CHINA’S ENVIRONMENTAL CRISIS

GREENING OF CHINA AN AFFAIR OF STATE

Benjamin A Shobert

Asia Times, August 14, 2010

It would be reasonable to assume that recent hearings on Washington's Capitol Hill concerning China's "Green Energy and Environmental Policies" would have been a touch dry, perhaps not framed by the same sense of urgency and division than more recent skirmishes over currency policy or World Trade Organization compliance.

But the most recent hearing by the US China Economic and Security Review Commission (USCC) on this topic brought forward several points that seem critical to understanding how China and the US are both coming to terms with what each must do to reposition its national economy and secure a future for its people.

China's environmental policies have long been the subject of much frustration and fear. Experts such as Elizabeth Economy, now at the Council on Foreign Relations as a senior fellow and director for Asian Studies, wrote in her seminal book The River Runs Black:

The roots of China's current environmental crisis run deep. Through the centuries, the relentless drive of China's leaders to amass power, consolidate territory, develop the economy and support a burgeoning population led to the plundering of forests and mineral resources, poorly conceived river diversion and water management projects, and intensive farming that degraded the land.

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