China Law Blog

We should worry less about China trying to take over the world, and more about chinas ability to avert an environmental collapse.

Later research leads me to believe much of the NY Times article was cribbed off this longer article from Foreign Affairs: http://www.foreignaffairs.org/20070901faessay86503/elizabeth-c-economy/the-great-leap-backward.html

Thank you for linking!

Anon --

What is an environmental collapse and how do we know when that has occurred? I ask this in all seriousness, particularly since I think I agree with you.

Whitney --

I have read Ms. Economy's stuff previously and I think very highly of her. Wish I had seen this Foreign Affairs article previously, as it certainly looks good and, hell, it's in Foreign Affairs, right?

So can you get specific about the cribbing? I mean, that's a pretty strong statement.

-| and Dan,

Judging what is an environmental collapse and when it is occurring will be difficult because it has never happened in man's existence as a homo erectus to homo sapien (think 65 million years ago or the Permean extinction 220 million years ago).

We could say that China is experiencing the beginning of such a collapse because of skyrocketing cancer rates (%30 overall by Beijing's last official numbers), overall infertility, % of deformed births and % of respiratory, skin and digestive ailments.

The BIG collapse is approaching as China runs out of drinkable water, and China is already making political preparations for war to head off that collapse by declaring that Anaruchal Pradesh (spelling) is actually southern Tibet.

China is trying to build water treatment plants but each one is a politically agonizing affair and finding qualified, competent local people to staff them (especially the not so glorious jobs) is a separate and severe problem. Then there is the non-existent work on each of the major cities' piping systems.
And these are cities with 6-20 million people in them and each plant can at most supply 100,000.

And this is in the big cities, the countryside water treatment plants (the few that exist) are usually turned off to maximize profitability and woefully understaffed (and the staff are not exactly "up to snuff" since anyone with any sort of talent has long since went to a big city).

China is sliding down the slippery slope and water will be the breaking point. We will know that China's water has just about run out when it is willing to make war against India and Russia to get their water (because they have nukes as well).

Of course, china may opt to invade Mongolia and start pumping ground water.

clb

The book that sums this one up for me is Collapse by Jared DIamond, although the usual provisos of enviro-sensationalism apply.

The bottom line about human society is that our ability to survive is based upon our management of the land and the natural resources that ultimately sustain us. No society in the history of the world is failing at this task to the extent that china is at the moment.

How can we tell when a collapse has occured? Arguably it has already started. If you distinguish his 'facts' from his beliefs and strange theories, NH is right a lot of the time.

Not only am I getting tired of the constant enviormental bombardment, i'm sick of the "Made in China" bashing.

Who knows, China might just disappear from the map one of these days. That way, US media will have very little to write about.

Mike: Your sentiment is understandable, however, when you're the new big boy on the court trying to play aggressive catch-up ball, people are bound not only to notice you, but to harp on you. I have no interest in competitive or professional sports, partly because every minute movement made by a player is analyzed to death by idiot commentators. In addition, sports, reduced to its basics, is just people hitting and throwing and kicking balls, or running or swimming fast. Economic and political actions by nations are a bit more complicated, with farther-ranging implications for all our lives, hence the careful scrutiny is warranted. What is fascinating here is less our China watching than China's knee-jerk reactions to our watching, and their reluctance/failure to become constructively engaged in the discussion. For those of us who have lived in China for long, that attitude is not unusual in individuals, however, it's no way for a nation to participate in global coexistence.

Take a look at today's NYTimes for the Q&A with Orville Schell. It's not China-bashing. It's an education.

Let me majorly emphasis nan's point about water. I remarked in comments before that water will be China's doom, unlike air pollution.

Not so much the lack of *drinkable water*, Chinese governance is quite able to ignore individual suffering, but the lack of *industrial water*, which will choke growth like nothing else. Chinese local governers are quite business centric, no? And the lack of water for plastics and other businesses will ripple and cause major governance conniptions.

nh: Arunachal Pradesh.

But to your point: Yes, water is going to be a huge, huge problem for China in the very near future, as it will be for many countries. But Arunachal Pradesh is irrelevant to this. I believe the dispute over Arunachal Pradesh dates back to way, way before water ever became an issue, and is probably mixed up with British arbitrary line-drawing in South Asia. How odd, wikipedia's article on Arunachal Pradesh isn't blocked:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arunachal_Pradesh
And yes, there was a British map-maker involved: "In 1913-14 British administrator, Sir Henry McMahon, drew up the 550-mile McMahon Line as the border between British India and Tibet during the Simla Conference, as Britain sought to advance its line of control and establish buffer zones around its colony in South Asia. The Tibetan and British representatives at the conference agreed to the line, which ceded Tawang and other Tibetan areas to British India; however the Chinese representative refused to accept the line owing to domestic pressures. The Chinese position since then has been that since China was sovereign over Tibet, the line was invalid without Chinese agreement. Furthermore, by refusing to sign the Simla documents, the Chinese Government had escaped according any recognition to the validity of the McMahon Line.[5]"
Anyway, water: The real issue is that with global warming the glaciers of the Tibet-Qinghai plateau will melt and eventually disappear. They're already retreating dramatically in many areas. These glaciers are the source for most of the major rivers of South and Southeast Asia and China: Indus, Ganges, Brahmaputra, Irrawaddy, Salween, Mekong, Yangtze, Yellow. The rapid melting of the glaciers will increase river flows in the short term, but once the glaciers are gone, you can kiss goodbye to the sources of all those rivers. At least, that's the theory. If it's true, that's all of Pakistan, Nepal, Bhutan, Myanmar, Laos, Cambodia, and Vietnam, most of Thailand, and huge, huge areas of India and China pretty much screwed. Add to this the massive overuse of ground water and aquifers in many areas (the entire Huabei and Jiangnan plains, for example, including Beijing and Shanghai), which causes subsidence as a side-effect, and is using up China's future water stocks far too quickly.And of course there's the pollution. I think that's a more accurate picture of China's massive water problem.

So you're right about the water, but wrong about Arunachal Pradesh. Taking it from India will not help alleviate China's water problems, since it will be just as dried up and shrivelled as any other part of Asia relying on Himalayan glaciers for water, and the dispute dates back to Britain's rather arbitrary drawing of lines in 1913 and 1914. (Incidentally, a similar problem exists with the Durand Line, which Britain decided would be the border between Afghanistan and what is now Pakistan).

Shah8 is dead on about the commercial consequences of not enough water and not enough clean water. All industrial processes require clean water. It can have fair amounts of bacteria and varying pH levels, but has to be fairly clean of chemicals and metals.
China's plans for 40 nuclear power plants have been delayed or canceled quietly because there simply isn't enough water or enough clean water to cool the reactors or turn the turbines.

@ Mike
Bad, dirty China.