译自CWI的绿色奥运？

绿色奥运？

北京是世界上污染最严重的城市之一

Vincent Kolo和陈立志， 中国劳工论坛

北京奥运会作为'绿色奥运'进行宣传。在2001年，中国政权使用这个口号来成功地申办奥运会，通过雄心勃勃地承诺改善中国首都的空气质量和水质而得到支持。不过，这始终是一个难以完成的任务。北京是世界上污染最严重的城市之一。中国官员不是解决实际问题，而是选择了若干短期的和装饰性的措施，这些措施只为运动会期间的改善发挥作用。使用临时权宜之计——用博客的话说叫“雾里花和镜中月” ——是中国政权的品性。在世界上，中国面临着最可怕的生态危机。在和平时期，一个国家的自然资源，水和土地如此程度的退化是无前例的。

尽管为奥运几乎支出了170亿美元来改善环境，北京不断的建设浪潮和爆发式地汽车使用阻碍了政府改善空气质量的努力。在奥运会期间，政府下令停使150万辆汽车以减少空中的毒素。为了奥运会，种植了百万计的树木，尤其是在首都国际机场的附近，以便迎接新来者。鉴于它给北京本已稀缺的水资源带来了额外的压力，环保人士对此带来的好处有分歧。近200家钢铁，水泥，化工厂和其他工厂已被关闭或搬迁至城市边界以外。但正如网站有线评论说的， “周边城市愉快地为首都的污秽的工厂铺出了欢迎垫子，然后让它们喷出纪录级数量的煤烟到该地区的天空，让它们嗡嗡叫” 。高达70 ％ 的北京的大气污染来自周边省份——这只是城市奥运翻新门面被更广的经济活动所破坏的一个例子。联合国环境计划署一项报告称“广泛使用煤炭，城市的地理位置和日益增多的机动车辆意味着改善北京的空气质量的步子缓慢下来。” 这份报告发现，2006年北京的空气中作为一个主要的健康危害物质的小颗粒物的平均水平高于世界卫生组织（WHO）的指导标准的8倍。其他类型的空气污染——二氧化硫，二氧化氮及一氧化碳——上升或在3年的下降后于2006年开始不再改善。

为了健康，患有哮喘的男子马拉松世界纪录保持者格布雷西拉西耶放弃了北京奥运会期间的该项比赛，虽然他仍然打算参加在北京举行的10000米比赛。他说“中国的污染对我的健康是一个威胁，在我目前的状况下，我很难跑四十二公里”。美国奥运代表团宣布，它将携带1000只特别设计的空气污染口罩到北京。据一位美国运动员所说，他们穿上新的装束，整队看上去像“一次星球大战中的达斯•维德们的聚会” 。然而，北京的1700万居民不得不每天呼吸这样的空气，而不只是在一个为期三周的国际竞争中。而其他声明狼藉的污染大城市如墨西哥城和洛杉矶的平均空气污染指数分别为66和44，而北京记录中的数字，有时超过300 ，此时，空气成为'危险物' 。对于一个暴露在这种程度的空气毒素中的儿童，这相当于一天吸烟40支！北京大学环境科学教授的研究表明，2002年，微粒所造成的污染导致北京2.5万人死亡，导致该城市的国内生产总值损失7.2 ％ 。据2006年由国家环境保护总局（ SEPA ）实施的84个中国主要城市的统计调查结果， 北京达到国家空气质量标准的天数是最少的——而且2007年其空气质量更差了。

三分之一的城市尘埃微粒来自大约3000个建筑工地，这些工地在中国城市整日整夜开工。工作并且在许多情况下还生活在这些工地上的低工资的民工却没有被提供奥林匹克式防毒面具。空气质量的一个更大的威胁是北京日益增长的汽车量，到奥运会时，汽车数将达到330万辆，每天有一千多辆新的汽车开上城市的道路。在2007年，当汽车拥有者突破三百万时，北京的市长王岐山说，这象征着城市的“繁荣和快速发展” 。但在新浪网的一个调查中，受访者却有着另一种观点，55 ％的人说这是'坏消息'以及31 ％的人担心城市的污染问题将进一步恶化。

根据环境保护署（ EPA）的推算，在美国，汽车每年平均产生超过273千克的空气污染。然而，中国的汽车环保标准低于美国以及大大低于欧洲的相关标准。最近的测试发现中国汽车的排放水平相当于美国六十年代后期和七十年代初的水平，这些汽车排放比西方国家目前使用的汽车的排放严重10-20倍。根据一项中美联合研究，北京40 ％的汽车和70 ％的的士不符合西方废气排放的最基本的标准。使问题更糟的是，作为增长最快的行业的中国的汽车市场是真正的大污染制造者——大排量的运动型多功能车（休旅车）及豪华车型。2007年，这些车辆的销售量上升了50 ％ ，相比于整个市场，增长了20 ％ 。这一趋势告诉我们关于中国的国内市场的很多方面：这个市场是偏向于相对富裕的少数阶层，而绝大多数人因为太穷而享受不了西式的消费。

汽车文化

中国从'自行车王国'转型为世界上第二大和增长最快的汽车市场展现了资本主义的破坏性的力量及其盲目追逐利润的本性。从环保的角度来看，中国——13亿人——复制西方资本主义模式的汽车大众化的疯狂性对任何人来说都是不言而喻的。汽车是全球温室气体的最大单一来源而它们现在在中国城市产生70 ％至80 ％的空气污染，根据一项2007年由世界银行和中国政府联合制作的报告，污染导致一年75万人失去生命。然而，同一个政府却张开双臂欢迎全球汽车巨人并且尽最大努力以确保中国继续沿着这条道路走去。近年来，由于他们在其他市场滞销而把希望寄托在中国市场的扩大上，这些公司已投入了巨额的款项。作为汽车市场的领导者的通用汽车，现在每年在中国销售超过100万辆车。大众汽车公司在中国比在德国销售更多的车。

在市、省和国家级的层面，这些公司和其他公司，如与汽车业命运相系的石油公司，与中国官员和与他们有联系的国有企业建立起了一种强有力的利益网。正如一位汽车行业的分析师提出， “中国政府打算建立一种汽车文化和发展汽车工业已不是什么秘密了。所有的力量一并发挥作用。”政府欢迎汽车公司，并把它作为投资、就业岗位和技术之源并相应地制定其政策。中国日报的评论道：“公路在这个国家纵横交错，古老的城市中心已经用推土机推平以便为造适宜汽车的道路腾出空间。”用于铁路的投资-铁路是目前为止最环保的大规模运输手段——在狂热的公路建设项目面前相形见拙。官方统计显示，在过去的5年里，建成了6500公里新铁路。但与此相比，仅2006年，建成4400公里新的六车道高速公路，2007年进一步，建成8300公里的高速公路。片面侧重于公路建设的原因之一是几乎所有的中国的高速公路都是收费道路，主要是在省级政府的合同下的私营公司出资建造。最近，甚至铁路在较小的规模上也正在向私人资本开放。至于收费道路的兴旺，在该国许多地方，政府已对这一进程失去控制。国家审计局调查了18个省份中的100条公路，发现158个非法收费站，至2005年年底，它们通过非法的收费总共已收集了149亿元（ 21亿美元）。

无怪乎汽车业经理们都笑容满面。中国的汽车市场的增长一直很壮观：在短短的六年里增长了300 ％ 。私家车的数目由2000年的600万上升到2007年的3240万。2001年成为世贸成员，通过降低进口关税和更广泛地向全球汽车巨人开放中国市场对此发展一直是至关重要的。美国，欧洲，日本和韩国公司现在占70 ％的中国汽车国内销售。2003-08之间增加了5倍的中国的汽车使用量的飙升本身对全球的石油价格有着重要的影响。现在中国是世界上第二大石油进口国而且其汽车消耗的石油占其进口石油过半。2000年，他们消耗6560万吨石油，2010年将增加一倍，至13800万吨石油，到2020年，将上升到25600万吨[2004年10月6日中国日报]。正如华盛顿邮报指出的， “汽车无餍的胃口是北京派出工程师和交易人从西伯利亚到安哥拉再到印尼寻找新的石油的原因之一。”现在，中国比美国从沙特阿拉伯购买更多的石油，也是在石油生产国伊朗和苏丹的最大的外国投资者。因此就地缘政治以及生态条件而言，中国'汽车文化'的到来正在重塑世界和为未来老帝国主义列强和崛起的中国之间的冲突搭建舞台。

空气污染和交通挤塞的影响是很惊人的，当然不只是在北京很严重。作为中国最富有的南部大都市的深圳市的市长如今呼吁人们停止购买汽车。2007年公开会议中他说道：“我虽然没有法定的权力要求你们必须这样做，但我还是要求大家不要购买汽车. ”北京的城市规划者也表现出了失望，中国人民政治协商会议（CPPCC）北京委员会成员之一的郑湘辉惊呼“交通问题的核心是北京道路建设增长速度跟不上车辆增长速度。车辆的数目一天之内可以增加上千辆，但我们在同样时间内不能建起一条新的道路。 “城市仅有140万辆规模的停车位，却有300多万辆车。

不仅是北京人民受其毒害，其交通现在的前行速度不到20世纪80年代的速度的一半——高峰期间1小时仅有11公里。中国日报为此事实哀叹道： “在交通高峰时间，北京的道路就像是一个巨大的停车场，人们抱怨说，骑自行车往往比开车快。”当2008年4月世界高级汽车经理们来到北京市参加北京车展，他们尝到了他们的公司创造的危害。首都离奇的交通全面阻塞把前往展览中心半小时车程变为两小时的蠕动。一些经理，如三菱汽车的Osamu Masuko和雷诺汽车的卡洛斯戈恩，选择走出他们的豪华轿车而在大雨中步行最后一公里的路。

然而，没有什么地方可以看到针对带有弊端的汽车大众化的替代方案。目前这不仅在中国而且在国际上都是个迫切之事。在要求洗清他们的行为的沉重的压力下，汽车公司本身提出的计划是要建造更多的石油和电'混合动力'的发动机和纯电动发动机，以及更多地使用生物燃料。不过，所有这些的发展是用来延续今天汽车使用大众化的系统而不是提供一个真正的替代选择。假如全球电力输出的66 ％仍然依赖化石燃料的话，即使是一个假设性的全电动汽车的'新时代'的到来也不会改善多少。而且，正如在中国，增长最快的电力之源也是全球最严重的环境破坏物：煤！同时生物燃料如乙醇已经被证明在资本主义生产方式下追逐利润的基础上是灾难性的。粮食作物现正转移至更有利可图的生物燃料的生产上，结果是在部分新殖民主义世界出现饥饿。而且对环境也无甚益处——乙醇取自一些作物，如棕榈油，它其实比汽油或柴油产生更多的温室气体。社会主义替代涉及民主控制和经济发展计划以及资源重定向以从其破坏性转向社会需要和环境上可持续的生产，而不是浪费和今天120家在中国的汽车公司之间的重复建设性的竞争，其中许多随着市场变得更小将不可避免地倒闭，资源和积累起来的劳工的技能应该汇集和引导到一个大规模扩展的安全的，廉价的和有效率的公共交通建设上去。

中国私家车猛增的主要原因是在大多数城市里缺乏有效率的公共运输系统。近年来的投资项目中该部门往往被忽视，钱被投入到工业园区及资产的发展上。北京的情况在整个国家中是最严重的。
乘上拥挤的巴士在该市走一遭是一种折磨，尤其是当其出现普遍存在的交通拥堵的情况时，这种拥堵意味着像包装起来的沙丁鱼那样站立着，长久地一动也不动。毫不奇怪，在2006年关于城市生活质量报告中，在交通满意上，北京得分在287个中国城市中是最低的。首都的地铁网络也是长期不能满足要求的。它只有带有83个站口的5条地铁线（第五号地铁线于2007年作为奥运前改善城市面貌的一部分而开通）以服务 1700万居民。有着820万人口的纽约有着备有468个站口的26条地铁线。而且纽约地铁每天运送乘客640万人次，而北京每天只运送220万人次。

交通专家告诉中国日报（ 2007年5月28日）说：“在纽约市，公共交通占整个交通流量的76 ％。东京是91％. 伦敦和巴黎分别是40％和70 ％ ，但在北京，它仍然只占29 ％ 。 ”即使计划扩大地铁系统——到2012增加六条新地铁线路——其也只增加北京居民可用的公共交通到45 ％左右。

作为扭转这一局面的一个重大的策略，北京官员大多是出于政治方面权宜之计而诉诸于一系列的治标措施以不惜一切代价避免奥运的失败。因此，种植树木，无车日，和人工下雨（发射火箭以产生大雨来清除空气污染物）这样的作法应因而生了 。如果这些方法都失败，中国官员有一个久经考验的解决方法以解决难题：统计造假！北京环境保护局被指责把监测点从空气质量欠佳的地区移到别处而且为了提高所谓的“蓝天“数而改变空气中成份以便在检测其污染时得到好的结果。

中国和全球变暖

联合国气候变化专门委员会已发出警告说，除非地球大气层中的温室气体量在未来八年渐趋稳定，气温升高至'灾难性'的水平将是不可避免的。然而，基于对大量增加的矿物燃料消费来给其巨大的浪费的产业和拥堵的交通提供动力，中国已超越美国成为世界上最大的污染者'和气候变化的主要驱动力。

中国比其他任何国家遭受了更多的自然灾害并且由于人口增长，城市化，荒漠化和并非不重要的气候变化的影响，它们的发生频率正在上升。极地冰盖萎缩被公认为是对气候的一大威胁而导致较高的全球气温和海平面上升。被称为世界'第三极'的青藏高原的冰川也在以惊人的7 ％左右的速度萎缩着。新华社的一份报告警告说：“冰川融化最终会引发更多的干旱，荒漠化的扩大和沙尘暴的增加。”冰川收缩是导致中国西部山区数以千计的湖泊消失的原因，而现在沙漠占该国领土的27.6 ％，其中大部分在北部和西北地区。在这些非汉族人民集中的地区的环境退化和耕地的丧失是推动种族关系紧张并要求更大的自治或独立的一个因素。

在中国南方，其影响适得其反： 1 季风暴雨，严重水灾和热带风暴的增加。每年数以千万计的人受水灾的影响。 2008年6月在很多省份包括安徽，广东，湖南等省区发生了50年来最严重的降雨。国家海洋局的报告已警告说，如果海洋继续上升，沿海大城市如上海和广州，会遇到“无法想象的挑战”。科学家警告说，到2050年上海可能会被淹没掉。2007年春季，中国政权公布关于气候变化的首次国家评估报告，预测在中国北部的七大河流之三——淮河，辽河，海河流域——的地区降雨量急剧下降30 ％ 。反过来，由于更高的温度，这将导致小麦，大米和玉米产量在本世纪下半叶减产37 ％。中国粮食自给自足的能力已经不足，在这样的假设下将面临完全崩溃的局面。

全球性的后果也将是毁灭性的。如果目前的趋势继续下去，科学家警告，中国产生的温室气体的增加量将数倍于老工业化国家正在按照——完全不充分的——京都议定书削减的排放量。中国未来五年内增加的排放量定为约23亿吨，使得37个富裕国家在京都议定书下强制削减的17亿吨相形见拙

社会主义者一贯认为，资本主义'解决方案' ，如京都议定书无法阻止全球变暖。这是因为他们是根据'自由市场'的机制运作的，该机制常常导致协定形同虚设而且往往导向欺诈性的排放权的交易。他们被在资本主义——一个残酷竞争的制度，在该制度下，每个政府旨在为自己的公司谋取最大利益——的基础上无可避免的暗斗所困扰。在欧洲和美国的政府要求下，中国和其他新兴工业化国家接受了更严格的限制二氧化碳排放量的要求，这已被一些亚洲国家政府称为'绿色帝国主义' 。这一指控不是完全没有道理的。富裕的资本主义国家的伪善的政府知道没有任何限制——自己的公司是许多中国的污染问题背后之源。绿色和平组织英国领导人约翰舒文解释说： “对中国的排放量飙升负责的不只是北京，而且包括华盛顿，布鲁塞尔和东京。”并把矛头指向西方产业大规模的迁移。他说：“所有我们所做的就是出口西方的碳产物之很大的份额到中国，今天我们看到了后果。”

浪费资源的产业

近十年来中国经济年增长率10 ％ 。不过，这是带有人力资源和自然资源的巨大成本的。正如环保总局第二把手的潘岳指出的， “我们正在使用太多的原料以维持这方面的增长。例如生产价值一万美元的货物，我们需要用去比日本7倍多的资源，美国的近6倍以及或许最令人惭愧的是比印度都要高出近3倍 “ 。 [2005年3月7日周刊] 例如，中国的钢铁行业消耗了该国电力的16 ％，相比之下，所有中国的家庭的耗电总量也只有10 ％ 。中国发电厂的主要燃料是煤炭——占76 ％——这导致酸雨，烟雾，呼吸系统疾病，当然包括全球气候变暖。每星期有一家新的燃煤发电厂在中国的某个地方建立起来。鉴于它是世界上最大的煤炭生产国，估计煤储量为55000亿吨，这种趋势肯定将继续下去。

中国工业和农业亦导致巨大的水资源浪费，生产一单位的国内生产总值需要消耗比日本高出10倍以上的水或者比韩国高出6倍以上的水。该国迅速步入水供应的严重关头。主要的水专家马军警告说，中国东北地区几个城市，包括北京，从现在开始五至七年内可能用尽水资源。新华通讯社预测，北京将在2010年达到危机点，那时其人口将超过其供水能力约300万人。正在扩大的戈壁沙漠和北京相距只不过220公里——甚至再次开始讨论关于迁都的事。在奥运会期间，短期内的'修正'是从邻近省份，如河北和山西抽取最优质的水到北京。据估计，为了奥运游客，将用这些省份的3亿立方米的水来冲洗北京市中心的污染和淤滞的河流和湖泊。这项政策遭到了'捐助'的省份的批评是可以理解的。山西省的前共产党的头头齐远（音译）抗议说：“为了维护北京的水质，我们要关闭所有我们的工厂，但我们仍然需要生活，所以我说，政府有必要补偿山西”。

显然，中国的一党专政的政权是没有能力挽回该国——和整个地球与它一起——奔向生态灾难的境地。只有从目前的精英，资本家和未经选举产生的国家官员手里剥夺工业生产控制权并通过全民制订一套环境上可持续的经济发展的民主社会主义计划，才能改变目前的灾难性的趋势。
The Green Olympics?

Beijing is one of the most polluted cities in the world

Vincent Kolo and Chen Lizhi, chinaworker.info

The Beijing Olympic Games have been billed as the 'Green Olympics'. This slogan was used by the Chinese regime in its successful bid for the games in 2001, and was backed up by ambitious commitments to improve air and water quality in the Chinese capital. But this was always going to be a tall order. Beijing is one of the most polluted cities in the world. Rather than tackling the real problems, Chinese officials have opted for a number of short-term and largely cosmetic measures that will mostly only last for the duration of the games. This use of temporary expedients – "smog and mirrors" in the words of one blogger – is characteristic of the Chinese regime. China faces the most terrifying ecological crisis in the world. There are no parallels in peacetime for such monumental degradation of a country's natural resources, water and land.

Despite spending almost $17 billion on environmental improvements for the Olympic Games, Beijing's non-stop construction boom and exploding car usage have largely thwarted government efforts to improve air quality. During the period of the Olympics 1.5 million cars will be ordered off the city's roads in order to thin out the level of airborne toxins. Millions of trees have been planted for the Olympics, especially in the vicinity of the capital's international airport to greet new arrivals. But environmentalists are divided over the benefits of this, given the additional strain it places on Beijing's scarce water resources. Nearly 200 steel, cement, chemical and other factories have been closed or relocated outside city boundaries. But as the website Wired commented, "Neighboring cities cheerfully rolled out the welcome mat for the capital's filthiest factories, then spewed record amounts of coal smoke into the region's skies to keep them humming." Up to 70 percent of Beijing's atmospheric pollution comes from surrounding provinces – just one example of how the city's Olympic face-lift has been sabotaged by processes in the wider economy. "Extensive use of coal, the city's geographical location and a growing number of motor vehicles means the pace of improvement in Beijing's air quality is slow," concluded a report from the United Nations Environment Program. This report found that in 2006 the average level of small particulate matter, a major health hazard, in Beijing's air was eight times higher than World Health Organisation (WHO) guidelines. Other types of air pollution – sulfur dioxide, nitrogen dioxide and carbon monoxide – rose or failed to improve during 2006 following three years of declines.

Health concerns led Haile Gebrselassie, the men's marathon world record-holder, who is asthmatic, to pull out of that event, although he still intended to compete in the 10,000 metres in Beijing. "The pollution in China is a threat to my health and it would be difficult for me to run 42 km in my current condition," he announced. The US Olympic team announced it would bring 1,000 specially designed air pollution masks to Beijing. In their new attire the team looked like "a gathering of Darth Vaders", according to one US athlete. Yet Beijing's 17 million inhabitants must breath this air every day, not just during a three-week international competition. While other infamously polluted metropolises like Mexico City and Los Angeles have an average air pollution index of 66 and 44 respectively, Beijing has sometimes recorded figures above 300, at which point the air becomes 'hazardous'. For a child exposed to this level of airborne toxins, it is equivalent to smoking 40 cigarettes a day! Research by Peking University environmental science professors calculated that particulate pollution caused 25,000 deaths in Beijing in 2002 alone, and the loss of 7.2 percent of the city's GDP. According to a 2006 survey of the 84 major cities in China by the State Environmental Protection Agency (SEPA), Beijing had the fewest number of days attaining the national air quality standard – and its air quality was even worse in 2007.

A third of the city's particulate dust comes from roughly 3,000 construction sites, which work around the clock in Chinese cities. The low-paid migrant workers who work on and in many cases also live on these sites are not provided with Olympic-style gas masks. An even bigger threat to air quality is presented by Beijing's growing car pool, which will number 3.3 million by the time of the Olympics. More than a thousand new cars roll onto the city's roads every day. When car ownership broke through the 3 million mark in 2007, Beijing's mayor, Wang Qishan, said this symbolised the city's "prosperous and fast development". But respondents in a Sina.com survey took another view, with 55 percent saying it was 'bad news' and 31 percent fearing the city's pollution problems would get worse.

The average car in the United States causes over 273 kilograms of air pollution annually according to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). Yet environmental standards for car engines in China are lower than in the US and considerably lower than those in Europe. Recent tests found emission levels of Chinese cars to be on a par with cars used in the US in the late 1960s and early 1970s; these cars emit 10-20 times more pollution than cars currently used in Western countries. According a joint Chinese-US study, 40 percent of cars and 70 percent of taxis in Beijing fail to meet the most basic Western emission standards. To make matters worse, the fastest growing segment of the Chinese car market is for the really big polluters – fuel-guzzling sports utility vehicles (SUVs) and luxury models. Sales of these vehicles rose by 50 percent in 2007, compared to overall market growth of 20 percent. This trend tells us a lot about China's domestic market: it is skewed towards a small relatively affluent minority, while the vast majority are too poor to engage in western style consumerism.

Car culture

China's transformation from 'bicycle kingdom' into the world's second-biggest and fastest-growing vehicle market shows the destructive power of capitalism and its blind chase for profits. The sheer insanity from an environmental perspective of reproducing the western capitalist model of mass car ownership in China – with 1.3 billion people – should be obvious to anyone. Motor vehicles are the single biggest source of greenhouse gases worldwide and they now cause between 70 to 80 percent of air pollution in Chinese cities, pollution that claims 750,000 lives a year according to a 2007 report produced jointly by the World Bank and the Chinese government. Yet the global motor giants, welcomed with open arms by the same government, are doing their utmost to insure that China continues along this road. These companies have invested huge sums in recent years as they pin their hopes on China to offset sluggish or falling sales in other markets. The market leader, General Motors, now sells over a million cars annually in China. Volkswagen sells more cars in China than in Germany.

These companies and others such as oil companies whose fate is tied to automobile production, have built up a powerful web of interests with Chinese officials at city, provincial and national level, and with the state-owned companies linked to them. As one car industry analyst put it, "The Chinese government has made no secret of its intention to develop a car culture and a car industry. All of the forces are working together." The government welcomes car companies as a source of investment, jobs and technology, and its policies have been designed accordingly. "Highways crisscross the country, and ancient city centers have been bulldozed to make way for car-friendly avenues," China Daily commented. Investment in railways, by far the most environmentally friendly means of mass transportation, has been dwarfed by a frenetic road-building programme. Official statistics show that 6,500 km of new railways were built in the last five years. But this compares to 4,400 km of new six-lane expressways built in 2006 alone, and a further 8,300 km of expressways in 2007. One of the reasons for this lopsided emphasis on road-building is that almost all China's expressways are toll roads, mainly financed by private companies under contract to provincial governments. More recently even the railways are being opened to private capital, but on a much smaller scale. As for the boom in toll roads, in many parts of the country local governments have lost control of this process. The National Audit Office investigated 100 roads in 18 provinces and discovered that 158 illegal toll stations had been erected, which together had collected in 14.9 billion yuan ($2.1 billion) in unlawful charges by the end of 2005.

No wonder motor industry executives are all smiles. The growth of China's vehicle market has been spectacular: 300 percent in just six years. The number of private cars rose from six million in the year 2000, to 32.4 million in 2007. WTO membership since 2001 has been crucial to this development, by lowering import tariffs and opening China more extensively to the global car giants. US, European, Japanese and Korean companies now account for 70 percent of domestic sales. China's soaring car usage is itself a significant influence on the global price of oil, which increased five-fold between 2003-08. China is the world's second largest oil importer and motor vehicles now consume over half its imported oil. They consumed 65.6 million tons of oil in the year 2000, which by the year 2010 will have doubled to 138 million tons of oil annually, rising to 256 million tons by 2020. [China Daily, 6 October 2004] As the Washington Post pointed out, "the ravenous appetite of the automobile is one reason Beijing has dispatched engineers and deal makers from Siberia to Angola to Indonesia in search of new oil." China now buys more oil from Saudi Arabia than the US does, and is the biggest foreign investor in oil producers Iran and Sudan. In geopolitical as well as ecological terms, therefore, the advent of 'car culture' in China is reshaping the world and setting the stage for future clashes between the older imperialist powers and a rising China.

The effects in terms of air pollution and traffic congestion are simply staggering and not just in Beijing of course. The mayor of the southern metropolis of Shenzhen, China's richest city, actually appealed to its people to stop buying cars. "Although I have no legal power to do this, I am asking everyone not to buy cars," he told a public meeting in July 2007. Beijing's city planners have also expressed frustration: "The core of the traffic problem in Beijing is that the growth in road construction is out of step with the increase in vehicles. The number of vehicles can increase by the thousands on just one day but we cannot build a new road in the same time," exclaimed Cheng Xianghui, a member of the Beijing Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC). The city only has parking space for 1.4 million of its more than 3 million cars.

Not only are the people of Beijing being poisoned; its traffic now moves at less than half the speed it did in the 1980s – just 11 kilometres an hour during peak periods. China Daily bemoaned the fact that, "Beijing's roads are like an enormous parking lot at rush hour. People complain that riding a bicycle is often faster than driving a car." When the world's top motor executives came to the city in April 2008 for the Beijing Auto Show they got a taste of the mayhem their companies have created. The capital's legendary gridlock turned what is normally a half-hour ride to the exhibition centre into a two-hour crawl. Some of the executives, Osamu Masuko of Mitsubishi Motors and Carlos Ghosn of Renault among them, opted to get out of their limousines in heavy rain and walk the last mile of the way.

Yet an alternative to mass car ownership with all its attendant ills is nowhere to be seen. This is now urgent not just in China but internationally. Under heavy pressure to clean-up their act, motor companies themselves are bringing forward plans for more petroleum-electric 'hybrid' engines and pure electric engines, as well as greater use of biofuels. All these developments, however, are designed to perpetuate today's system of mass car usage rather than offer a real alternative. Even a hypothetical 'new epoch' of wholly electric cars would not improve ´the overall picture given that fossil fuels still account for 66 percent of global electricity output. And, as in China, the fastest growing source of electricity worldwide is also the worst environmental offender: coal! Meanwhile biofuels such as ethanol are proving to be disaster on the basis of the capitalist mode of production for profit. Food crops are being displaced by more profitable biofuel production and the result is starvation in some parts of the neo-colonial world. Neither does this spare the environment – ethanol made from some crops such as palm oil actually produces more greenhouse gases than petrol or diesel. The socialist alternative involves democratic control and planning of economic development and the redirection of resources from destructive to socially necessary and environmentally sustainable production. Instead of today's wasteful and duplicative competition among 120 China-based car companies, many of which will inevitably close down as the market becomes more concentrated, the resources and accumulated labour skills of this industry should be pooled and channeled into a massive expansion of safe, cheap and efficient public transport.

The main cause of exploding car ownership in China is the lack of efficient public transport systems in most cities. This sector has largely missed out on the massive investment programmes of recent years, while money has been ploughed into industrial parks and property development. The situation in Beijing is among the worst in the country. A trip through the city on one of its many overcrowded buses is an ordeal, especially when its ubiquitous traffic jams mean standing, packed like sardines, for ages without moving. Not surprisingly, Beijing scored near the bottom of a survey of 287 Chinese cities in the category of transport satisfaction in a 2006 Report on the Quality of Urban Life. The capital's subway train network is also chronically under-dimensioned. It has just five subway lines with 83 stations (the fifth subway line was opened in 2007 as part of the city's pre-Olympic makeover) to service 17 million inhabitants. New York, with a population of 8.2 million, has 26 subway lines and 468 stations. While the New York subway transports 6.4 million passengers daily, Beijing only manages 2.2 million.

"In New York City, public transport shares 76 percent of the total traffic flow. The number is 91, 40 and 70 percent in Tokyo, London and Paris, respectively. But in Beijing it's still 29 percent," a transport expert told China Daily (28 May 2007). Even the planned expansion of the subway system – adding six new lines by 2012 – will still only raise the proportion of Beijing residents using public transport to 45 percent.

In place of a serious strategy to turn this situation around, officials in Beijing have resorted to a series of stopgap measures mostly for reasons of political expedience, to avoid at all costs an Olympic fiasco. Hence all the tree-planting, the car-free days, and the 'cloud-seeding' (shooting up rockets to cause rain that flushes out air pollutants). And if all else fails, Chinese officials have a tried and tested method for resolving difficult problems: fiddling the statistics! The Beijing Environmental Protection Bureau has been accused of removing monitoring sites from areas with poor air quality and changing the basis upon which air pollution is measured in order to boost the number of so-called 'blue sky days'.


China and global warming

The United Nations' panel on climate change has issued warnings that unless the amount of greenhouse gases in the earth's atmosphere are stabilised in the next eight years, a rise in temperatures to 'disastrous' levels will be unavoidable. Yet, based on massively increased consumption of fossil fuels to power its hugely wasteful industries and traffic jams, China has overtaken the United States to become the world's 'biggest polluter' and main driver of climate change.

China already suffers more natural disasters than any other country and their frequency is rising as a result of population growth, urbanization, desertification and not least, climate change. The shrinking of the polar ice caps is recognised as a major climate threat leading to higher global temperatures and rising sea levels. But the glaciers on the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau, known as the world's 'third pole', are also shrinking at the alarming rate of seven percent a year. "The melting glacier will ultimately trigger more droughts, expand desertification and increase sandstorms," warned a report in Xinhua. Glacial retreat is responsible for the disappearance of thousands of lakes in mountainous regions of western China, while desert now accounts for 27.6 percent of the country's territory, mostly in northern and northwestern regions. Environmental degradation and loss of farmland in these regions, with their concentration of non-Han peoples, is one factor fueling ethnic tensions and demands for greater autonomy or independence.

In southern China however the effects will be the opposite: an increase in monsoon rains, severe floods and tropical storms. Tens of millions of people are effected by flooding every year. June 2008 saw the heaviest rainfall for 50 years in provinces including Anhui, Guangdong and Hunan. A report from the State Oceanic Administration has warned that coastal metropolises such as Shanghai and Guangzhou will encounter 'unimaginable challenges' if the oceans keep rising. Scientists warn that Shanghai could be submerged by 2050. In the Spring of 2007, the Chinese regime released its first national assessment report on climate change, predicting a fall in precipitation of 30 percent in three of China's seven major river regions – around the Huai, Liao, and Hai rivers – in northern China. This in turn would lead to a 37 percent reduction in wheat, rice and corn yields in the second half of the century due to higher temperatures. China's ability to feed itself, already under strain, faces complete breakdown on the basis of such a scenario.

The global fallout will also be devastating. If current trends continue, scientists warn, China's increased production of greenhouse gases will be several times larger than the cuts in emissions being made by older industrialised nations under the – wholly inadequate – Kyoto Protocol. China's emissions are set to increase by about 2.3 billion tonnes over the next five years, dwarfing the 1.7 billion tonnes in cutbacks imposed on 37 rich countries, including the United States, under Kyoto rules.

Socialists have consistently argued that capitalist 'solutions' such as Kyoto are incapable of stopping global warming. This is because they are based upon 'free market' mechanisms such as the ineffectual and often fraudulent trade in emission rights. They are also dogged by governmental infighting which is inevitable on the basis of capitalism – a system of cutthroat rivalry in which each government seeks advantages for its own companies. Demands from governments in Europe and America that China and other newly industrialising nations accept tougher limits on carbon emissions have been attacked by some Asian governments as 'green imperialism'. There is some truth to this accusation. The hypocrisy of governments in the rich capitalist states knows no limits – their own companies are behind much of China's pollution. "Responsibility for China's soaring emissions lies not just in Beijing but also in Washington, Brussels and Tokyo," explained Greenpeace UK director John Sauven, pointing to the mass relocation of Western industry. "All we've done is export a great slice of the West's carbon footprint to China, and today we see the result," he said.

Wasteful industry

The Chinese economy has grown at an annual rate of ten percent for almost a decade. But this has been achieved at a colossal cost in terms of human and natural resources. As Pan Yue, SEPA's second in command pointed out, "We are using too many raw materials to sustain this growth. To produce goods worth $10,000, for example, we need seven times more resources than Japan, nearly six times more than the United States and, perhaps most embarrassing, nearly three times more than India." [Spiegel, 7 March 2005] China's steel industry, for example, consumes 16 percent of the country's electrical power, compared to 10 percent for all China's households put together. The main fuel for Chinese power plants is coal – 76 percent of the total – which causes acid rain, smog, respiratory diseases and of course global warming. Every week a new coal-fired power station comes into service somewhere in China. Given that it is the world's biggest coal producer, with estimated reserves of 5.5 trillion tons, this trend is set to continue.

Chinese industry and agriculture is also hugely wasteful of water, requiring ten times more water than Japan and six times more than South Korea to produce one unit of gross domestic product. The country is rapidly approaching crunch time for water supplies. Ma Jun, a leading water expert, warns that several cities in the northeast of China, including Beijing, could run out of water in five to seven years from now. The Xinhua news agency predicts that Beijing will reach crisis point in 2010, when its population will outstrip its water supplies by around three million people. The Gobi desert, which is advancing, is just 220 km from Beijing – there have even been discussions about moving the Chinese capital. Again, a short-term 'fix' will be applied during the Olympics by pumping the best quality water from neighbouring provinces such as Hebei and Shaanxi. An estimated 300 million cubic metres of water from these provinces will be used to flush out polluted and stagnant rivers and lakes in central Beijing for the benefit of Olympic tourists. This policy has understandably drawn criticism from the 'donor' provinces. "In order to preserve the quality of Beijing's water we have to close all our factories. But we still need to live. So I say the government needs to compensate Shaanxi," protested the former Communist party boss of Shaanxi province, An Qiyuan.

Clearly, China's one-party regime is incapable of arresting the country's – and with it the whole planet's – headlong rush towards ecological disaster. Only by wresting control of industrial production from the present elite of capitalists and unelected state officials, and involving the entire population in drawing up a democratic socialist plan for environmentally sustainable economic development can the present disastrous course be changed.