{"id":30801,"date":"2013-03-14T13:22:00","date_gmt":"2013-03-14T13:22:00","guid":{"rendered":""},"modified":"2020-05-14T18:43:28","modified_gmt":"2020-05-14T18:43:28","slug":"5801-official-blames-foreigners-for-china-s-pollution","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dialogue.earth\/en\/pollution\/5801-official-blames-foreigners-for-china-s-pollution\/","title":{"rendered":"Official blames foreigners for China\u2019s pollution"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Guess who should be the latest victim of China&rsquo;s environmental crisis blame game, according to some Chinese officials? It&rsquo;s the foreigners.<\/p>\n<p>A provincial environmental official said recently that foreigners should be blamed for China&rsquo;s pollution, <em>People.com<\/em>, the official website for People&rsquo;s Daily, reported.<\/p>\n<p>Miao Xuegang, Director of the Anhui Provincial Environmental Protection Authority, said foreigners were being &ldquo;hypocritical&rdquo; when <a href=\"https:\/\/www.chinadialogue.net\/article\/show\/single\/en\/5615-US-cities-suffer-impact-of-downwind-Chinese-air-pollution\">criticising China&rsquo;s pollution<\/a> problems. <\/p>\n<p>&ldquo;China is a big exporter and many foreigners have been benefiting from China&rsquo;s green products. However, the pollution incurred during the production process are left in China. &rdquo;<\/p>\n<p>The <a href=\"https:\/\/www.chinadialogue.net\/article\/show\/single\/en\/5791-Air-pollution-tops-the-agenda-at-China-s-parliament\">smoggy weathe<\/a>r and the alleged ground water pollution have given environmental issues unprecedented high profile media coverage and aroused great public concern for pollution.<\/p>\n<p>Miao&rsquo;s &ldquo;hypocritical&rdquo; comment, which came amid strong public outcry for firm and efficient handling of the environmental issues, upset China&rsquo;s green activists.<\/p>\n<p>Liu Jianqiang, c<em>hinadialogue&rsquo;s<\/em> Beijing editor and a veteran environmentalist, wrote on his Sina Weibo: &ldquo;following this logic, even Chinese people criticising China&rsquo;s pollution would be hypocritical, for we ourselves are responsible for the pollution.&rdquo;<\/p>\n<p>Feng Yongfeng, founder of the Beijing-based NGO Green Beagle, told c<em>hinadialogue<\/em> that officials lack the courage to face the gravity of environmental issues.<\/p>\n<p>&ldquo;Sometimes, they say it (pollution) is a necessary byproduct of development of socialism with Chinese characteristics. Other times, they blame China&rsquo;s world factory status for environmental issues,&rdquo; Feng said, adding &ldquo;it doesn&rsquo;t matter who the products are selling to or whether China&rsquo;s the world factory. The only thing that matters is whether every act of production has complied with the basic requirement of environmental protection principles.&rdquo;<\/p>\n<p>As controversial comments goes, Miao&rsquo;s &ldquo;hypocritical&rdquo; comment was not the only one that attracted media attention. Days ago, deputy secretary of Yunnan&rsquo;s provincial Communist Party Committee, Qiu He, a charismatic official in China who already has quite a few memorable media soundbites, said that water resources flowing to neighbouring countries were wasted.<\/p>\n<p>Qiu suggested at the Two Sessions, annual meetings for China&rsquo;s parliament and political advisory body, that China should use dams to store water so that it won&rsquo;t all flow to other countries and be wasted.<\/p>\n<p>However, blaming foreigners for China&rsquo;s environmental issues or benefitting at other countries&rsquo; costs is, perhaps, not the best way to reassure China&rsquo;s green activists or honour <a href=\"https:\/\/www.chinadialogue.net\/blog\/5775-Environmentalists-unconvinced-by-Wen-Jiabao-s-green-words\/en\">China&rsquo;s commitment to an Eco-civilisation<\/a>. <\/p>\n<p>Commenting on Qiu He&rsquo;s suggestion, Feng Yongfeng said &ldquo;only those stupid officials would spend all their time thinking of ways to appropriate all natural resources for one single country&rsquo;s use&#8230;those who did so should resign as soon as possible&rdquo;.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>China&rsquo;s local environmental official believes foreigners should be blamed for China&rsquo;s pollution problems<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1815,"featured_media":56377,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_has_post_settings":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[760],"tags":[],"hashtags":[],"country":[],"class_list":["post-30801","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-pollution"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v26.0 (Yoast SEO v26.0) - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Official blames foreigners for China\u2019s pollution | Dialogue Earth<\/title>\n<meta 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