Pollution Getting Worse, China Admits

Despite steady efforts to protect the environment in recent years, China’s pollution continues to worsen in the face of relentless industrial growth, the Chinese government acknowledged Monday.

The report issued by the State Council, China’s Cabinet, is the latest in a string of rare admissions by the Communist Party leadership that it has not done enough to prevent environmental damage.

“The conflict between environment and development is becoming ever more prominent,” the report says. “Relative shortage of resources, fragile ecology and insufficient environmental capacity are becoming critical problems hindering China’s development.”

For a government more used to masking the country’s problems than exposing them, the environment represents one of the few areas where the top leadership feels comfortable admitting fault, scholars and environmentalists say.

“They are actually admitting that the country’s environmental problems are getting worse,” said Zhou Xiaozheng, a sociology professor at People’s University in Beijing. “That’s like slapping themselves on the face.”

The shift in official tone came shortly after Premier Wen Jiabao told the public early this year that the country had failed to reach its targets on environmental protection during the last five years.

According to a State Environmental Protection Administration report released Monday to coincide with World Environment Day, 60% of the country’s territory is considered ecologically fragile. About 90% of the country’s grasslands are facing degradation and desertification. Vast wetlands are withering and shrinking because of farming and industrialization.

Zhu Guangyao, a vice minister at SEPA, told a news conference Monday: “Most of our riverbanks in urban areas are heavily polluted. We face severe problems with desertification and soil erosion. Yes, we’ve achieved some progress too, but that’s little cause for optimism.”

Beijing is under pressure to transform itself into a world-class metropolis to host the 2008 Summer Olympics.

But this year the capital has been dogged by one of the worst sandstorms in recent memory. Yellow dust turned the smoggy air even murkier. The trickle of rain that fell this spring became mud as it splashed onto umbrellas and windows.

Although central government officials acknowledge the problem, environmentalists say it will be difficult to get local officials to give up their economic interests for the sake of the environment.

“Job promotions for local officials are based on the investment dollars created during their tenure,” said Sze Pang Cheung, campaign manager at Greenpeace in Beijing.

As a gesture to mark World Environment Day on Monday, car owners were encouraged to abandon their vehicles to reduce the city’s notorious traffic congestion and smog. An estimated 200,000 motorists pledged to find another way to get to work. But the traffic problems hardly seemed to ease in a city where more than 1,000 new cars hit the road each day. The city is expected to have as many as 3.5 million vehicles on the streets by 2008, up from 2.6 million today.