Aim higher, reach further.

Beijing Walking a Fine Line With Environmental Protests

By Russell Leigh Moses



In Chengdu, a massive turnout of security forces served to intimidate would-be protestors, but in Kunming, hundreds gathered to demand that local officials reconsider plans to locate a PX chemical facility in the city. Here were parts of the Chinese public trying to repulse a policy that they believed to be wrong-headed.

Agence France-Presse/Getty Images
Protesters hold placards during a demonstration against plans for a factory to produce paraxylene (PX), a toxic petrochemical used to make fabrics, in Kunming, southwest China's Yunnan province on May 4, 2013.



Officials have pursued major chemical projects with “high enthusiasm,” the commentary notes, in order “to accelerate development, and promote GDP growth.” So far, so good.

But, the essay continues, they’ve done so in situations where “decision-making process is not complete; social participation and public hearings are not in place; and there’s insufficient economic compensation.” Often, the commentary insists, public opinion ends up being an afterthought, with surveys of local sentiment “a perfunctory practice” designed to elicit high support for these local economic initiatives, and rarely reflecting the doubts that might remain among residents.

That appears to be the case particularly in Kunming, where even the protests elicited a vague pledge from the local government to look again at the environmental impacts of the proposed plant -- and where protestors stand ready to return to the streets in the event they don't get a more robust response.

The fact that environmental protests reoccur, the People's Daily commentary strongly suggests, is not due to troublemakers, but a lousy policy process, in which decisions emerge as directives, not the product of public discussion. The result is that major petrochemical projects in China that could provide better jobs and higher income to residents at the end of the day do not “achieve a smooth landing” but instead end up being “postponed, halted, or relocated” -- not because they are bad projects, but due to “shortcomings and deficiencies that exist in the decision-making process.”

By not providing “residents the full right to choose,” the essay argues, openness and transparency by authorities after the fact is self-defeating, and what is truly needed is for cadres “to balance and coordinate the interests of all parties.”

This commentary is not a shout for reworking the system, so much as a shove towards a different kind of work within the same system. It’s an argument for change that doesn’t involve political restructuring.

That sentiment appeals to more than just citizens. Cadres are also paying attention, as they look for signals to what Party leader Xi Jinping really expects in the way of change from their end.

And they’re right to listen carefully, for there’s a lot of poking and prodding coming from Beijing about these events and larger matters.

Interestingly, instead of critiquing officials in Kunming and Chengdu for their tone-deafness to residents’ anxiety about the petrochemical projects directly, Beijing pushed the Party media to publicize other local failings—kickbacks at Kunming driving schools (in Chinese) and substandard health inspections in Chengdu (in Chinese).

The message to cadres is clear: We expect good governance every day, not just crisis management when the public suddenly gets caustic. As an editorial in Wednesday’s People’s Daily put it, innovation requires cadres to be lions, not sheep (in Chinese).

But the reform that Xi and his allies are pushing carries political risks. It might not go far enough for activists looking for more action. And angry cadres who feel bullied by Beijing could look to conservatives to hit back against pressure to get better and quickly.

The events in Kunming and Chengdu show that the usual routines in policy-making lead some Chinese citizens to believe that the only way to break out of this stalemate is in the street. Many cadres, on the other hand, simply want to make better policy as a means of preventing protests.

Both players are frustrated and anxious about what they see as a stalemated society. They’re likely to remain that way until Xi and his comrades can create the sort of chemistry between the Party and the public that everyone in China agrees is needed.





Popular on WSJ