China pollution protest ends, but not distrust of gov’t
SHIFANG—Lao Zhou splutters with rage when asked if he believes government promises to scrap plans for a copper refinery near his home in southwest China, a project which has sparked violent protests.
“They’re liars!” the ruddyfaced farmer exclaims, spitting out his words in thickly accented Mandarin. “Nobody believes they won’t build it eventually.”
It was a remnant of the fury that erupted in Sichuan province’s Shifang town last week, when thousands of people took to the streets to protest against the $1.6 billion refinery that they feared would poison their families. The city government swiftly called off the project.
Such protests, and backdowns, are becoming more frequent as the world’s secondlargest economy pursues headlong growth. In August 2011, thousands of protesters forced the closure of a paraxylene plant after marching on the city square in the major city of Dalian in northeastern China.
While China faces tens of thousands of “mass incidents” every year over pollution, as well as issues like corruption, the Shifang uprising captured national attention and was widely discussed on popular microblogs with little apparent censorship.
“This issue has really struck a chord with people,” said one China-based Western diplomat, speaking on the customary condition of anonymity.
“It’s a perception problem more than anything, a lack of trust in the government. There’s not enough information,” the diplomat added. “This was a project, after all, which had been approved by the environmental authorities.”
The unrest sparked by the government’s plans to allow construction of the plant was the latest instance of public protests blocking industrial expansion because of environmental concerns.
Shanghai-listed Sichuan Hongda, one of China’s biggest zinc and lead producers, issued a statement after the protests, maintaining that it was a government-approved project with the highest environmental standards.
“The project would have an important boosting effect for fiscal revenue, promoting employment and improving people’s livelihood,” it said in a statement to the Shanghai stock exchange.
Many of the residents of the villages that surround Shifang and who live cheek-by-jowl with the existing factory where the new plant was to be built, said it was the government’s unwillingness to explain the plans that sparked their fury.
“We don’t oppose the government, but they must explain the risks involved in a project like this, and they didn’t. Their publicity efforts were not good enough,” said Zeng Susen, who runs a small guest house and restaurant.
“The government keeps talking about resolving livelihood problems, but they have to start doing so at the grassroots,” added Zeng, who relies on tourists visiting the pleasantly pastoral region.
Hongda’s Shifang plant, which makes assorted chemical products, including phosphates to be used in fertilizers as well as hydrochloric acid, is a grim-looking collection of buildings nestling under the mountains to the north of the city.
Huge, gray slag heaps are piled up between a dusty side road and a large river, smelling faintly metallic and providing a stark, moon-like landscape contrast with the verdant fields nearby.
According to the International Finance Corp, an arm of the World Bank, copper smelting and refining can produce mercury, sulphur dioxide, arsenic and other pollutants.
If the new plant were to be built, such pollutants could be dispersed into the air or flow into the river, poisoning drinking supplies and arable land, residents said.
China’s stability-obsessed leadership has vowed to clean up the country’s hazy skies and dank waterways, and increasingly tries to appear responsive to complaints about pollution.
But environmental disputes pit citizens against local officials whose aim is to lure fresh investment and revenue into their areas, and whose performance and pay is often linked to their ability to do so.