Air pollution may affect Olympics

Several news agencies (BBC, but again, not Xinhua) are reporting that Olympic boss Jacques Rogge is so concerned about air quality at the 2008 Olymipc Games in Beijing that some events may have to be postponed. This would presumably include those events requiring endurance, like cycling and the marathon. It appears that attempts to clean up Beijing's notoriously foul air haven't really worked to date. The air quality gains from closing and relocation of factories has been offset by more cars on the road and the construction boom. The government is planning a testrun this month of controlling the number of cars allowed in the city in preparation for the games. The Australian Olympic team won't arrive in Beijing until just before the Games to avoid developing respiratory problems.

This kind of reporting only starts to hint at the issues China has to face (and has had to face) in order to put on its best face for the Games. I went out to the Olympic Park in 2005 for a look around, and was astonished at the site. It's huge, and completely surrounded by fairly well-established neighborhoods. So there's no way the site was lying empty prior to its designation as the Olympic park....but one wonders what happened to the people living there. I suppose it's like all the other times 'eminent domain' is applied in China; people must move, no complaints allowed, and fairly minimal compensation. We don't hear too much of this in the news, except for that great story on the Chongqing nail house or of course about Three Gorges relocations.

I also assume that the Chinese officials will do everything in their power to ensure good air quality during the games. However, this would probably require the temporary shutting down of most factories in the region and those upwind, as well as taking most cars off the street. Of course it would all be a bit of a face-saving illusion, and the factories and cars would be back polluting as soon as the athletes go home. China (and not just Beijing...many cities are worse) really needs to start dealing with air pollution on a much longer time scale than the two weeks in August 2008.

Yangtze River dolphins now extinct

The BBC (article here) and several other news websites (but not Xinhua) are reporting on an article that appeared in Biology Letters, suggesting the Yangtze River dolphin, also called baiji, is now considered extinct. The last one was spotted in 2004, and a scientific survey in 2006 failed to turn up any sign of the dolphin. The traditional range was in the river from the mouth as far west as Yichang, with most of the population in the middle Yangtze near Dongting and Poyang Lakes. The last captive dolphin died in 2002.

The World Conservation Union (IUCN) has noted the following as threats to the species: a period of hunting by humans during the Great Leap Forward, entanglement in fishing gear, the illegal practice of electric fishing, collisions with boats and ships, habitat loss, and pollution. During the Great Leap Forward, when traditional veneration of the Baiji was denounced, it was hunted for its flesh and skin, and quickly became scarce.

As China developed economically, pressure on the river dolphin grew significantly. Industrial and residential waste flowed into the Yangtze. The riverbed was dredged and reinforced with concrete in many locations. Ship traffic multiplied, boats grew in size, and fishermen employed wider and more lethal nets. Noise pollution caused the nearly blind animal to collide with propellers. Stocks of the dolphin's prey declined drastically in recent decades as well, with some fish populations declining to one thousandth of their pre-industrial levels.

In the 1970s and 1980s, an estimated half of Baiji deaths were attributed to entanglement in fishing gear. By the early 2000s, electric fishing was considered "the most important and immediate direct threat to the Baiji's survival." Though outlawed, the destructive fishing technique is widely practised throughout China. The building of the Three Gorges Dam further reduced the dolphin's habitat and facilitated an increase in ship traffic. (text in italics from Wikipedia)

Officially a species cannot be termed extinct until 50 years after the last sighting, so this species is termed 'functionally extinct'. Terminology doesn't really matter here, what does is the fact that it appears to be directly linked to environmental issues, including fishing practices, water pollution, habitat losses, and the construction of large dams such as Gezhouba and the Three Gorges. A shame really.

The Sluice

China Daily has some great pictures of the Three Gorges Dam's sluice gates opening for the flood waters. Some highlights from the article that I found interesting and/or impressive: only 16 of the 23 sluice gates were opened to keep the water level at 144 meters and at 8 PM on Friday 43,000 cubic meters per second were flowing through the dam.

Three Gorges facing flood peak but doing well via China Daily

Winchester on Wulingyuan National Park

Steve's hero Simon Winchester has a piece in the NYT fawning over Wulingyuan National Park and the way the CCP has managed it. Basically, they keep the numbers of tourists down by charging an arm and a leg. It is also interesting to note that a big part of the appeal for domestic tourists is not the Karst topography, but the association of the area with the revolutionary hero Marshal He Long.

I've been learning a lot about Chinese nationalism at the this NEH institute I am attending. All the presenters have agreed that Chinese nationalism is the biggest cultural force in China today. Interestingly, nationalism in the Western sense of the word is a new phenomenon there, growing out of the collapse of the Qing dynasty. Western nationalism requires you to think of your people as one nation competing among many, so that you can root for your nation in the competition. When the Middle Kingdom was simply the center of the universe, there really wasn't a need for nationalism in any recognizable sense.

Also interesting: Winchester is working on a book about Joseph Needham, the historian of Chinese science.

Water transfer scheme

We didn't hear much in China about the massive water transfer scheme, although we did talk about it in class. In short, there are three man-made rivers being constructed from the Yangtze in the south (water surplus), to various locations in the north that have water deficits.

Xinhua has an article indicating that two tunnels under the Yellow River are now under construction as a part of this project. Another article indicates that the Three Gorges reservoir has just been lowered in anticipation of flooding. I find it amazing the number of water resource-related articles coming out of Xinhua. Here's another one.

A quick question I asked myself a few times while in China:

who is a bigger ethnowhore? The ethnic minority wearing in costume at the Stone Forest getting their picture taken with tourists or our group getting our picture taken with tourists?

The same goes for more than just getting pictures taken. In the two times I've been to China I have unwittingly, but sometimes purposefully, exported a piece of my culture. Whether I was showing off my sick dance movies, or teaching Chinese people about hockey, I sold a piece of my culture. Is that all it takes to be considered an "ethnowhore" (great word, by the way, Rob.) What would one have to do in order to become an ethnowhore and in the end, does it preserve diversity? At what cost?

More about rubble....

Below is a photo I took on my first trip to China in 2001. Sticking with the "rubble" theme (see below), this open area in Xiamen, Fujian Province, is actually the drivers license test place. Buddy sitting on the little pink stool is the examiner and you can vaguely see the outline of the test track. I watched from a window across the street while people came to the site, did a few reversing manouvers, and then got some papers stamped. I just loved how informal it all was, and set amongst the lovely rubble.

Also in Xiamen was another of China's oddities. The city on the southeast coast is directly across from Taiwan, and in fact there are two islands not far offshore of the mainland that are controlled by Taiwan. A whole industry of "Taiwan watching" has grown up along the shore, with entrepreneurs setting up powerful telescopes and charging for viewing Taiwan. You can see the Taiwanese island of Quemoy in the background. Very strange...