一个美国人眼中的中国

    In July of 2002 I visited China for two weeks. One week of that vacation was spent as a tourist and one week I lived as a local resident in Shanghai. I observed some disturbing trends in China that will affect the United States as global trade between the two nations intensifies.
　　
　　I was lucky to have a window seat as the plane approached Beijing because the scene about twenty minutes outside of Beijing was stunning. The plane flew by a nuclear generating plant and a vast sand dune desert. My first impression was that a catastrophic nuclear disaster had killed all forms of life because no vegetation was visible. Farmland was wedged between sand dunes. Sometimes it seemed that rivers of sand were flowing through the crops.
　　
　　Farmers that battled this sand lived in small villages that were separated by dunes and joined by temporary dirt roads or trails. It appeared that they were losing the battle against the desert because crops were being engulfed by waves of sand.
　　
　　Desertification of the farmland is the direct result of overpopulation and poor management. Arable land has been overtaxed by intensive farming which has caused it to become vulnerable to erosion by rains and winds. Feeding such a large population is a daunting task when more than 27 percent, or 2.5 million square kilometers, of the country comprises useless desert sand.(1)
　　
　　Scientists say that the sand dunes are now within sixty miles of the capital, and creeping closer every day. They project that the sand, unless stopped, will blanket Beijing within a few decades.(2) Serious ecological problems such as floods caused by soil erosion and ferocious sandstorms that turn the skies over Beijing to yellow and brown are becoming more commonplace.
　　
　　While driving around Beijing I saw projects instituted by the Chinese government to plant trees in order to fight the encroaching desert. Throughout China workers, students and army troops have been drafted into a giant Green Brigade. Trees line the new freeways and parks but they don t look like natural woodlands. Most trees are monoclonal and they are planted equidistance from each other. This mechanical approach at manufacturing instant forests might fail because the trees lack gene diversity. There is very little growing underneath the trees like grass or shrubs. Sometimes the plastic irrigation pipes that water the trees are exposed on the bare ground. Since China has chronic water shortages it is not clear how all of these trees will be allowed to draw the water supply down as more trees are planted.
　　
　　Meeting government quotas for tree planting is sometimes very counterproductive when not enough saplings are available. Trees from the forests are transplanted to the cities, which in turn accelerate more desertification. Some cities have even stolen trees from other cities to meet their planting schedules.
　　
　　All of the major cities on the tour were traffic nightmares. Cars clogged the streets and the drivers had no regard for pedestrians and bicyclists. Traffic was far worse than Los Angeles freeways at rush hour. Small trucks and buses belched noxious clouds of diesel fumes while small motor scooters left trails of smelly two-cycle oil fumes. Stifling air in the crowded cities is made worse by vehicle emission standards that are almost non-existent. Ambient lead levels in the cities are extremely high because gasoline is leaded.
　　
　　The huge populations coupled with lax environmental regulations result in major pollution problems. Chinese accept pollution as a necessary part of their industrial expansion. They don t seem to mind noise because the cities are loud with construction and other activities all day and night. The blare of traffic, construction, and other human activity never stops.
　　
　　Zoning in a crowded nation like China is difficult and therefore almost non-existent. It wasn t uncommon to see huge apartment complexes right next to petroleum and propane storage tanks. Sometimes factory smokestacks seemed to surround apartment blocks. At least these residents didn t have to walk a long way to work.
　　
　　In Shanghai I lived in an apartment on the twenty-eighth floor. This apartment was in a good location and we had most of the modern conveniences that we take for granted in the USA, but for the vast majority of Chinese the living standards are deplorable.
　　
　　There is no room for single-family homes in most of the major cities. Upper-class people live in the high rises while everyone else lives in squalid slums.
　　
　　Shanghai, like most Chinese cities, has some of the densest populations in the world.(3) Despite the multitude of people I never saw non-Asian residents. That s probably because China s immigration policy is far more restrictive than ours. They understand the relationship between immigration and the resultant population that occurs.
　　
　　China s immigration policies are not reciprocal. Many in the United States say they are a nation of immigrants but the Chinese would more than likely say that they are a nation of citizens. Ambassador Li Daoyu recently said, China is not an immigration country. (4) In the year 2000, almost 1.5 million Chinese emigrated to the United States and China sent 63,211 students to our schools during 2001-2002.(5)
　　
　　The Chinese government claims they are going to issue visas to allow skilled workers to China. This visa is needed so that managers and engineers can work in the factories and offices that relocated from the United States to exploit China s cheap labor pool.(6)
　　
　　Air pollution was the most noticeable and annoying environmental problem in China. There is no escape from the smoggy haze even in the countryside. In Shanghai the sun, when you can see it, looks like a dim orange ball and of course stargazing is out of the question. Farmlands seem to be hazy at all times.
　　
　　Coal burning is the primary source of China s high sulfur dioxide emissions and it s used for more than three quarters of the country s commercial energy needs. Industrial emissions of heavy metals and toxics are also significant contributors to air pollution in China. Industrial boilers alone consume 30 percent of China s coal. These boilers are usually inefficient and emit through low smoke stacks, contributing to much of China s ground-level air pollution.(7) Small smoke stacks seemed to be scattered everywhere I went. Fortunately most of them weren t being used because heating isn t need in the summertime. Sometimes these smokestacks were so close to apartments it would be possible to reach out the window and touch them. Life in those apartments must be miserable when the smokestacks are belching black smoke.
　　
　　Drinking tap water in China is a risky proposition so tourists are instructed to never drink tap water even at the five-star hotels. I was always careful to drink bottled water and when necessary I purified water with a portable reverse osmosis unit.
　　
　　China s water shortages are extreme. Of the 640 major cities in China, more than 300 face water shortages, with 100 facing severe scarcities. Raw sewage is routinely dumped into the fresh water supplies so it s difficult to find water that is safe to drink. Chinese protect themselves from diseases such as fecal coliform by boiling their water but that doesn t get rid of toxins.(8)
　　
　　Lake Taihu, the third largest fresh water lake in China, is near the city of Wuxi and boat rides offer a change to tourists who are weary of riding the bus. The scenery is beautiful as long as the polluted water is ignored. Taihu produces 25 percent of the nation s total freshwater fish but it also functions as a repository for industrial waste water, sewage, tourist trash, chemical fertilizers, pesticides and fish food from enclosed fishing areas.(9)
　　
　　The average family farm in China is about one acre and that s not enough land to support a family. Country people are leaving the farms and flooding into the cities in search of work. These people are called migrant workers. They are desperate to work and American-owned companies are eager to work them like slaves for a pittance. Chinese employers are no better. China s overpopulation is a tempting opportunity for employers looking for cheap labor. The Labor Ministry acknowledges that their labor force now grows by 12 to 13 million people each year.(10)
　　
　　The lure of cheap labor is too much for U.S. companies to resist and so far consumers have been more than happy to lap up cheap Asian goods. The Chinese have an unlimited ability to drop prices because the labor supply is glutted far beyond what is needed.(11) Average factory workers in China make about $150 a month and those are the good jobs!
　　
　　Our visit to a cloisonn頥namelware factory was a good illustration of the deplorable labor conditions in China. It was fascinating to watch how a man used metal tongs to lift and lower the cloisonn頰ottery from a gas fired stone furnace. He would carefully place the glowing pottery on the ground to cool. His protective clothing amounted to a T-shirt, shorts, and light canvas sneakers. I asked our tour guide why he wasn t wearing protective gear and told him that if a pot dropped on his feet he could sustain terrible injuries. He told me that this is one of the good factories, designed for view by tourists. Typically these workers are barefoot.