Two British authors with long experience in China have just written the first wide-ranging book in English to examine China’s growing environmental problems and the efforts to deal with them.
Green China: Seeking Ecological Alternatives, by Geoffrey Murray and Ian G.Cook, places the environmental issue in the context of China’s rapid industrialization, urbanization and transition to a market-oriented economy.
Geoffrey Murray, who has spent much of his life in China since 1990, explained: “We have tried to analyze the various problems facing the Chinese people today from the historical, political, economic and cultural root causes.
“We also look at the successful, and so far unsuccessful efforts made to find solutions, as well as providing possible future scenarios and suggesting possible strategies.
“Above all, we reject the blanket pessimism of some other studies on the Chinese environment, and have tried to be sympathetic and constructive.”
The two authors, who had separately written extensively on China before, came together to co-produce China’s Third Revolution in 2000, before cooperating on Green China.
They first met in the mid-1990s while teaching together on a 3rd Year BA course on China at Liverpool John Moores University, where Professor Cook is head of Geography and head of the Center for Pacific Rim Studies.
The book contains eleven chapters headed: China’s environmental crisis; an overview, Ancient legacies; Politics in Command (the Maoist era); Market forces unleashed; Urban demographic and consumerist pressures; the Sanxia (Three Gorges) Dam; Moving the waters (the project to divert water from the Yangtze to the Yellow River); Ecological tramplings; Pollution on the periphery Environmental policies; Whither China? Alternative environmental futures.
The authors analyze the tensions that have inevitably occurred between the need to modernize China and improve the standard of living of its citizens and the need for environmental protection.
A key problem is that the environmental concerns so evident at the center are not always felt at the regional or local level, where governments sometimes pursue environmentally-damaging policies for their own narrow ends.
They note that much money has spent on clean-ups of the air, ground and water, and agree that China needs to maintain high economic growth rates to ensure the high level of spending can continue.
But, they argue, money and technology can only be part of the answer, and there is a need to make all Chinese citizens environmentally aware so that they can see how individual actions impact on the delicate ecological balance.
‘There is unlikely to be any ultimate solution of China’s environmental problems until the need to work together in solving them is recognized by every Chinese citizen. This will not be easy. It is going to be a long, hard battle,’ the book concludes.
Green China: Seeking ecological Alternatives, by Geoffrey Murray and Ian G.Cook, published by Routledge Curzon, pp254. ISBN 0-7007-1703-X.
Available in Asia from Taylor and Francis Asia Pacific, 240 Macpherson Road, #08-01 Pines Industrial Building, Singapore 348574.
Tel: +65 6741 5166. Fax: +65 6742 9356
(China.org.cn Septembr 17, 2002)
