Grassroots environmental struggles in China

Scan page 6

J environmental protests occurring in China. Around ust in the last month there have been two cases of one thousand people protested on the streets of Yangjiang city, in Guangdong province, against the construction of an incinerator. And ten thousand people protested against a chemical factory in Shan­ grao city, Jianxi province. The protesters in both cases battled with the police. As a result, many people were injured or arrested.

People hate incinerators, Paraxylene (PX) plants (PX is a chemical used in manufacturing plastic bottles and polyester clothing), nuclear power plants and chemical plants. Their hatred is so strong that they are not afraid to fight the police. Unlike labour strikes in China, environmental protests always call people out to demonstrate in the streets. In China, freedom of assembly is not assured and being arrested is very common for protesters. So why are so many people still willing to take the risk and participate in these demonstrations?

Environmental damage behind economic growth Since former Chinese leader Deng Xiaoping pro­ posed the “reform and opening up” policy in 1978, the Chinese economy has experienced rapid growth. Until 2014, the average annual GDP growth was 9.7%. This means that the Chinese economy doubled every seven years. This growth is even greater than Deng’s plan, which aimed for doubling in 20 years (about 7.2% per year). Under the rapid economic develop­ ment, the traditional image of China, with a beauti­ ful natural environment of rivers and mountains, has been badly altered by pollution. The environment of China has been sacrificed for the sake of growth. Beijing’s toxic haze Carbon dioxide emissions increase when industrial output increases. In 2007 China overtook the United States as the world’s largest carbon emitter. At the same time, air pollution is serious. In 2006, 37.6% of China’s 559 major cities failed to meet national air quality standards. In February this year, Chai Jing, for­ merly a reporter for China Central Television (CCTV), the main state broadcaster, released a self-financed documentary called “Under the Dome”. It focuses on the toxic haze in Beijing. This documentary sparked widespread concerns. Chai represents the new gen­ eration of the middle-class who care about their lives and health. However, this documentary was quickly “harmonized” by the Chinese government (“harmo­ nized” is a word created by Chinese “netizens” to de­ scribe being censored by the government). Water is unusable In addition to air pollution, water pollution is anoth­ er serious problem. In China, at least 320 million peo­ ple cannot access clean water. According to the 2014 China Environmental Bulletin, nearly two-thirds of the ground water and one-third of the surface water is not suitable for humans to come into contact with. Water from nearly 40% of lakes and rivers is not suit­ able for drinking, aquaculture or swimming. Tap wa­ ter in the cities is not safe either. There were at least seven leakages of chemicals or heavy metals into tap water in Chinese cities between 2010 to 2014. They affected more than 300 million people. Millions die from polluted air Health problems caused by pollution are also get­ ting serious and concern everybody who lives in Chi­ na. Recent research from physicists at the University of California, Berkeley, calculated that about 1.6 mil­ lion people in China die every year from heart, lung and stroke problems because of incredibly polluted air, especially small particles of haze.

People in rural areas also suffer from severe health problems. There are more than 247 “cancer villages” in 27 different regions of China. Most villagers living in these “cancer villages” are too poor to move. We know that there are many petitions and complaints from these cancer villages, but the media never re­ ports them. These villagers are the most vulnerable people who suffer from pollution, but their voices are so weak.

Food is not safe Water, air, and even food safety cannot be guaran­ teed. Over the past decade, there have been a num­ ber of food safety scandals. In 2008, a number of Chi­ nese baby formula companies were discovered add­ AP ing melamine to their products. In 2010, the media revealed the “gutter oil” production chain in China (this is used oil which comes from restaurants, sewer drains, and slaughterhouse waste and is illegally re­ cycled).

Other scandals include the abuse of plasticizer (an additive that increases plasticity), and the use of banned pesticides on vegetables and fruits. “Blackhearted food” (food manufactured dishonestly from contaminated products) is everywhere. This is also the reason why new middle-class people are buying baby formula and groceries overseas.

Environmental protest growing Beyond a certain point of pollution, a country’s food, water, and air safety cannot be guaranteed. Undoubt­ edly, this situation is a hotbed for unrest. According to the state news agency, Xinhua, environmental pro­ tests in China have been growing by 29% per year since 1996, and a much more rapid increase of 120% occurred in 2012. The Chinese people have already reached a consensus that the causes of the ongoing pollution problems are the corruption of government officials and the lack of monitoring of polluting com­ panies. So the only effective reaction is to march in the streets to fight against any sources of pollution that may be built nearby.

Not just about “Not in my back yard” (Nimby)

Nimby syndrome has often been mentioned in rela­ tion to China’s environmental protests. These include the protests against PX plants in Dalian, Xiamen and Kunming, as well as the anti-incinerator demonstra­ tions in Beijing, Yangjiang, and Huizhou. All these pro­ tests put out the message “do not build in my back­ yard.” In these cases, opposition declined when the targets were relocated to remote areas.

However, there was an exceptional example in the Panyu district of the southern city of Guangzhou. Panyu residents not only objected to the building of incinerators in Panyu. They also called for the ban­ ning of all incinerators in China and demanded more environment-friendly waste recycling methods.

With the support of local media, the residents suc­ ceeded in prevailing on the government to stop the plan. This case was successful and exceptional be­ cause media and environmental activists in Guang­ zhou have more freedom than in other cities.

If the Chinese government cannot deal with these serious pollution problems, people’s discontent will continue to rise. In recent years, the Chinese gov­ (continued on page 11, in “The Danish Girl”)

Scan page 7

... Climate (continued from page 12: “Paris climate talks produce hot air”) dumped enough rain on the Upper Midwest to cause the worst floods on the Mississippi since at least 1993. Record rains also caused flooding in South America and Europe. The North Pole saw temperatures rise above freezing in what should have been deep winter.

Why, in the face of oncoming catastrophe, don’t capitalist leaders do more than make high-mind­ ed pronouncements while the planet burns? As Institute for Social Ecology director Brian Tokar notes in his analysis of the Paris climate talks, “The world the diplomats inhabit couldn’t be far­ ther removed from the places where the impacts of continuing climate chaos are felt the most.” It is the frontline communities facing droughts, wildfires, unprecedented storms, and inunda­ tion by rising seas—not the global capitalist class—that can bring about the system change necessary to avert the worst devastation.

The fact that the Paris agreement pays lip ser­ vice to the goals of the global climate justice movement is a testament to the growing power of that movement and the ability of mass action to shift the conversation. In the lead-up to the conference, 785,000 people took to the streets at over 2300 events in 175 countries.

Protests around the Paris summit were large and colorful despite the French government’s attempts to squelch them. The administration of François Hollande used the Nov. 13 terrorist attacks in Paris as a pretext to outlaw all street protests during the climate summit. The government even placed 24 en­ vironmental activists under preemptive house arrest before the talks.

International protest organizers bowed to the ban and officially canceled a march scheduled for Nov. 29. But up to 10,000 protesters took to the streets of cen­ tral Paris anyway. They were met by riot cops firing tear gas and stun grenades. Media images of heavily armed cops trampling a memorial to victims of the Nov. 13 attacks in order to arrest 200 peaceful pro­ testers were broadcast worldwide.

The New Anti-capitalist Party, which includes So­ cialist Action’s co-thinkers in France, participated in the protest and pointed out: “EDF (the formerly state-owned electricity company), BNP Paribas (one of the country’s biggest banks), Air France (the formerly state-owned airline), GDF Suez (the formerly state-owned gas company), all of them sponsors of the COP 21, are among the biggest polluters worldwide. Dicta­ tors from around the globe are welcomed with honors by Foreign Affairs Minister Laurent Fabius and Presi­ dent François Hollande, but the people who want to protest for a better world are being repressed.”

Left-wing Canadian journalist Naomi Klein, who is renowned for her writing on capitalism’s failure to ad­ dress climate change, also called for activists to defy the protest ban. On the last day of the Paris talks, tens of thousands of protesters took to the streets, carry­ ing banners representing “red lines” that climate ne­ gotiators crossed in their final agreement. The French government permitted the protest at the last minute, ready known: fossil fuel companies are criminally li­ able for the deaths of millions from climate changerelated disasters. So why do $775 billion in direct government subsidies still flow to fossil-fuel corpora­ tions, rather than to transitioning to clean, renewable energy sources?

It’s not that such a transition is technically impos­ sible. In fact, a recent study conducted by a group of engineers at Stanford University not only confirms that it would be possible to convert all 50 U.S. states to 100% wind, solar, and mostly existing hydroelectric power by 2050 using current technology, but details exactly how each state could do so. The study consid­ ers not just the electric grid, but transportation, heat­ ing and cooling, and industry as well. The researchers have published their peer-reviewed findings in an in­ teractive website, www.thesolutionsproject.org.

But such a transition requires immediate, mas­ sive, sustained investment in new renewable energy sources; so far, only a few U.S. states have taken some half-measures toward meeting these goals. Further, it would only work if all of the new energy from renew­ ables were to replace existing fossil fuel sources, rath­ er than just increasing the energy supply. Currently, this is not the case. Fossil fuels are more in demand than ever.

Capitalism requires constant expansion and re­ placement of human labor with machinery (what Marx termed “constant capital”). Machinery—includ­ ing not just factory belts and motors, but labor-saving devices like computers and farm tractors—requires energy to run. As an energy source, fossil fuels are ex­ tremely energy-dense and relatively easy to extract, store, transport, and sell. They can be used wherever and whenever a capitalist needs them, in any quantity the capitalist can afford.

A methane leak at a natural gas storage facility in (Above) Poster on the wall of a Paris Metro station reads: “The future of the planet is now being set in motion: World March for the Climate.

By contrast, wind and solar energy are less con­ centrated, requiring more capital investment and a slower return on that investment. Fossil fuels are a form of solar energy, but ones that have been concen­ trated by the work of nature over millions of years; collecting energy directly from the sun requires an in­ vestment of human labor to replace this use value of nature. The availability of both wind and sun are also impacted by local weather conditions. From an eco­ logical perspective, it makes sense to reorganize the economy around clean, renewable energy sources, producing goods when energy is available and relax­ ing when it isn’t. From a capitalist perspective, it only makes sense to consider the bottom line: fossil fuels enable unlimited mechanization and profit.

In the short term, we need to continue building mass mobilizations to demand an immediate transition to clean renewables—water, wind, and solar. There are many immediate demands that can be made, such as ending fossil fuel subsidies, banning fracking, tar sands, and mountaintop removal coal mining, stop­ ping new oil and gas pipelines, caps on power plant emissions, new government investment into mass transit systems, and forcing utilities to replace fossil fuel generators with renewables. All of this should be done with an eye toward providing transition jobs for displaced fossil fuel workers at union wages.

But ultimately, the transition that is needed will require workers and the oppressed—including the frontline victims of climate changes—to unite in rev­ olution against the capitalist class. Another world is both possible and necessary for human survival. n

----- pull-quotes -----

6 SOCIALIST ACTION JANUARY 2016 In capitalist China, the traditional image of rivers and mountains has been sacrificed for the sake of growth.