China's rapid modernization has led to environmental disaster. In an interview with HAQ, Economy discusses the nature of China's environmental problems, as well as the attempts by the government, NGOs and the general populace to address these problems. She also addresses the actions of foreign investors and international institutions, as well as China's role in regional and international efforts for environmental protection.

Elizabeth Economy is C.V. Starr Senior Fellow and Director, Asia Studies, at the Council on Foreign Relations. She has written extensively on Chinese domestic and foreign policy. Her publications include: The River Runs Black: The Environmental Challenge to China’s Future (manuscript completed, September 2002); China Joins the World: Progress and Prospects (co-editor) (Council on Foreign Relations Press, 1999); The Internationalization of Environmental Protection (co-editor) (Cambridge University Press, 1997); various articles in policy and scholarly journals such as Foreign Affairs and Survival; and op-ed pieces and book reviews in The New York Times, The Washington Post, International Herald Tribune, The Boston Globe, and The South China Morning Post. She holds a Ph.D. from the University of Michigan, an A.M. from Stanford University and a B.A. from Swarthmore College.

HAQ: What is the state of China’s environment today? For example, it is estimated that China will surpass the US in annual emissions of carbon dioxide within a decade and, in a few decades, in total cumulative emissions of carbon dioxide since the Industrial Revolution. Could you give us a few figures and statistics illustrating the nature of the problem?

Economy: While China’s spectacular economic growth over the past two decades or so has provided a significant increase in the standard of living for hundreds of millions of Chinese, it has also produced an environmental disaster. There has been a dramatic increase in the demand for natural resources of all kinds, including water, land, and energy. Forest resources have been depleted, triggering a range of devastating secondary impacts, such as desertification, flooding, and species loss. At the same time, levels of water and air pollution have skyrocketed. Small-scale township and village enterprises, which have been the engine of Chinese growth in the countryside, are very difficult to monitor and regulate and routinely dump their untreated waste directly into streams, rivers, and coastal waters.

More than 75% of the water in rivers flowing through China’s urban areas is unsuitable for drinking or fishing. Sixty million people have difficulty getting access to water, and almost three times that number drink contaminated water daily.1  Desertification, which affects one-quarter of China’s land, is forcing tens of thousands of people to migrate every year and now threatens to envelop Beijing.2  In terms of air pollution, in 2000, China’s State Environmental Protection Administration tested the air quality in more than 300 Chinese cities and found that almost two-thirds failed to achieve standards set by the World Health Organization for acceptable levels of total suspended particulates, which are the primary culprit in respiratory and pulmonary disease.3 

China is also exerting a significant impact on the regional and global environment. Its reliance on low quality, high sulfur coal is responsible for roughly half of all sulfur dioxide emissions, which cause acid rain, throughout East Asia4 – a situation that has contributed to some tensions with Japan and South Korea. Globally, China is one of the world’s largest contributors to ozone depletion, biodiversity loss, and climate change. There is some positive movement in all these areas, but it is very slow to materialize in terms of the actual implementation of new policies. 

It is important to remember that integrating environmental protection with economic development is a continuous battle that every country wages. In many respects, China has just begun the process of trying to factor environmental concerns into its process of economic development. After all, this is a country that has only had an independent environmental protection agency for a little over a decade.

HAQ: What do you think is the primary cause of this alarming state of affairs?

Economy: Much of China’s environmental challenge currently stems from its overwhelming reliance on coal as its primary source of energy. China depends on coal to supply almost three-quarters of its energy needs. In contrast, in Japan, the US, and India, energy from coal accounts for 14%, 22%, and 53% respectively.5  Burning coal is responsible for 70% of the smoke and dust in the air and 92% of the sulfur dioxide in China.6  Since the early 1980s, the country’s coal use has doubled from just over 600 million metric tons to more than 1.2 billion metric tons, making it the world’s largest consumer of coal.7  Over the next few decades, China will also likely face significant challenges to its air quality from rapidly increasing automobile use.

HAQ: If coal is the primary cause of the environmental problems, are there other forms of energy resources that China is planning to draw upon in the future, or do you think the present dependence on coal will continue?

Economy: Certainly, over the past five to ten years, China has made substantial strides in developing alternative sources of energy, including hydropower, natural gas, and to a much lesser extent nuclear, solar, and wind power. The Three Gorges Dam, the West to East Pipeline from Xinjiang to Shanghai, and many other smaller scale projects will help to reshape China’s energy mix over the long term. As for the Three Gorges Dam, I must also point out that the Dam will not only produce benefits as an alternative source of energy but also cause problems, such as biodiversity loss, loss of farmland, loss of precious artifacts from ancient Chinese civilizations (because they will be submerged), and a likely dramatic increase of water pollution in the reservoir area – certainly, the ideal would have been to build several smaller dams along the river. This digression aside, clean coal technologies will also help to limit the environmental costs of coal burning. Still, for most of the country, there are neither sufficient economic incentives nor enforceable regulatory standards that make alternative sources of energy or even new clean coal technologies viable. 

HAQ: What are the costs to the Chinese economy of China’s environmental practices? Recently, Professor Dale Jorgenson of Harvard University was quoted as saying that 5% of China’s GDP is lost to the increased health costs and mortality associated with domestic environmental pollution and that this figure will rise to 15% by 2030 if nothing is done.8 

Economy: One of the factors that may in fact prompt the Chinese leadership to move more quickly on environmental issues is a concern over the economic costs. As you suggest, economists – both in China and in the West – have done studies estimating the economic cost of China’s environmental degradation and pollution – including such things as water scarcity, air pollution, and land degradation. In fact, Professor Jorgenson’s estimate is on the low side; others, such as the World Bank and the renowned Canadian geographer Vaclav Smil, have estimated annual costs to the economy to be as high as 8-12% of GDP.9 

These costs reflect such things as missed days of work or hospital stays from environmentally-induced health problems, or factories unable to operate because of lack of water. My sense for the trajectory in this regard is that in certain areas such as Shanghai, where city leaders have been quite proactive in investing in environmental protection, we will see such costs decrease. For the majority of the country, where the overwhelming emphasis of local officials continues to be on simply growing the economy as rapidly as possible, such environmental costs will only continue to grow.

HAQ: As you noted, in Shanghai, which has the reputation of being one of the most dynamic economic growth centers in China, the city leaders have been proactive in investing in environmental protection. Why does their emphasis differ from that of the majority of local officials in other cities?

Economy: Shanghai, Dalian and Zhongshan are all economically vibrant cities that have taken aggressive action to combat their pollution problems. Their wealth provides them with the wherewithal to build waste treatment plants or access better pollution control technologies. They are deeply integrated into the international community and are used to doing business with foreigners, which means that environmental NGOs and multinationals are prone to want to test out their new policy ideas and technologies in these places.

But, most importantly, the mayors of all these cities have taken a personal interest in environmental protection, whether they view it as a means to further their own careers by making their city a shining example of economic development and environmental protection, a matter of civic pride, or a means to attract further foreign investment (since many multinationals complain about the environment in China). This means that local environmental protection bureaus have the support from the top that they need to fight the battles on the ground with other agencies or polluting factories.

HAQ: In what ways has the Chinese government been addressing these environmental problems? Is there a well-formulated strategy? We know that Beijing appears very desirous of fighting environmental pollution, as seen in its announced intention to play host to the “Green Olympics” in 2008.

Economy: The Chinese leadership essentially has a four-part strategy to address environmental problems. First is policy guidance from the center. Both China’s State Environmental Protection Administration and Environmental Protection and Natural Resources Committee within the National People’s Congress are staffed with extremely bright and capable people who are deeply engaged in seeking out new and creative ways to integrate economic development with environmental protection. They experiment with pricing reform, tradable permits, environmental education campaigns, etc.

The truth is, however, that the central bureaucracy is grossly understaffed and under-funded.  There are only 300 full time staff members in China’s environmental protection agency; in comparison, the United States EPA has more than 6000.10  In addition, China’s central budget for environmental protection is quite limited, about 1.3% of GDP, and many analysts believe that much of this goes to non-environmental protection-related infrastructure projects and other programs. Chinese scientists have estimated that China ought to spend at least 2% of GDP on environmental protection, merely to keep the situation from deteriorating further.11 

A second conscious strategy of the Chinese leadership, since about 1989, has been to devolve authority for environmental protection to the local level. Local mayors, in fact, are supposed to be evaluated not only on how well the local economy performs but also on how well they address their environmental challenges. The reality of this policy, not surprisingly, is that wealthy regions with proactive leaders tend to fare very well. The key factor is, of course, the interest of the mayor – some wealthy regions such as Guangzhou have been much slower to realize the importance of environmental protection. Poorer regions, where the focus is almost exclusively on continued economic development, have seen their environment deteriorate over the past several years, despite the overall improvement in the country’s economy. They simply don’t get the necessary assistance from the center.

The third part of the country’s plan to improve the environment is to tap into the expertise and resources of the international community. China is the largest recipient of environmental aid from the World Bank, Asian Development Bank, Global Environmental Facility, and Japan. Moreover, many multinationals have begun to support China’s environmental efforts, introducing the most environmentally sound technologies, undertaking independent and thorough environmental impact assessments, and funding Chinese NGO activities on environmental education projects. This is not to say that foreign investment is, by its very definition, clean investment—in fact, in many instances, the opposite is true. There is also a significant problem with other countries attempting to dump their toxic waste in China. However, overall, the international community has played a crucial role in terms of policy advice and investment in raising China’s environmental practices.

Finally, and I think most interestingly, China has opened the door to the involvement of relatively independent non-governmental organizations and the media to work from the ground-up on issues of environmental protection.

HAQ: What incentives are there for foreign multinational companies to support China’s environmental efforts? Given your statement that foreign investment is not necessarily “clean investment,” you seem to imply that foreign investment flows into China in order to take advantage of the country’s lax environmental regulation. Do foreign investors actually lobby the Chinese government for lax environmental regulation? 

Economy: I am not aware of any foreign investors lobbying the Chinese government for lax environmental regulation. In fact, many foreign investors complain that their factories or power plants cannot compete against local enterprises because the latter do not observe the environmental laws on the books and no one enforces them. This means that it is, relatively speaking, much more expensive for the foreigners to do business in China and to compete (e.g., in selling their power.)

Chinese environmentalists whom I have interviewed typically state that Hong Kong and Taiwan are the regions that most often relocate their most polluting enterprises to the mainland. They are definitely taking advantage of lax enforcement. There are several incentives for multinationals to support China’s environmental efforts. They don’t want to be accused of any improper polluting activities because it would damage their reputations. They view environmental protection as serving not only the interests of the Chinese people but also of the expatriates working for the multinational. Some multinationals have a fairly long history of supporting activities in the communities in which they do business as a means of “sharing the wealth” and “giving something back.” In many cases too, the business interests of the multinationals would be best served by better environmental protection in China, as I note in the case of some power generation companies.    

HAQ: As for the role of international institutions such as the World Bank and the IMF, many environmental activists in both the developed West and the developing world have criticized the policies of these institutions as having a negative impact on the environment in the developing world including China. Can you comment in more detail on the pros and cons of these policies with regard to the environment in China? Related to this issue, can you also elaborate on the problem you mentioned of other countries attempting to dump their toxic waste in China? It seems that, in most cases, it has been the Chinese government itself that has been selling these other countries the right to dump their toxic waste in China.

Economy: The World Bank has, I think, been an important player for environmental protection in China. They have been instrumental in developing municipal waste treatment systems, alternative energy sources, and natural resource pricing reform, among other things. In addition, they have argued publicly for enhancing the strength of the environmental protection bureaucracy in China. (Despite its well-known history of support for large-scale development projects at the expense of the environment, the Bank did not provide support for the Three Gorges Dam.)

The central government has recently indicated that China will no longer be a repository for the toxic waste of other countries. Several months ago, there was a widely publicized case about the terrible ground and water contamination and air pollution in China from the dismantling of computer parts from abroad. This may have prompted the tough government response.

HAQ: You mentioned the role of the NGOs. Can you tell us more about these NGOs? Does the Chinese government need to play a careful balancing role between NGOs lobbying on environmental issues and NGOs seeking political reform?

Economy: By promoting the growth of environmental non-governmental organizations and media coverage of environmental issues, the Chinese government hopes to fill the gap between its desire to improve the country’s environment and its capacity to do so. At the same time, the government is very careful to monitor the work of these NGOs in order to ensure that environmentalism does not evolve into a push for broader political reform, as it did in some of the republics of the former Soviet Union or countries of Eastern Europe. Generally, therefore, the NGOs do not lobby or criticize the central government publicly, and they tend to tackle less politically sensitive issues not directly involved in economic development.

Most of the environmental NGOs for example, devote their efforts to nature conservation, species protection, and environmental education. Other NGOs focus their attention on urban renewal: recycling activities, energy efficiency programs, and again environmental education. These NGOs work very hard to co-opt local government officials to support their work. Finally, there are environmental activists with interests and goals that exist well outside the boundaries for NGO activity established by the central government. Dai Qing, a world-renowned environmentalist who has consistently opposed the Three Gorges Dam, clearly falls into this category. She spent ten months in prison for her book Yangtze! Yangtze!, which exposed the politics behind the dam.

HAQ: How much consciousness do you think exists among the general populace in China with regard to the environment?  For example, how big are these NGOs and what is the extent of their reach and influence?

Economy: These NGOs are fairly small, elite organizations, populated in many cases by scholars, scientists, and university students. China has yet to develop the equivalent of the Sierra Club or League of Conservation Voters or any environmental organization with a true national mass membership, although there are tree-planting campaigns that involve young people from various parts of the country. I think that it is only a matter of time before there are more broad-based environmental NGOs.

One interesting phenomenon has been the spate of battery recycling efforts by concerned individuals in various parts of the country prompted by media attention to the issue. In fact, the media, especially television, has become an integral part of environmental protection in China. It serves not only to educate the public – there are television shows that explore issues such as US agricultural practices and the benefits of organic farming – but also to investigate environmental wrongdoing. In several cases, the media have been responsible for alerting authorities in Beijing to local corruption or ineptitude, demonstrating in vivid color that local governments are flouting environmental regulations or not carrying out national environmental campaigns. At some television stations, people line up outside the door of the studio to bring attention to a local environmental problem in the hopes of having the media investigate the issue.

HAQ: Does government censorship or sponsorship play a role in the media’s coverage of the environment?

Economy: At the local level, there are still occasionally efforts to prevent the media from reporting on local pollution disasters or conflicts over the environment. However, Beijing generally encourages such reporting, so the media can typically rely on support from the center. On some sensitive issues such as the Three Gorges Dam or the just launched South-North River diversion project to bring water from the Yangtze north to Beijing and Tianjin, reporting will be heavily scrutinized because these are center priorities. The Chinese leadership still censors criticism of ideas and policies that emanate from Beijing.

HAQ: What is the role of China’s legal system in the country’s environmental protection effort?

Economy: China’s legal system has long been criticized for its lack of transparency, ill-defined laws, weak enforcement capacity, and poorly trained lawyers and judges. Over the past decade, however, the government has made great strides on the legislative side, passing upwards of 25 environmental protection laws and more than 100 administrative regulations, in addition to hundreds of environmental standards. While the quality of some of these laws certainly could be improved, China’s environmental lawmakers within the Environmental Protection and Natural Resources Committee of the National People’s Congress have demonstrated increasing sophistication in their understanding of how to negotiate and draft a technically sound and politically viable law. One of their relatively recent policy innovations has been to publish draft laws and regulations on their websites to invite public comment. This is a dramatic change in the level of transparency of the government.

I think the greatest source of concern comes at the level of implementation. There is often a serious lack of trained personnel within local environmental protection bureaus to carry out inspections and enforce the law. Moreover, local officials often place enormous pressure on environmental protection authorities to limit or even ignore the fees the latter attempt to collect or the fines the latter attempt to impose on polluting factories for fear of impinging on economic growth or increasing unemployment. Even factories that are closed down because of excessive pollution often reopen in another locale or operate at night, safe in the knowledge that the environmental inspectors are unlikely to return any time soon.

But I don’t want to paint too bleak a picture. In fact, there have been a number of promising changes in the legal area. One of the most potent weapons in China’s environmental protection enforcement arsenal today is the legal environmental NGO. One such not-for-profit effort is the Center for Legal Assistance to Pollution Victims in Beijing, headed by the energetic and innovative law professor Wang Canfa. The Center trains lawyers to engage in enforcing environmental laws, provides free legal advice to pollution victims through a telephone hotline, and litigates cases involving environmental law. Wang has been quite successful, for example, in recovering damages for farmers and fishermen who have had their livelihood compromised by polluted waste water from factories.

HAQ: Are you suggesting that these legal environmental NGOs operate almost as an arm of the Chinese government or as an instrument of government policy?  How much independence from the government do these legal environmental NGOs have?  Have they been allowed by the government to, for example, defend pollution victims from environmental malpractices by foreign multinationals operating in China? 

Economy: These legal environmental NGOs do not operate as an arm of the Chinese government. In fact, these NGOs may well run into opposition from local environmental protection bureaus, which fear that they will be embarrassed when their failures are brought to light in court. I meant that these NGOs serve the broader cause of environmental protection and generally serve the purpose of the central State Environmental Protection Administration as an additional mechanism for local enforcement of center policies. I am not aware of any cases in which these NGOs have sued multinationals, but I don’t see why it might not happen in the future. 

HAQ: What role does China play in resolving regional and global environmental concerns? Given that both China and India strongly feel that Western nations should acknowledge their responsibility for current global environmental problems such as global warming, to what extent has there been cooperation between them to revise international environmental accords?

Economy: China’s first foray into the arena of international environmental politics was in 1972, when then Premier Zhou Enlai sent a delegation to attend the United Nations Conference on Human Environment (UNCHE). Through its participation in the UNCHE and its assumption of a seat in the United Nations, China joined in the full range of environmental treaties and regimes, battling trade in endangered species, marine dumping, trade in tropical timber, ozone depletion, and so on. China often began as an observer to the treaty negotiation process, taking as long as a decade after the treaty had been established internationally to sign onto a specific convention. The long lead time was necessary to build domestic consensus and the capacity to implement the treaty. Typically, China was not a very active participant in the negotiations, sometimes because it lacked the expertise and sometimes because its interests were not necessarily directly affected by the treaty. 

In a few cases, however, notably ozone depletion and climate change, China assumed a very active, but not terribly proactive, role at points in the negotiation process.  China’s leaders realized in both cases that a significant part of their economy and their future economic development would be dramatically affected by the nature of the regime. In both of these cases, China also aligned itself with India to reject rigid targets or timetables and to demand that the wealthier industrialized countries acknowledge their overwhelming responsibility for their historical contribution to these global environmental problems and compensate the developing countries for taking action to address these problems, whether through direct financial transfers or through the transfer of technology at below market prices.

In the case of ozone depletion, the international community did in fact develop a special multilateral fund to support China and India in their efforts to develop substitutes for ozone depleting substances, and China has generally met its reporting requirements. With regard to climate change, the United States, which is the only country that contributes more to climate change than China, has backed away from a real leadership role and thus has no credibility in trying to keep China at the table.

For the time being, it appears that progress in responding to climate change is going to come from changes that the Chinese government might undertake for other reasons such as increasing the role of natural gas in the coastal provinces from the West to East pipeline, and from other efforts that will be funded largely by international governmental organizations such as the Global Environmental Facility. However, I don’t think that there will be any diminution in China’s contribution to greenhouse gas emissions unless there is a substantial downturn in the economy along the lines experienced by Russia in the early 1990s.

As a contributor to both regional and global environmental problems, China is generally willing to assume a degree of responsibility, but it often looks to the international community to pay for any action that it might take to redress the problem. Some years ago, I argued that China’s attitude was basically “China will play, if the world will pay.”12 I think that this still largely holds true, despite the growing wealth of the country.

In this regard, China is very similar to India. The two countries have often allied to argue that the international community bears the greater responsibility for pollution throughout history and therefore needs to play a much larger role in redressing global environmental problems. In the case of global climate change, however, both China and India lagged behind developing countries in Latin America in realizing the technological gains and environmental benefits that would arise from partnering with the advanced industrialized world to address the problem by restructuring their economic activities. They argued that the advanced industrialized world should first take action to address global climate change on its own soil, restructuring its own economies. 

HAQ: Does China work with its other East Asian neighbors such as Japan and the two Koreas in addressing environmental protection at a regional level?   

Economy: As a regional actor, China is perceived as a major contributor to the acid rain that plagues both South Korea and Japan, as well as to the yellow dust storms that all three countries have been experiencing with increasing frequency and intensity over the past few years. China is willing to work with these countries, but generally it also looks to them for the funding to address these problems. One of the more recent challenges that China poses is as a consumer of timber; as the PRC is taking greater pains to protect its own forests, Chinese logging companies have been cutting wide swaths through Burma/Myanmar (and the Amazon) with no concern for the environmental consequences.

HAQ: What does the future hold for China’s environment?  What role can the international community play in the future in aiding China’s environmental protection effort?

Economy: Given the dynamic nature of China’s economy and its evolving political system, it is very difficult to determine China’s environmental future. Optimally, China’s economy continues to grow and that spurs greater investment in environmental protection both nationally and locally. At the same time, this greater wealth and increasing levels of education would contribute to the development of a highly energized green movement, which would promote recycling, water saving measures and other grass-roots environmental protection efforts. In addition, China’s increasing integration into the international economy, in particular through membership in the WTO, would help China move away from intensive agriculture toward more environmentally sustainable and lucrative crops and to develop and utilize the most advanced technologies in areas such as fuel-efficient cars. Environmentally progressive cities such as Shanghai and Dalian could also become models for other parts of China as they too develop the economic wherewithal and political will to support better environmental protection practices.

Of course, there is also a suboptimal scenario in which continued economic growth (or stagnation) does not translate into an improved environmental protection effort. Rather than embracing the fuel-efficient compact cars that populate Europe, for example, wealthier Chinese would follow in the footsteps of Americans, buying gas-guzzling luxury cars and SUVs. The devolution of environmental protection responsibility to local officials would produce a patchwork quilt of environmental protection practices, in which only the wealthiest cities with particularly environmentally-inclined mayors used their growing economic capacity to fund improvements in their local environment. There would be little transfer of environmental know-how to other regions of the country. And with little reinforcement from the center, private environmental action emanating from both NGOs and business would not flourish.

Whatever path China follows will have significant ramifications for both regional and global environmental concerns, and the importance of China to the health of the world’s environment argues for significant involvement from the international community in assisting China’s environmental protection effort. The international community has had a substantial impact on China’s environmental practices to date, and this involvement shows no evidence of abating.

Yet there is always more that could be done. I think that the greatest payoff at this point will come from capacity building and training of local officials, both those directly involved in environmental protection and those engaged in planning and developing the economy – both state and non-state actors. No matter what effort is made to transfer technologies or policies from the outside, unless the proper incentives and regulatory environment exist and are enforced, environmental protection cannot succeed.

HAQ: You touched upon the impact of China’s WTO membership. Can you elaborate on how WTO membership affects the country’s environmental protection efforts, particularly with respect to expected changes in environmental regulations and policies?  You also emphasized the importance of capacity building and training of local officials.  In what specific ways can the international community aid in carrying out these tasks?  What kinds of programs have the Chinese state and non-state actors themselves established in order to train officials to enforce environmental regulations and to create and implement new environmental policies?   

Economy: The greatest impact of China’s WTO membership on its regulations and policies will probably come through promotion of greater transparency in terms of publishing draft standards and laws to invite public comment. Any law or regulation that will affect product manufacturing, for example, has to be published and offered for comment to other WTO members. In addition, the WTO allows governments to reject products on the basis of harm to human health, for example, foodstuffs that are grown with certain pesticides might be banned by some countries. China may well have to adapt its agricultural practices to meet standards set by other countries and vice versa.

 There are efforts underway through a variety of organizations – governmental and non-governmental – to train Chinese officials involved in environmental protection. The World Bank and Asian Development Bank, for example, have provided short courses on environmental economics. The World Resources Institute has brought Chinese officials to Washington to help them better understand potential responses to global climate change. Environmental Defense and the Natural Resources Defense Council have both worked closely with Chinese officials in target cities to help educate them on new policy approaches, such as tradable permits and energy efficiency regulations. The Woodrow Wilson Center is working with Chinese NGOs to develop their grant-writing skills.

Chinese officials themselves, in particular in the State Environmental Protection Administration, also direct training courses for officials outside their agency and for local officials. And lawyers, such as Wang Canfa, are actively involved in training the next generation of environmental advocates. These are all important mechanisms for building capacity to implement environmental laws and regulations.  At the same time, many of these activities are focused on areas where environmental protection is already on the rise; capacity building probably does not receive as much attention or support within China as it should to make a difference throughout the entire country.

1. Angang Hu and Ping Zou, China’s Population Development, (Beijing, PRC: China’s Science and Technology Press, 1991), p. 56.
2. Ron Gluckman, “Inside Story China: The Desert Storm,” AsiaWeek (October 13, 2000).
3. SEPA 2001 Report on the State of the Environment in China.
4. Shigenori Matsuura, “China’s Air Pollution and Japan’s Response to It,” International Environmental Affairs (1997), p. 235.
5. Energy Information Administration, 1999 figures.
6. Chenggang Wang, “China’s Environment in the Balance,” World and I, vol. 14 (October, 1999), p.176.
7. US Congress, Office of Technology Assessment, Energy Technology Transfer to China—A Technical Memorandum, OTA-TM-ISC-30 (Washington, D.C.: US Government Printing Office, September 1985).
8. Jonathan Shaw, “The Great Global Experiment,” Harvard Magazine, vol. 105, no. 2, November-December 2002, p. 87.
9. The World Bank, China: Air, Land and Water (Washington D.C.: The World Bank, 2001); Vaclav Smil, “Environmental Problems in China: Estimates of Economic Costs,” East-West Center Special Report No. 5 (East-West Center, Honolulu, 1996).
10. Hongjun Zhang and Richard Ferris, “Shaping an Environmental Protection Regime for the New Century: China’s Environmental Legal Framework,” Sinosphere 1, no. 1 (July/August 1998), p. 6.
11. China Environment News, (July 1994), p. 1.
12.  Elizabeth Economy, “Painting China Green,” Foreign Affairs, vol. 78, no. 2 (March/April 1999), p. 17.