 5.4 TWh (1000 GWh) of electricity, about 1.1 TWh more than the US (or as much as the US and India combined). China’s investment in hydroelectric, wind, solar and nuclear power capacity increased by 40% between 2008 and 2012, from 138 billion RMB (US$22 billion) to around 200 billion RMB. Hydroelectricity accounts for the vast majority of power generated through renewables that now reaches 9.6% of all energy used in China, up from 5.6% in 2000 and on track to reach 20% by 2020.
In 2013, China added 16.1 GW to total 91.4 GW of installed wind power capacity, cumulatively growing by 21% – well on track to reach and surpass the 100 GW wind power target by 2015. Citigroup estimated China’s super windy provinces – Hebei, Gansu, Xinjiang, Jiangsu, Jilin, and Inner Mongolia – could easily install 131 GW of capacity by the end of the decade while a government plan looks to installing 200 GW.
Meanwhile, solar power stood at 19.4 GW with almost 13 GW added in 2013 itself. With such an aggressive installation pace, China stands an excellent chance of installing 35 GW solar power capacity by the end of the year. China is also upgrading its power grid to accommodate power fluctuations and distributed generation for intermittent sources.
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– China Daily/Asia News Network: http://news.asiaone.com/news/business/china-retains-global-top-spot-clean-energy-investment
China to Set Up VC Fund to Spur Innovation
On this blog, I’ve talked about China’s dramatic rise on various annual assessments of worldwide patent registrations; on China’s ambition of becoming an innovation superpower by 2020; on the UN’s positivity viz. China’s innovation trajectory; and so on. Now, the Chinese government is putting state funds into private innovation through the setting up of this VC fund. This is a major initiative focusing on start-ups that will spur private Chinese innovation into the next decade.
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China will set up a government venture capital fund worth 40 billion yuan (US$6.45 billion) to support start-ups in emerging industries, in its latest move to support the private sector and foster innovation.
“It will also help breed and foster sunrise industries for the future and promote (China’s) economy to evolve towards the medium and high ends,” it said in the statement published in the government’s website, www.gov.cn,, referring to sectors which the government is promoting such as technology and green energy.
The government issued the statement after a meeting on Wednesday. It did not give a timetable, but past experience has shown that such a fund could be established within a few weeks after an announcement.
China’s venture capital market remains small, the legacy of the country’s decades of the planned economy in which private sector’s development is largely subject to a great variety of restrictions.
In the first half of 2014, 83 new funds were set up in China’s venture capital market, with fresh capital eligible for investment in the mainland surging 157 percent from a year earlier, but remaining at a moderate $6.76 billion, according to a research by Zero21PO Capital, a service provider and investment institution in China’s private equity industry.
During the period, 517 investment cases occurred in the market, with details of 440 made public on a combined investment capital of $5.3 billion, the research showed.
Still, the government is increasingly supporting the expansion of the industry since two years ago when mapped out a strategy to let market forces to eventually play a “decisive” role in China’s economy.
Last month, for instance, regulators issued new rules to allow insurance companies to invest their huge pool of premiums in venture capital funds for the first time.
The cabinet said in Wednesday’s statement that the planned fund would be funded by the government’s existing capital designated for expansion of emerging industries and by state corporates, while also inviting private partners to participate in.
The fund will render public tenders to invite high processional asset managements to operate, with returns giving priority to private investors, it said.
– Reuters
The Taxman Cometh
Knew it would happen someday and it’s beginning this year: China’s taxman is going after Chinese nationals worldwide for income tax. China is now the second nation after the US to tax based on citizenship not residency. China is bearing down on nationals earning large incomes overseas as it prepares for increasing social security budgets in the coming decades.
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When the political leaders of the People’s Republic of China decided to modernize the country’s federal tax system in the early 1990s, they carefully examined the rules in place in other counties. They eventually concluded their empire-building ambitions would best be served by adopting the key design features of the IRC — including citizenship-based taxation of personal income.
Yet for the past 20 years, China’s State Administration of Taxation (SAT) has declined to enforce this rule. As a result, Chinese expats have grown accustomed to not paying Chinese income taxes on their foreign salaries. The government’s failure to apply the law has been attributed to limited organizational resources inside the SAT and the non-availability of pertinent income data from private employers. It’s also been suggested that by going soft on expats, the government indirectly promotes the expansion and global influence of Chinese firms.
Whatever the case, Beijing is no longer looking the other way. Beginning in 2015, the government expects all Chinese citizens residing abroad to include their foreign salary and wages in taxable income. Why the change? The best answer appears to be that the Chinese government needs the money to meet its spending needs.
Viewed in isolation, this development could easily be overlooked. But when considered alongside other recent steps, it seems clear that China’s central government is newly emboldened when it comes to revenue collection. As this trend continues, it wouldn’t be surprising to see China’s tax framework become more like America’s with each passing year.
– Forbes
Han Officials Must Learn Tibetan to Serve in Tibet
This is administrative reform that took too long in coming. Another commonsensical rule that took President Xi’s exhortation to realize.
Not only a ruling but a law should be introduced for all Han officials serving in minority areas. In addition to Tibetan for Tibet proper and areas with high Tibetan populations in Sichuan and Qinghai; Uighur, Kazakh or Tajik in Xinjiang; Mongolian in Inner Mongolia; Dai, Miao, Zhuang, Yi and others in Yunnan, Guizhou, and Guangxi, and so on. Officials can achieve far more with far less misunderstanding if they are able to converse with local people in their own tongue.
Of course, the opposite should be the case, too. Gladly, slowly but surely, through mandatory bilingual education at the primary and secondary school levels, ethnic minority children are learning “Putonghua” (the common language) or better known as Mandarin to Westerners, albeit with regional accents.
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Mastery of the Tibetan language will become a requirement for non-native cadres in China’s Tibet Autonomous Region. All seven prefecture-level cities in Tibet have started organizing Tibetan language training for non-native cadres, according to the regional bureau of compilation and translation on Monday.
Qoizha, deputy director of the bureau, said they have handed out 40,000 books on basic Tibetan language for daily conversation.
President Xi Jinping stressed at a conference on ethnic work in September 2014 that in ethnic regions, ethnic minority cadres should learn Mandarin, and Han cadres should also learn ethnic languages. The language skill should become a “requirement” for cadres. “One cannot serve the local people well if one cannot speak the local language,” Xi said.
Tibet has adopted a bilingual policy since the regional legislature passed a law in 1987 stipulating both Tibetan language and Mandarin as official languages in the region.
Qoizha said over 90 percent of Tibet’s population of 3 million is of Tibetan ethnicity. Breaking the language hurdle can help non-native cadres better interact with local communities. In the past 20 years, close to 6,000 cadres and technical professionals from various Chinese provinces and municipalities have been sent to help develop the southwestern autonomous region of Tibet. Cadres usually stay in the region for three years.
According to Wang Fengchao, deputy head of the Organization Department of the Tibet autonomous regional committee of the Communist Party of China, seven cadre cohorts from 18 provincial regions have been sent to 74 counties and cities in the southwest region since 1994, when the cadre aid program was launched. They have worked in fields such as the economy, technology, education, and medical science.
Zhao Lei, a cadre working in Zantang Township of Shannan Prefecture, said simple conversation in the local tongue can bring a feeling of intimacy between people. He said he hopes to learn more Tibetan so he won’t have to depend on his Tibetan colleagues for interpretation wherever he goes.
Cering Banjor, Party chief of the No. 4 Chadang Village in Nagqu Prefecture, said the village committee has helped Han cadres find language partners for the required language training. Most of them have been able to use Tibetan for simple conversations.
Qoizha said in addition to Tibetan-language reading materials, the regional government plans to produce bilingual language-learning TV programs to help civil servants learn the language.
– (Xinhua) English.news.cn
Big Splash of Chinese Companies at CES 2015 Not a Surprise
American commentators are prone to underestimating the growing innovative sophistication of Chinese companies so for them the sheer quantity and quality of Chinese products at the just closed International Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas this year came as a surprise. But, they shouldn’t be.
At next year’s CES, there will be even more Chinese companies with even more state-of-the-art gadgets on show that will garner rave reviews. And with the state’s goal to become an innovative superpower by the end of the decade, there will be a whole lot of ‘surprises’ going forward.
China’s innovation machine is just revving up!
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All the new electronic gadgets were there at CES 2015, held Jan 6-9 in Las Vegas. Android Smartphones, 4K TVs, storage devices from Korea, human-like robots from Japan, and 3-D printers from the US and Germany.
Some came from large well-established brands like Samsung, Toshiba, and HP. Others came from obscure start-ups, surprising some CES observers.
But the big surprise at this year’s International Consumer Electronics Show, in our opinion, was the rise of Chinese brands—both in terms of quantity and quality.
Chinese companies occupied close to one-fourth of the exhibition space, displaying, all sorts of gadgets, from tablets, to laptops, to smart projectors, to giant TVs and drones. And some attracted favorable reviews.
Lenovo’s Window Yoga Tablet with AnyPen Technology, for instance, was included in PC Magazine’s “The Best of CES 2015 list,” as was the company’s Vibe Band and LaVie H750 convertible and HZ550 clamshell laptop. ZTE’s second-generation smart projector, which built on the experience of last year’s Sprint LivePro, was also on the list.
That’s certainly a big step for Chinese companies, which so far have been considered imitators of American, European and Japanese products rather than innovators – and, in some case cases, as backyard manufacturers for American and European merchandisers and marketers.
China, the world’s second largest economy, has been trying to catch up with its American, Japanese and Korean counterparts, which have thus far dominated the consumer electronics brand space. But the country’s brands have yet to make it to popular lists – like Forbes World’s Most Valuable Brands List, Interbrand’s Best Global Brands List, and Forbes World’s Most Innovative Companies.
To be fair, some of China’s companies are too young to meet the criteria required by the compilers of these lists – such as presence in the US consumer market. But if this year’s strong CES showing turns into a trend, it may be a matter of time before some Chinese brands make these lists.
– Forbes
China is Big Reason Why Global Inequality Narrowed So Fast: Cato Analyst
In his Washington Post piece below (excerpted), Mr Marian Tupy, senior analyst at the Cato Institute, hits the nail on the head when he says China is the big reason why the wealth gap between developed and developing countries has narrowed significantly over the past half century. In spite of Mao’s disastrous campaigns, one after the other for two decades until his death in 1976, his successor Deng Xiaoping, the ultimate pragmatist, dared to break the shackles of the planned economy to save China from economic collapse.
At the tail end of the Cultural Revolution in the mid-1970s, the private economy was still forbidden and everything had to go through the state which dictated paltry rations and industrial coupons for basic living. People in the cities required cereal coupons to eat – about 33 to 40 catties (36.3 to 44 pounds) of coarse steamed bread or rice a month with little meat, eggs, or oil. But, there was lots of napa cabbage, nothing BUT cabbage in the winter months. Industrial workers got up to 50 catties of cereals and more meat, albeit fatty and low quality. Farmers tilled their tiny “free plots” while working for pitifully low paying work points on agricultural communes.
For clothes, cotton coupons were required to purchase cotton fabrics during a time when man-made fabrics were still a rarity. Families had to queue up to acquire industrial coupons to purchase bicycles, foot-powered sewing machines, radios, watches, and tiny b & w TVs. Travel was restricted and special permission had to obtained for leaves from state jobs to visit relatives. It wasn’t until the late 1970s early 1980s until people were allowed to purchase private phone lines at great cost.
Deng Xiaoping’s reforms eventually did away with all that planned era baggage. Especially after joining the WTO in 2001, China’s economy surged ahead and transformed itself on the back of globalized production. That spelled the beginning of the end of China’s subsistence economy, putting it on course to become the second largest economy in the world. Within another decade, it will inevitably be the largest regardless of what the nay-sayers say.
Indeed, the Chinese owe their current prosperity to Deng Xiaoping.
BTW, Mr Tupy mentions China’s 2013 per capita income in exchange rate terms was about US$6,800 but by the measure of purchasing power parity (PPP), it is closer to $10,000. That’s why, while celebrating China’s remarkable achievements over the last three and one half decades, we should not forget how much farther China needs to go.
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…Consider the spectacular rise of Asia. In 1960, the U.S. was 11 times richer than Asia. Today, America is only 4.8 times richer than Asia.
To understand why, let’s look at China.
Between 1958 and 1961, Mao Zedong attempted to transform China’s largely agricultural economy into an industrial one through the “Great Leap Forward.” His stated goal was to overtake the U.K.’s industrial production in 15 years. Industrialization, which included building of factories at home as well as large-scale purchases of machinery abroad, was to be paid for by food produced on collective farms.
But the collectivization of agriculture resulted in famine that killed between 18 and 45 million people. Industrial initiatives, such as Mao’s attempt to massively increase production of steel, were equally disastrous. People burned their houses to stoke the fires of the steel mills and melted cooking wares to fulfill the steel production quotas. The result was destruction, rather than creation of wealth.
Deng Xiaoping, Mao’s successor, partially privatized the farmland and allowed farmers to sell their produce. Trade liberalization ensured that Chinese industrial output would no longer be dictated by production quotas, but by the demands of the international economy. But following liberalization in 1978, China’s GDP per capita has increased 12.5 fold, rising from $545 in 1980 to $6,807 in 2013. Over the same time period, the Chinese poverty rate fell from 84 percent to 10 percent.
What is true of China is also true in much of the developing world. As Laurence Chandy and Geoffrey Gertz of the Brookings Institution wrote in 2011, “poverty reduction of this magnitude is unparalleled in history: never before have so many people been lifted out of poverty over such a brief period of time.”
Developing countries have made strides in other areas too. Take life expectancy. Between 1960 and 2010, global life expectancy increased from 53 years to 70. In the U.S. over the same period it rose from 70 to 78. Similar stories can be told about child and maternal mortality, treatment of communicable diseases and the spread of technology.
Many Americans point to globalization as a bogeyman, robbing our country of good jobs and resources. But really, the phenomenon has ushered in a period of unprecedented prosperity in many poor countries. Even as we struggle with economic problems at home let us remember the global — and largely positive — perspective on the state of the world.
– Washington Post
China Pivots to Latin America and the Caribbean
As the US tries to pivot to Asia militarily and pitches its Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) to East Asian countries at the exclusion of China, China pushes right back by pivoting to America’s backyard, not with weapons and the military but investment, trade, and infrastructure building. Now, that’s the right way to carry out foreign policy!
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Chinese President Xi Jinping pledged on Thursday $250 billion (166 billion pounds) in investment in Latin America over the next 10 years, as part of a drive to boost Beijing’s influence in a region long dominated by the United States.
Leaders of the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States, or CELAC – a bloc of 33 countries in the region that excludes the United States and Canada – gathered in Beijing for the first time for a two-day forum on Thursday.
The forum, which also marked the first time China hosted the body, came at a time when Beijing is trying to step up its presence in the region as it clamours for more resources.
Xi said in a speech that two-way trade between China and Latin America was estimated to rise to $500 billion within the next 10 years.
“I believe that this meeting will achieve fruitful results, give the world a positive signal about deepening cooperation between China and Latin America and have an important and far-reaching impact on promoting South-South cooperation and prosperity for the world,” Xi said.
China and Latin America are cooperating in the areas of energy, infrastructure construction, agriculture, manufacturing and technological innovation, Xi said.
China is interested in the region for resources and markets, said Deng Yuwen, a Beijing-based political analyst and former deputy editor of the Central Party School’s journal, Study Times.
“Obviously, China has the intention to compete with the U.S. for a greater sphere of influence in the region,” said Deng. “But whether this strategy will weaken U.S. influence now is hard to judge.”
China, the world’s second-largest economy, is buying oil from Venezuela, copper from Peru and Chile, and soybean from Argentina and Brazil.
In return, China has pumped billions of dollars in investments in the region. On Wednesday, Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro said he had secured more than $20 billion in investment from China, while Ecuador said it obtained a total of $7.53 billion in credit lines and loans from China.
“To repeat what (former) President Hugo Chavez said, China is demonstrating to the world that a country does not necessarily seek hegemony as it grows stronger,” Maduro said in a speech that was translated into English.
– Reuters
Combatting Air Pollution in Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei
Due mostly to coal-burning power plants and Hebei province’s heavy industrial base that uses much coal and various chemicals, the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei corridor has become a disaster area for air pollutants. Smog in the region is vicious with the density of particulate matter smaller than 2.5 micrometers (PM2.5) literally off the charts.
Coal consumption in Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei topped 347 million tonnes with Beijing using up 23 million tonnes, Tianjin 53 million and Hebei 271 million in 2012. Hebei makes up around 78% of total consumption in the region, 1/3 of which goes for power generation. Heavy industries such as iron and steel and cement (mostly in Hebei) also take up a large chunk. According to the 2012 China Environmental Statistics Yearbook, Hebei accounts for 77% to 90% of the three main air pollutants in Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei.
In early 2013 official Beijing data showed an average figure of over 300 and readings of up to 700 at individual recording stations. The US Embassy in Beijing, which started monitoring in 2010, recorded substantially higher levels of up to 800 in January 2013, levels that are deemed dangerous to human health. Since then, stricter monitoring of ozone levels and PM2 (ordered in 2012) are gradually being implemented throughout the country and by 2015 all but the smallest cities should be covered. Currently, for most cities, daily official Chinese and US Embassy readings are available online on the Chinese weather channel.
Beijing has repeatedly ordered local governments in China’s most polluted province to “upgrade” their industrial structures to wean them away from heavy industries and coal burning. The industrial restructuring plan for Hebei over 2013-2017 calls for the elimination or restructuring of 60 million tonnes of steel capacity, 60 million tonnes of cement, 40 million tonnes of coal consumption, and 36 million cases of glass by the end of the five year period. As of the end of 2013, the province had already shed 13.74 million tonnes of iron and steel capacity, 3.55 million tonnes of coke, 14.88 million cases of glass, and 17.16 million tonnes of cement.
Last year, Beijing released its Air Pollution Control Regulations that mandated fines of up to 500,000 RMB plus double fines without ceilings. The city also designated seven “Special Air Pollution Law Enforcement Week(s)” resulting in 783 companies fined. Last year, China’s pollution-busters referred double the number of cases of suspected polluters to the police. By end Q3, environmental regulators had sent 1,232 cases to the police compared with 706 cases in all of 2013. Over the last two years, across the country, over 190,000 companies have been penalized for various violations of environmental laws.
The National People’s Congress is drafting even more stringent laws that allow fines of up to 1 million RMB (US$163,000). There will also be stricter standards for China’s estimated 284 million vehicles on the roads as well as further cuts in coal burning and usage by heavy-polluting manufacturing. An early-warning system and set of contingency procedures will be set up for when pollution spikes in already heavily-stricken areas. China will also launch a 50 billion RMB (US$8.13 billion) environmental protection fund financed by the NDRC and the Ministry of Finance to step-up pollution busting. As well, a new environmental protection law covering Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei just came into force at the beginning of the year. Last month, six Chinese companies were fined a record 160 million RMB ($26 million) for discharging tens of thousands of tonnes of waste chemicals into rivers after being sued by a local government-backed social group.
In terms of coal consumption in the capital, on the basis of 2012’s 23 million tonnes, usage will be whittled down to below 10 million tonnes by 2017 (below 19 million tonnes in 2014 and 15 million tonnes this year). Starting last year, non-coal burning areas in the capital will expand from city center to the suburbs and within 4 years all coal burning furnaces will be changed to systems utilizing clean(er) technologies (even though some coal-burning furnaces are already state-of-the-art). In neighbouring Tianjin, coal use will be chopped to 43 million tonnes by 2017, down 10 million from today.
After all these measures (and not forgetting a plethora of local and district level programs), how is JJJ doing in terms of PM2.5 particulates and other pollutants?
Data released by the Chinese Environment Ministry showed of the 10 worst smog affected cities in July last year, 9 were in Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei – Beijing, Tianjin, Tangshan, Xingtai, Shijiazhuang, Baoding, Handan, Langfang, and Hengshui, Jinan, Shandong province, being the lone non-corridor standout. The region’s 13 biggest cities on average had clear skies 57.4% of the time but severe pollution days were 4.4% higher than that of the 74 major cities monitored across the country.
The good news, as the Beijing Environment Protection Agency’s (EPA) monitoring revealed: the capital is making some progress in fighting PM2.5. Last year, Beijing’s PM2.5 density declined by 4% year on year to 85.9 micrograms/m3 compared to the national standard of 35. Sulfur dioxide (SO2) levels fell 11.7%, nitrogen dioxide (NOx) by 1.3% and PM10 by 7.1% while dust levels rose. As a result, the number of “excellent air quality” days rose to 93 days, up 71 days over 2013. Beijing’s EPA has pledged to get PM2.5 levels down to 60 by 2017.
As of August 15 last year, data from the Tianjin EPA showed the city had 105 clear-sky days, up 17 days from the same period in 2013 with only 15 days of severe pollution. PM2.5 averaged 80 micrograms/m3, down 18.4%. In Hebei, during HI, PM2.5 averaged 103 micrograms/m3, down 12.7% from 2013 with SO2 down 26.7%, carbon monoxide down 20% and ozone down 13.9%。As for the corridor as a whole, the China Environment Monitoring Station determined that its 13 biggest cities had raised their clear-sky days by 3.2% over H1 2014.
In view of the mixed record, influential Caijing magazine called for a “united front” in Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei to combat pollution in a coordinated way. Beijing’s clean air action plan urged more “power from gas” and as noted above, coal plants are being switched over to much cleaner gas-burning furnaces. But, Hebei boilers and small industries remain predominately coal-burning. If priority were given to Hebei to switch to gas, pollution in the region could be reduced at twice current rates. In this respect, the magazine advocates the establishment of a regional compensation regime with a focus on supporting Hebei’s industrial upgrading away from coal. With financial help from Beijing and its enterprises, Hebei’s bleak situation could be turned around more quickly and at less overall cost.
China’s Environmental Groups Encouraged to Sue Polluters
Encouraging environmental groups to sue major polluters is an excellent development but the situation in the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei corridor remains especially egregious as will be shown in the next post.
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China on Wednesday granted public interest groups more power to sue those that flout environmental protection laws, the country’s highest court said, as Beijing steps up efforts to curb pollution that regularly chokes major cities.
Social groups that work to fight polluters judicially will gain special status and have court fees reduced, the Supreme People’s Court said on its website.
They will also be allowed to sue firms or individuals across China, regardless of where the organisation is based.
The term the court used for the groups covers both NGOs and government-backed organisations, although it was not immediately clear whether independent environmentalists will benefit from the regulations.
China has more than 700 registered and regulated environmental protection groups, the official Xinhua news agency cited a ministry official as saying.
The new rules came into force on Wednesday, the court said, adding that they were issued “in response to questions on the matter”.
Premier Li Keqiang announced last year that the country was “declaring war” against pollution, and a series of measures have been announced.
Last month, six Chinese companies were fined a record 160 million yuan ($26 million) for discharging tens of thousands of tonnes of waste chemicals into rivers after being sued by a local government-backed social group.
– AFP