Bumpy road ahead for action plan to clean environment

Besides, multinational companies based in developed economies had plenty of places available to shift their polluting industries. Also, developed societies overcame their environmental crises when their economies were increasing at a fast pace. But the facts are quite different for China whose economic growth has been slowing down.

Cleaning the environment means huge inputs into water-related infrastructure facilities to treat soil and water pollution, developing modern agriculture, reforming the environmental watchdogs and the judicial system, and transforming the government from an economic growth booster to one that provides quality public services.

All of these are difficult jobs. For instance, to modernize agriculture, China needs land reforms, which could reduce government revenue from land sales.

Most of the polluting factories are small workshops, which would shift to the western region of China instead of spending more to fight pollution in order to take advantage of the low labor cost and relatively lenient anti-pollution regulations. This will further complicate matters because the western region is where many of China's main rivers originate.

In the northern part of Guizhou province, were it not for the local government's move to protect the Chishui River, an important source of water for many famous liquor brands, including Moutai, from the invasion of polluting enterprises, the local liquor industry would have disappeared.

With growing environment awareness, local government has been implementing high standards for waste water discharge as Kweichow Moutai has introduced advanced recycle technology to reduce discharge.

The action plan also proposes to use financial tools to attract private investors to help clean the environment. But given China's far-from-mature financial sector, few investors would put their money in environmental restoration projects before the authorities clarify their profit model and specific cooperation patterns.

China has been attracting private funds to build railways and old age homes for several years. But since it takes long to realize returns from railway projects and it is more profitable to speculate in real estate on the pretext of building old age homes, neither reform has succeeded.

China's development has reached such a phase that any progress in a certain field will need complicated systemic reforms in other fields. Which means, to translate the action plan into real benefits for the people and nature, the government has to cover a long and bumpy road.

The author is a writer with China Daily. liyang@chinadaily.com.cn

(China Daily 04/25/2015 page4)