38158543

Question 2:

Given what you have learned this semester, how will environmental protection and civil society
develop in the future?

The single largest barrier towards the People’s Republic of China making any significant progress

towards cleaning up and maintaining their environment is the understandable desire to continue their

remarkable economic growth. The central government itself has recognized the increasingly worsening side-

effects of China becoming the factory of the world – air and water pollution, land degradation with deserts

growing, toxic rivers, and drought-like conditions – all things that will have to be faced in the long term. The

Chinese people are already suffering the consequences. Air pollution in particular is clearly visible, with

roughly 300,000 premature Chinese deaths per year due to respiratory problems. Over 600 million do not

have access to clean water. These are tangible effects that the Chinese are aware of and are directly affected

by, helping to facilitate a sense of Rights Consciousness. Thus despite growth being prioritized, it is still

possible that improved environmental protection policies will come into being in the future.

For international environmental NGOs hoping to do work in China, the 2008 Summer Olympics in

Beijing are a crucial time period to take advantage of, in part because the government itself also sees the

need to clean up the country’s image to the world, while literally cleaning up the air lest athletes develop

health problems. In addition, with increased scrutiny on happenings in China leading up to the Olympics,

one might hope that local governments are somewhat deterred from shutting down NGOs or individual

activists as they have often done in the past. This is a key problem that obstructs reform in this area. Lower-

level provincial governments are well rewarded for putting up impressive export and investment numbers,

and if that means encouraging companies to build more and more factories despite adverse effects on local

health.

An interesting situation here that is sometimes overlooked is the fact that many of the products that

we buy here in the States with “Made in China” on them are in fact made by foreign companies employing

Chinese workers. Much Foreign Direct Investment actually comes from other Asian countries; and ironically

they are directly affected by China’s quickly degrading environment. However, it is not a situation where the
Chinese government does not have a say in the matter – clearly it does, as evidenced by companies such as

Yahoo justifying actions such as turning in E-mails of dissidents out of deference to Chinese law. It should

be noted that China does in fact have a substantial number of laws that address concerns such as quality,

general safety, and pollutants, but more often than not a blind eye is turned in favor of growth. In part, the

ineffectiveness of such laws is explained by the government generally simply paying lip service to

environmental concerns. As it stands now, official promotions are mostly based on economic performance.

A structural response to this problem would be to drastically increase the power of the State

Environmental Protection Administration (SEPA). Without the ability to give binding orders, the

environmental branch of the government can do little more than advise provinces to try and clean up;

researching concrete methods to do so. However, while in theory it is possible that the problem would be

solved by giving environmental agencies absolute power, it is unlikely without a complete overhaul of the

entire Chinese bureaucracy. As it stands now, provincial environmental groups (ex: Guangdong SEPA)

cannot issue a binding order to a local group (ex: Zhongshan Municipal SEPA). Although this existing Tiao-

Kuai system makes change difficult, there is still a “loophole” – the fact that the CCP committees for all

regions hold the highest ranks and have the power to issue binding orders if necessary.

To utilize this, the CCP can create concrete incentives that provincial governments will be favorable

towards. In the current system there are few tangible reasons to make your own province less competitive by

spending more money short term to maximize efficiency and reduce waste and polluting, unless the people

living near the factory riot. As evidenced by earlier decades in the PRC’s history, it is no longer enough to

rely on moral incentives and campaigns; rather the same approach that was taken towards economic reform

must also be used to protect the environment.

In essence, the government should concretely state, “Reduce pollution levels and you will be

rewarded”. However, a paradigm shift away from the current system must take place. To do this, the Chinese

government must reduce the importance of maintaining double digit growth figures, though this should be

done region by region, starting with those that are already relatively well off economically and would most

likely remain stable even with slowed growth. Parallels might be drawn towards Deng Xiaoping’s “Playing
to the Provinces” strategy when first implementing the Special Economic Zones. A more open market was

made available to those who wanted to use it, while not overtly challenging those that relied on the socialist

system. As the new policies proved successful, other provinces quickly followed suit. Instead of attempting

to push a policy that might not be accepted everywhere, it should be implemented in affluent provinces that

can stand a reduced growth rate; or higher operating costs. As long as growth can be maintained, then it is

easier to convince provincial leaders to encourage local companies to build or upgrade equipment to become

‘cleaner’. It is unwise to push too strongly for environmental reform in areas that are currently relatively

undeveloped; where industries provide vital jobs.

Additionally, if the CCP is serious about improving the environment then it must also provide greater

protections to nongovernmental environmental groups, many of which currently lack legal status and are

thus vulnerable to crackdowns by local authorities. If the Party can recognize that activists are the key to

learning about problems smothered by local officials and utilize these people, it will go a long way towards

improving the awareness aspect of cleaning up the environment. As seen in the case of Mr. Wu, while he

was given an award by the central government, he was also arrested by local authorities. Currently, the Party

fears an external power base, and a way to minimize such a result would be to actively get involved in

environmental affairs. While some groups might protest government influence, the pros of increased legal

support could outweigh the cons of possible interference.

The development of a robust civil society that is protected by the government is vital to solving

China’s environmental problems. As Professor Gallagher notes in her article The Limits of Civil Society in a

Late Leninist State, writings that attempt to measure civil society in how much autonomy groups have from

the State may overlook important groups. Non-governmental groups do not necessarily have to be set up and

operated autonomously. That being said, the State must still allow these groups a certain amount of

independence in order to make cooperation with the CCP more attractive. This goes back to the original

problem; it will be more likely that concrete improvements are made in the environment if the CCP favors

environmental NGOs much like they do business. For example, China’s laws for registering businesses were

relaxed significantly throughout the reform era, hence the existence of many organizations choosing to
register as business entities despite being involved in completely nonprofit activities. This increased

accessibility and freedom must also be given to these less profitable groups as well. Groups such as “Green

Hanjiang” featured in China from the Inside are a good example of grassroots movements which would

benefit greatly from government protection, particularly since they go directly into provinces, addressing the

root of the problem but also leaving themselves vulnerable to local persecution.
Question A:

If you were a foreign Internet executive, how would you approach the Chinese market? Develop an
approach to business in China and defend this approach against potential criticism.

Like all other companies, those specializing in Information Technology must also be able to tread

carefully between obeying the laws of the country that they are trying to enter, and doing what is “morally

right” should a contradiction arise between the two principles. One of the more famous examples of this was

Yahoo’s role in helping Beijing’s state police uncover the identities of Chinese dissidents, ultimately

resulting in their imprisonment. It goes without saying that this no small matter, as was shown by the harsh

criticism of Yahoo in the US Congress and by various human rights organizations. Similarly, Google was

also criticized for bowing to CCP pressure and self-censoring search results on its Chinese version –

google.cn. (Google China)

What makes the situation difficult for companies in this situation is that in Yahoo’s case, it simply

furnished information regarding an IP address in compliance with Chinese law. Authorities went to Yahoo

and stated that they were doing an investigation and the company was obliged to assist. Information was not

revealed about the allegation or alleged criminal’s identity. For all the company knew, it was a case about

spammers or terrorism. Indeed, this was part of Yahoo’s defense – they said they were given proper

documentation in a court order, and to satisfy local law, and the information was handed over.

Despite this situation that internet companies have to deal with in order to enter China’s market, it is

realistically all but impossible to get companies to stop investing in China in a statement against censorship

or other less glamorous aspects of Chinese law, given that it one of the fastest growing internet markets (162

million users as of June 2007), likely to surpass the US (211 million users) by the end of the decade. This

attractiveness helps to explain China’s Authoritarian Resilience – the state can have Economic reform

without political reform because companies are willing to abide by its laws even when there are doubts

about reasonability, and the regime gains legitimacy.

There is no easy answer here – ideally, a company would not have to face this sort of choice between

continuing business and ‘unethical’ behavior. Here, it is crucial to note the differences between a ‘standard’

company that has to physically base its companies in China and ‘virtual’ companies where servers can in
fact be physically placed in countries different from their target market, thus bypassing much related laws.

For example, the US has strict intellectual property laws that generally outlaw any file sharing of

copyrighted material, but China doesn’t have the same laws (or does not enforce them as strictly), and as

such if copyrighted material can be found easily on websites based in China. The joke goes that you can find

new Hollywood movies in China as soon as they are released in the United States (in some cases, even

before), albeit sometimes with inaccurate subtitles.

Theoretically, this works in the reverse as well. If an internet executive wishes to approach the

Chinese market, an approach that helps to reduce potential controversy regarding user privacy would be to

situate computers that house sensitive user information offshore, away from Chinese legal jurisdiction.

Because a possible side effect of this is slower service, it would be pragmatic to situate those servers in

foreign countries that are geographically located in some proximity to China, ideally making internet speed

disparity negligible. From a political perspective it might be unwise to locate servers in countries such as

Japan or Taiwan that China has strong disputes with, but alternatives such as South Korea or India should be

considered. (South Korea might be the better choice if only because the majority of China’s middle-class is

on the east coast)

Regarding censorship, the situation is harder to navigate. In Google’s case, the CCP was able to

block certain search terms and results even while Chinese users were using google.com, thus making the

search experiences less than ideal.1 In entering the Chinese internet market, my reasoning would be that a

self-censored search engine is still better than no search engine at all, especially since it is likely most people

do not use search engines exclusively to find controversial topics. While Chinese internet censorship is

indeed quite active, it is generally limited to several sensitive topics such as the Tiananmen Square protests

of 1989, sites supporting the independence of Taiwan and Tibet, the Falun Gong movement, and other topics

that could potentially cause political harm to the Chinese Communist Party.

Ultimately, the unavoidable aspect of this is that companies do have to follow the laws of the

countries they operate in, with the other option being shut out of the market altogether. Indeed, my company

could decide what laws are unreasonable enough to warrant refusal to comply, and thus abandon the country.
1
http://www.newscientist.com/article.ns?id=dn2797 – Example: losing IP connectivity
It goes without saying that from a business standpoint, this is unwise. However, even while abiding by

Chinese laws ideally users would be provided as complete an experience as possible and as such, the

company would provide a service similar to that of YouTube – storing and facilitating the searching of audio

and video clips. This is because at the current level of technology it is harder for the government to

effectively monitor this sort of media; at least not as easily as they can do text. Thus it would be harder for

the CCP to find dissenters utilizing this format without drastically increasing the amount of internet police.

While still in limited cooperation with the CCP, the most effective way to defend against criticism

regarding self-censorship would be to clearly indicate to users when their search results had been filtered.2

Historically, companies have been reluctant to use the negative word censorship, instead choosing to include

relatively vague statements such as, “In accordance to local law and policy, some searches were not

revealed” in their search results when censoring has occurred. (Note that this is for China – in some other

countries, this message does not appear)

Within the compromise of agreeing to self-censor results to a certain extent, the company would take

things a step further by using more explicit wording, “Some Content Censored In Accordance With National

Law”. The meaning is the same but it is clearer to users what is happening. The law that requires the

material to be pulled would also be accessible from the page, allowing people to understand why this is

occurring.

To put a little twist on a famous saying, “A bird in the hand with a broken wing is better than two in

the brush.”

2
Here it is worth noting that various search engines have also removed material from their French and German versions in
accordance to local laws. Ex: Neo-Nazi sites. To the extent of my knowledge, there is no explicit acknowledgment there of self-
censorship occurring.