Saturday, June 19, 2010
The Chinese "Freer" Press and Information Flow
What's uncensored and what's filtered is hard to guess here, and this free article in the ECONOMIST captures the conundrum well: http://www.economist.com/node/16379897?story_id=16379897&source=most_commented.
Thursday, June 17, 2010
Check out the Power of Netizens and the Labor Movement in China
From Today's New York Times: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/17/business/global/17strike.html?hp. We've been hearing that netizens are the voice for change here.
Photos from China!
Thanks to Bill Christiansen, another participant in this program, several photos are up! Check out Bill's blog and the many excellent photos there (http://h2theo.wordpress.com/), including our one meal of Chicken Head! That's an exaggeration; the chicken head was one small part in one of many, many, excellent and extraordinary meals we've had here.
Tuesday, June 15, 2010
“Al Gore likes to Come to China, Give us Inconvenient Truth”
These were the words of a young Chinese woman who has been traveling with us. She went on to explain her meaning. Al Gore does indeed like to come to China; he does so at least once a year. And to anyone concerned with climate change, China is a central concern. Will development here proceed in an ecologically sound manner? Based on some of the projects we’ve seen recently, there’s hope – hope because the government seems to be doing all it can based on all it knows and within all of its limitations. But the challenges are still profound.
The Chinese government is clearly investing effort, energy, and resources into addressing environmental problems. We’ve been on the edge of the Gobi Desert, in Inner Mongolia, where we’ve witnessed drip irrigation projects in peasants’ fields that yield more crop for less water. In an astounding example of the power of the central government, we’ve also seen the towns and villages being built or already completed for the 100,000+ nomadic peoples that until recently lived in the nearby mountains. The government was not happy with the way that these nomadic groups were contributing to erosion and desertification, so they’ve moved them into towns and provided them with jobs – for now, in any case. At least a few of them are working at a dairy farm we visited, where we saw healthy cows producing milk through a business owned by individual community shareholders. No, we weren’t able to talk with any of the relocated folks to get a sense of their side of the story.
That is one thing that for me continues to lurk in the background here – the question of what we in the states would call basic freedoms, basic rights, fundamental opportunity to organize and have a voice for yourself or in your community. Or perhaps we would simply call it the community having any voice in any development project. I say it is lurking in the background because we on this program know it’s an issue, but it’s hard to get into any dialogue about such things. On the surface the whole place runs impressively well, and there are increasing numbers of environmental NGOs. But we know that more than one million people were moved to make way for the Three Gorges Dam, and we don’t hear those stories. We know that the nomadic peoples I just referenced were moved, and yet of course we don’t know their stories either. I did read one of the state newspapers the other day (English Version), where I learned about the three evils of separatism, terrorism, and extremism – which of course are actually things all governments in power worry about (but the Chinese Government was worrying about it specifically in reference to Western Separatists).
After viewing the drip irrigation project and visiting the dairy farm, we enjoyed a lunch at a home in the village. It so happened that the Secretary of the Local Communist Party was the son in the family – and he served us tea. On a person-to-person level, we’ve had only fabulous hosts. Following that lunch of noodles cooked over a village kitchen fire, we ventured on to the sand dunes that are threatening the city as the desert advances at a rate of twenty meters a year. Shaun and I flipped off of the top of the dune. Lee leaped. Pictures pending – of this and many other feats of strength and engaging evenings with the Water Here and There: International Fellows program. That night we played pool at one of the scores of tables set up in the city square.
On the way to Zhongwei, the next town on our itinerary, we saw the straw square anti-erosion design used in the region’s dunes to fight the desert encroachment, we witnessed “Green Walls” – rows of trees planted in an effort to slow the march of sand, and we cruised through some deep sand nearly blocking the road after we passed a few wild camels. That night we gathered around a Zhongwei Desert Campfire. Today, after visiting the Chinese Academy of Sciences to learn more about their ongoing environmental efforts, we viewed a national park and a new set of regional tourist attractions before jumping back in the bus to move overland yet again – this time to the city of Yinchuan, where we’ll be for the next two nights.
As my roommate here says, we’re only seeing contradictions. We see great environmental efforts – and sprawling factory towns. We hear government officials saying public education is important – but we don’t get any examples. We see a few examples of innovative projects – but we don’t yet see the full and clear community-wide support necessary for them to take hold. Al Gore’s right about the importance of China when it comes to environmental issues. We’re sharing ideas and looking for leads as we work with China’s Young Professionals and government / community representatives to learn more about what the next steps must be.
More pending from Shanghai, and hopefully with a bit more time to dive in deeply.
The Chinese government is clearly investing effort, energy, and resources into addressing environmental problems. We’ve been on the edge of the Gobi Desert, in Inner Mongolia, where we’ve witnessed drip irrigation projects in peasants’ fields that yield more crop for less water. In an astounding example of the power of the central government, we’ve also seen the towns and villages being built or already completed for the 100,000+ nomadic peoples that until recently lived in the nearby mountains. The government was not happy with the way that these nomadic groups were contributing to erosion and desertification, so they’ve moved them into towns and provided them with jobs – for now, in any case. At least a few of them are working at a dairy farm we visited, where we saw healthy cows producing milk through a business owned by individual community shareholders. No, we weren’t able to talk with any of the relocated folks to get a sense of their side of the story.
That is one thing that for me continues to lurk in the background here – the question of what we in the states would call basic freedoms, basic rights, fundamental opportunity to organize and have a voice for yourself or in your community. Or perhaps we would simply call it the community having any voice in any development project. I say it is lurking in the background because we on this program know it’s an issue, but it’s hard to get into any dialogue about such things. On the surface the whole place runs impressively well, and there are increasing numbers of environmental NGOs. But we know that more than one million people were moved to make way for the Three Gorges Dam, and we don’t hear those stories. We know that the nomadic peoples I just referenced were moved, and yet of course we don’t know their stories either. I did read one of the state newspapers the other day (English Version), where I learned about the three evils of separatism, terrorism, and extremism – which of course are actually things all governments in power worry about (but the Chinese Government was worrying about it specifically in reference to Western Separatists).
After viewing the drip irrigation project and visiting the dairy farm, we enjoyed a lunch at a home in the village. It so happened that the Secretary of the Local Communist Party was the son in the family – and he served us tea. On a person-to-person level, we’ve had only fabulous hosts. Following that lunch of noodles cooked over a village kitchen fire, we ventured on to the sand dunes that are threatening the city as the desert advances at a rate of twenty meters a year. Shaun and I flipped off of the top of the dune. Lee leaped. Pictures pending – of this and many other feats of strength and engaging evenings with the Water Here and There: International Fellows program. That night we played pool at one of the scores of tables set up in the city square.
On the way to Zhongwei, the next town on our itinerary, we saw the straw square anti-erosion design used in the region’s dunes to fight the desert encroachment, we witnessed “Green Walls” – rows of trees planted in an effort to slow the march of sand, and we cruised through some deep sand nearly blocking the road after we passed a few wild camels. That night we gathered around a Zhongwei Desert Campfire. Today, after visiting the Chinese Academy of Sciences to learn more about their ongoing environmental efforts, we viewed a national park and a new set of regional tourist attractions before jumping back in the bus to move overland yet again – this time to the city of Yinchuan, where we’ll be for the next two nights.
As my roommate here says, we’re only seeing contradictions. We see great environmental efforts – and sprawling factory towns. We hear government officials saying public education is important – but we don’t get any examples. We see a few examples of innovative projects – but we don’t yet see the full and clear community-wide support necessary for them to take hold. Al Gore’s right about the importance of China when it comes to environmental issues. We’re sharing ideas and looking for leads as we work with China’s Young Professionals and government / community representatives to learn more about what the next steps must be.
More pending from Shanghai, and hopefully with a bit more time to dive in deeply.
Wednesday, June 9, 2010
China, Enormity, Massive Planning, Market Incentives
We’re just three days into our US State Department-sponsored Water Here & There: International Fellows Program, and our program organizers would like us to make some sense of what we’re seeing and recognize what we’re learning. Fair enough – but in the context of the dizzying dynamism that is contemporary China.
We have learned about water: We’ve heard directly from the Ministry of Water, had a lecture from Beijing’s Water Authority, learned about the national zoo’s water system and its ongoing remediation, and received a presentation from the senior researcher at the Ministry of Environmental Protection. Today he spoke with us, tomorrow he speaks with Al Gore. So we’re fortunate to have excellent connections and hear from the right people. More about that later; first – some thoughts on SCALE.
If anything screams at me after these initial days, it’s China’s enormity, population density, and capability to complete massive infrastructure projects in what seems like mere moments. This realization began to sink in when while, on Day 1, we were discussing the logistics of getting water to Beijing’s 20 million people. The most distant reservoir is 600+ miles away in Hubei Province. More amazingly, the government has begun to – quite literally – ‘replumb’ the country: meaning they’ve developed systems to get water from the Yangtze River over to the Yellow River if one or another is insufficiently high. These are massive water systems that are being retooled to meet the needs of the sprawling population.
Then there’s the subway system. In the last decade it has added some half dozen lines. It’s efficient, clean, comprehensive, and rapidly expanding. All of the US participants agreed – there’s no subway system like it anywhere in the US. And this break-neck expansion has come underneath one of the most densely populated areas in the world.
Of course, all of this enormity and scaled-up planning comes in the context of that economic explosion we’ve all been hearing about. And we see signs of that here too. One of our program coordinators told us about the World Expo currently underway in Shanghai – and the Chinese man who walked into the expo with a bag of cash and walked out with seventeen Hummers. The US Embassy is the 2nd largest of US Embassies, 2nd only to the one in Iraq. China is building 60 nuclear energy reactors right now. China is the #1 market in the world for Bentleys. AND – for China, coming from the top level, with such urgency that environmental civil society groups are now permitted and encouraged, the top priority has become the environment. China has 7% of the world’s water resources – and 20% of the world’s population, so China is seeking solutions, now and in a hurry.
What might be those solutions? That’s what’s unraveling for us here as the program proceeds, but one thing is already clear – few people we interact with fear market incentives. Our visitor from the ministry of water was clear, “anyone who uses water shall pay accordingly for this usage,” and this afternoon’s presenter from the Ministry of Environmental Protection was downright enthusiastic – nearly proselytizing – about implementing market mechanisms at the district and municipality levels to discourage polluting water systems.
This gentleman, Dr. Hu, was working to address the pollution problem in the Urumqi River Basin, a relatively short river of 268 kilometers in the Xinjiang Autonomous Region, with a relatively small major city of 2 million. His concern was that water quality is wretched and that districts have little or no incentives to police water quality in their own districts, because it potentially interferes with economic growth. Hu introduced the notion of “local pollution protectionism,” suggesting that districts will do what they can to be sure their businesses retain the opportunity to pollute, because they’re more interested in short-term economic growth than in long-term environmental quality.
Therefore, Dr. Hu is a big fan of a liability mechanism he called an “ecological compensation fee.” This fee, which will begin to be implemented in July of this year, makes districts responsible for the quality of water as it leaves their district. If they don’t meet standards, they get fined. The national government does the fining, and leaves up to district governments the tasks of training and controlling polluters as well as remediating water on the way into rivers. Dr. Hu is excited to see this underway. The national administration is announcing the new rules widely through their media mechanisms in July. And Hu believes the citizens and – especially – netizens will hold the government accountable. He has a lot of faith in netizens – those anonymous online bloggers who keep the government to keeping its word. Speaking of the netizens, another presenter we heard from said, “They are eager, they criticize the government everyday on the internet. They are the strong future for democracy in China.”
Cheers to netizens, and to posting from behind the great porous firewall.
Pictures to come.
We have learned about water: We’ve heard directly from the Ministry of Water, had a lecture from Beijing’s Water Authority, learned about the national zoo’s water system and its ongoing remediation, and received a presentation from the senior researcher at the Ministry of Environmental Protection. Today he spoke with us, tomorrow he speaks with Al Gore. So we’re fortunate to have excellent connections and hear from the right people. More about that later; first – some thoughts on SCALE.
If anything screams at me after these initial days, it’s China’s enormity, population density, and capability to complete massive infrastructure projects in what seems like mere moments. This realization began to sink in when while, on Day 1, we were discussing the logistics of getting water to Beijing’s 20 million people. The most distant reservoir is 600+ miles away in Hubei Province. More amazingly, the government has begun to – quite literally – ‘replumb’ the country: meaning they’ve developed systems to get water from the Yangtze River over to the Yellow River if one or another is insufficiently high. These are massive water systems that are being retooled to meet the needs of the sprawling population.
Then there’s the subway system. In the last decade it has added some half dozen lines. It’s efficient, clean, comprehensive, and rapidly expanding. All of the US participants agreed – there’s no subway system like it anywhere in the US. And this break-neck expansion has come underneath one of the most densely populated areas in the world.
Of course, all of this enormity and scaled-up planning comes in the context of that economic explosion we’ve all been hearing about. And we see signs of that here too. One of our program coordinators told us about the World Expo currently underway in Shanghai – and the Chinese man who walked into the expo with a bag of cash and walked out with seventeen Hummers. The US Embassy is the 2nd largest of US Embassies, 2nd only to the one in Iraq. China is building 60 nuclear energy reactors right now. China is the #1 market in the world for Bentleys. AND – for China, coming from the top level, with such urgency that environmental civil society groups are now permitted and encouraged, the top priority has become the environment. China has 7% of the world’s water resources – and 20% of the world’s population, so China is seeking solutions, now and in a hurry.
What might be those solutions? That’s what’s unraveling for us here as the program proceeds, but one thing is already clear – few people we interact with fear market incentives. Our visitor from the ministry of water was clear, “anyone who uses water shall pay accordingly for this usage,” and this afternoon’s presenter from the Ministry of Environmental Protection was downright enthusiastic – nearly proselytizing – about implementing market mechanisms at the district and municipality levels to discourage polluting water systems.
This gentleman, Dr. Hu, was working to address the pollution problem in the Urumqi River Basin, a relatively short river of 268 kilometers in the Xinjiang Autonomous Region, with a relatively small major city of 2 million. His concern was that water quality is wretched and that districts have little or no incentives to police water quality in their own districts, because it potentially interferes with economic growth. Hu introduced the notion of “local pollution protectionism,” suggesting that districts will do what they can to be sure their businesses retain the opportunity to pollute, because they’re more interested in short-term economic growth than in long-term environmental quality.
Therefore, Dr. Hu is a big fan of a liability mechanism he called an “ecological compensation fee.” This fee, which will begin to be implemented in July of this year, makes districts responsible for the quality of water as it leaves their district. If they don’t meet standards, they get fined. The national government does the fining, and leaves up to district governments the tasks of training and controlling polluters as well as remediating water on the way into rivers. Dr. Hu is excited to see this underway. The national administration is announcing the new rules widely through their media mechanisms in July. And Hu believes the citizens and – especially – netizens will hold the government accountable. He has a lot of faith in netizens – those anonymous online bloggers who keep the government to keeping its word. Speaking of the netizens, another presenter we heard from said, “They are eager, they criticize the government everyday on the internet. They are the strong future for democracy in China.”
Cheers to netizens, and to posting from behind the great porous firewall.
Pictures to come.
Saturday, June 5, 2010
First China Post: There will be No "China Blogging"
Sitting in beautiful Seattle-Tacoma airport, Mt. Rainier on the horizon, about to travel with a small group of extremely interesting water resource professionals, scientists, and engineers, and fresh with the realization: China does not allow posting to blogs hosted on blogspot.com. Ah information flow - one of the things we so easily take for granted.
There are options, ways around, and opportunities to email home for someone else to post here. And I'll try to do that. I'm already hearing exciting things about growth of nonprofit organizations and civil society influences in China. A great deal seems to be happening that is growing up from grassroots organizations - particularly in relation to water, and I look forward to sharing it here.
We'll depart at about 9pm tonight (Saturday) from Seattle, cross the International Date Line, and land Sunday night - about 11:30 pm in Beijing.
If the group has any common theme, it's that we're all fascinated with and excited to learn about China. May the learning begin.
There are options, ways around, and opportunities to email home for someone else to post here. And I'll try to do that. I'm already hearing exciting things about growth of nonprofit organizations and civil society influences in China. A great deal seems to be happening that is growing up from grassroots organizations - particularly in relation to water, and I look forward to sharing it here.
We'll depart at about 9pm tonight (Saturday) from Seattle, cross the International Date Line, and land Sunday night - about 11:30 pm in Beijing.
If the group has any common theme, it's that we're all fascinated with and excited to learn about China. May the learning begin.
Thursday, June 3, 2010
An Itinerary: China-US Water-Focused International Exchange
I've been fortunate enough to be accepted for a Young Professionals Exchange program funded by the US Department of State - Water Here and There: International Fellows. I'll be traveling with eleven other Americans, mostly scientifically and technically-trained water resource professionals. Our goals including (1) better understanding water resource issues in China, where 20% of the world's population works with only 7% of the world's water resources, and (2) developing opportunities for working with Chinese individuals and organizations to address the water resource crisis. I anticipate learning a great deal. Mere mention of China in the US sparks intense reaction - good and bad, but never indifference. I'll try to burrow into the experience of being and traveling in China here.
At the moment I'm just laying out our itinerary, which has been organized through the Association for International Practical Training.
June 6: Arrive in Beijing, Learn about Chinese National Policy, Policy-Making Process, And China's Water Resource Issue and Associated Current Projects
June 7: Meet with US Embassy, Lecture on China Water Issues, Visit Water Diversion Project in South Beijing
June 8: Free Day, Great Wall of China
June 9: Beijing Inner City Water Quality Improvement Project, Beijing Normal University
June 10: Great Rivers Project, Yangtze River Water Protection
June 11: Free Day, Forbidden City and City Tour
June 12: Travel to Alashan, Focus: Desertification and Water in Northwestern China (Check out the National Geographic Scoop on Alashan Here)
June 13: Conservation Project Site, National Park
June 14: Exchange Session with Local Government Agency, Depart for Zhongwei
June 15: China Academy of Sciences, Yellow River Irrigation System for Yinchuan Plane
June 16: Yinchuan City Water Systems Protection and Management
June 17: Travel to Shanghai
June 18: Industrialization of Yangtze River Delta, Visit Shanghai City Planning Center
June 19: Free Day, World Expo
June 20: Presentation: Water, Environmental Change and Health in China
June 21: Visit Wetland Conservation Area in Shanghai
June 22: Shanghai
June 23: Shanghai
June 24: Free Day
June 25: Travel to Beijing
June 26: Return to US
At the moment I'm just laying out our itinerary, which has been organized through the Association for International Practical Training.
June 6: Arrive in Beijing, Learn about Chinese National Policy, Policy-Making Process, And China's Water Resource Issue and Associated Current Projects
June 7: Meet with US Embassy, Lecture on China Water Issues, Visit Water Diversion Project in South Beijing
June 8: Free Day, Great Wall of China
June 9: Beijing Inner City Water Quality Improvement Project, Beijing Normal University
June 10: Great Rivers Project, Yangtze River Water Protection
June 11: Free Day, Forbidden City and City Tour
June 12: Travel to Alashan, Focus: Desertification and Water in Northwestern China (Check out the National Geographic Scoop on Alashan Here)
June 13: Conservation Project Site, National Park
June 14: Exchange Session with Local Government Agency, Depart for Zhongwei
June 15: China Academy of Sciences, Yellow River Irrigation System for Yinchuan Plane
June 16: Yinchuan City Water Systems Protection and Management
June 17: Travel to Shanghai
June 18: Industrialization of Yangtze River Delta, Visit Shanghai City Planning Center
June 19: Free Day, World Expo
June 20: Presentation: Water, Environmental Change and Health in China
June 21: Visit Wetland Conservation Area in Shanghai
June 22: Shanghai
June 23: Shanghai
June 24: Free Day
June 25: Travel to Beijing
June 26: Return to US
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