THE YELLOW DRAGON

("the yellow dragon" is what people in China call the fierce sandstorms blowing into Bejing in summer time, whose number has increased ten times in the last years due to the eradication of farming land into steppes.)

It's dynamic rise to the third biggest economy of the world in only three centuries has left China destroyed. 23 % of the 1.3 billion chinese don't have access to clean drinking water. Only one percent of the 560 million people living in urban areas breathes air that by the regulations of the European Union would be called tolerable. 20 of the 30 cities with the highest pollution of the air, according to the world bank, are in China. Of course, the air pollution does not stop at the borders. According to a prognosis of the IEA (International Energy Agency) China by the end of 2007 will overtake the USA as the biggest producer of those gasses that are responsible for the climate change. This not because the USA has decreased its production, but because China's industry is growing so rapidly and nobody seems to be controlling it.

Premier minister Wen Jiabao in a meeting in with German chancellor said that "we should not repeat the mistake of first polluting and then repairing." Well, they already have done just that. But different to other places in Europe, USA and Japan, which are now able to face ecological concerns after having secured wealth for their people, China might just be choking on its own industrialisation before it has brought decent living standards to its people. Currently China is using up more coal than the USA, the European Union and Japan together and China is raising its coal usage further, even though it destroys the global climate. China even has ratified the Kyoto-protocolls, but it insisted on being rated as a "developing country" and therefore is not obliged to reduce its emmissions.

Take for instance a place close to the yellow river, Wuhai, which translates as "black sea" and refers to a gigant treasure of coal not deep below the surface. The city itself was built on order of chairman Mao in 1958 into the prairie, with mountaineering to produce the coal for the steel industry in nearby Baotou. The end of planned economy in the Nineties almost meant the economic ruin of the area, until an industrial areas were founded. Investors were lured with promises of not taking it too seriously with regulations, especially concerning air pollution and worker's rights. All it was about was growth, growth, growth. Within eight years 400 factories opened their steel gates, the population grew to 400.000, the income is higher than the nationwide average. Neighbouring communities mirrored Wuhai's modell. Nowadays there is an industrual corridor of 200 kilometer's length with nothing but factories, shopping malls and the like.

But things like air pollution are not taking seriously there. Compared to the national average the energy transfer rate is only 28 % - that means that for instance 72 % of the energy in the coal being used does not transfer into energy but is being puffed into the air for nothing at all. For the factory owners that is still cheaper than being more efficient, because they want profits now and not wait until investments amortize in a few year's time. Nobody cares about sustainability. All that matters is profit, fast profit. In comparison to its economic output Wuhai is using up three times more energy than the global average and eight times more than Germany. The effects of this coal-bonanza on the environment and the people living and working in the area are hazardous.

Some of those people still are farmers, but their products like tomatoes or coleslew are unsaleable, because they grow covered in a layer of black ashes. The goats eat the black grass around the factories and half of their offspring dies within days. The farmers themselves suffer from chronic breathing problems and coughs. In 2005 some of them protested against the pollution - and instantly were arrested and sentenced to prisontime. Other farmers were re-settled to newly built housing projects and offered jobs at the factories or in the coalmines.

On a larger scale, about 3.000 square kilometers of farming land are destroyed each year in China due to industrialisation. About 4.000 villages have been eraded. Currently, about 40 % of the land of all China are threatened to become useless ecologically, the stateowned environment-commission of China, SEPA, warns. 70 % of all big rivers are so heavily polluted, experts warn people to bathe in them. The home of 400 million people. Moreover, the farming that still is in effect is also destroying the surface, due to over-fertilizing and over-usage of groundwater.About 10 % of all farming land in China is polluted with lead and mercury. This is due to the fact, that China owns only 7 % of farmable land in the world but has to feed 20 % of the world's population. In a few year's time, experts say, this won't be possible anymore.

The effects are not only local but also global.  The carcinogenic dust in the air is blown from Wuhai to Bejing and one week later also reaches the shores of the USA. Scientists have measured that on some days a quarter of the pollution in the air above Los Angeles comes from China. Of course, the acid rain and sulfur emissions also reach Korea and Japan. In Bejing there is a degree of 140 microgramms per cubic meter of fine dust in the air. The European unions regards 40 microgramms as maximum. Lung cancer and heart diseases have amassed in China in the last years. According to calculations by the world bank and the chinese ministry for healthcare and environment about 650.000 Chinese people die each year by diseases related to pollution of the air and 60.000 by pollution in the water. The WHO estimates the total figure to be 750.000 fatalities per year.

The Chinese officials reacted as they always do: shocked by the figures of the study they themselves asked for, the enforced the statistics to be erased by the world bank. The reason: the figures might lead to social unrest. Censorship seems to be answer to everything by Chinese officials. In the last months several small riots in rural towns were brutally kicked down by police and security. Chinese media has order not to report on these incidents. But all these small fires might add to a bigger uprising in the future. Currently the state officials have turned from pure communist ideology to a promise of rising wealth and living standards. Political scientists say that if the problems with labour rights and pollution overtake these promises the social stability of the biggest country in the world is in danger. The majority of the population will remain silent as long as these promises seem fullfillable. Up to now the officials have only one answer: more industrial growth, which of course accelerates  the social problems at the same time. A vicious circle leading to destruction.

Georg Cracked, November 2007, Sources: Financial Times, GEO, Newsweek, pictures from GEO (photographer: Lu Guang)