Made in (The People's Republic of) China: December 2007 Archives

By Joseph Kahn and Mark Landler | The New York Times
December 21, 2007

HANDAN, China -- When residents of this northern Chinese city hang their clothes out to dry, the black fallout from nearby Handan Iron and Steel often sends them back to the wash.

Half a world away, neighbors of ThyssenKrupp's former steel mill in the Ruhr Valley of Germany once had a similar problem. The white shirts men wore to church on Sundays turned gray by the time they got home.

These two steel towns have an unusual kinship, spanning 5,000 miles and a decade of economic upheaval. They have shared the same hulking blast furnace, dismantled and shipped piece by piece from Germany's old industrial heartland to Hebei Province, China's new Ruhr Valley.

The transfer, one of dozens since the late 1990s, contributed to a burst in China's steel production, which now exceeds that of Germany, Japan and the United States combined. It left Germany with lost jobs and a bad case of postindustrial angst.

But steel mills spewing particulates into the air and sucking electricity from China's coal-fired power plants account for a big chunk of the country's surging emissions of sulfur dioxide and carbon dioxide. Germany, in contrast, has cleaned its skies and is now leading the fight against global warming.

In its rush to re-create the industrial revolution that made the West rich, China has absorbed most of the major industries that once made the West dirty. Spurred by strong state support, Chinese companies have become the dominant makers of steel, coke, aluminum, cement, chemicals, leather, paper and other goods that faced high costs, including tougher environmental rules, in other parts of the world. China has become the world's factory, but also its smokestack.

This mass shift of polluting industries has blighted China's economic rise. Double-digit growth rates have done less to improve people's lives when the damages to the air, land, water and human health are considered, some economists say. Outmoded production equipment will have to be replaced or retrofitted at high cost if the country intends to reduce pollution.

China's worsening environment has also upended the geopolitics of global warming. It produces and exports so many goods once made in the West that many wealthy countries can boast of declining carbon emissions, even while the world's overall emissions are rising quickly.

The Ruhr Valley city of Dortmund, where ThyssenKrupp once made steel, still suffers from high unemployment because of the loss of jobs to lower-cost countries like China. But Germans can buy Chinese-made iPods, washing machines and cargo ships at prices that, because of lax pollution controls, do not reflect the toll on the environment. And the outsourcing of polluting industries has given them cleaner air and water.

"It seems to me that China is making all the mistakes that we made in the 19th century," says Wilhelm Grote, an environmental regulator in Dortmund, who recalls washing his father's car as a child, only to see it immediately blanketed by soot. "They will find it is much more expensive to fix up later than to do it right from the start."

Having ignored the environmental consequences of its industrial binge for years, the Communist Party leadership now says it is determined to develop a cleaner economic model. Beijing has tried to enforce ambitious -- though so far unmet -- targets to improve energy efficiency and reduce emissions.

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Although Meizu has been stealing from the iPhone left and right, at least they have the courtesy to deny it. This other iPhone clone, however, makes no such attempt--they even plaster "Think Different" all over their ads. Check out the video after the jump, taken by geekmatica, to see what kind of tech you're getting for 1990RMB ($270), which includes the ability to shake the phone to answer it.

>> Origionally posted on Gizmodo

Agence France-Presse - Hong Kong
December 13, 2007

A leading Chinese anti-pollution campaigner Thursday launched a new website that names more than 4,000 companies, including 40 multi-national firms, belching out dangerous emissions across China.

Ma Jun, the author of "China's Water Crisis" and head of an environmental think tank, launched the China Air Pollution Map which pinpoints the worst polluters in factories and power plants south of the Yangtze River.

He hopes the map will help China tackle its worsening pollution problem.

"Access to information is a pre-condition for meaningful public participation," Ma said.

He added he hoped the site will shame companies into "providing the public with an open explanation and taking corrective action."

The new map, which has taken 10 months to pull together, uses data already publicly available from government departments and official media on factories that are breaking emission standards.

Out of the 4,000 violations, more than half are in southern China.

Visitors to the site (air.ipe.org.cn) will be able to view rankings of various air pollutant levels, and compare them to other cities.

The project aims to follow the success of a similar map run by Ma's Beijing-based Institute of Public and Environmental Affairs, which has focused on polluters of China's waterways.

The scheme has sparked numerous media reports on the worst offenders and, in some cases, convinced companies to improve their treatment facilities.

The new scheme is backed by global environmental organisation WWF and ADM Capital Foundation.

"We believe there is a strong correspondence beteeen transparency and improved environmental regulation," Liam Slater, head of WWF's Hong Kong climate programme, told reporters.

At a press conference to launch the site, Ma said China has set tough environmental standards nationally, but they are often ignored on a local level.

Pollution has become a major problem in China as the economy booms and is second only to the United States in greenhouse gas emissions, which are blamed for global warming.

By Human Rights Watch
December 03, 2007

'Work and Study' Programs Put Hundreds of Thousands of Children at Risk

The Chinese government should abolish the use of income-generating child labor schemes in middle and junior high schools because of their chronic abuses, Human Rights Watch said today. Many programs interfere with children's education, lack basic health and safety guarantees, and involve long hours and dangerous work."China claims that it is fighting child labor, and repeatedly cites its legal prohibition against the practice as proof," said Sophie Richardson, Asia advocacy director at Human Rights Watch. "But the government actively violates its own prohibitions by running large programs through the school system that use child labor, lack sufficient health and safety guarantees, and exploit loopholes in domestic labor laws."  
 
Under "Work and Study" programs regulated by the Ministry of Education, schools in impoverished areas are encouraged to set up income-generating activities to make up for budgetary shortfalls. According to official statistical material from the Ministry of Education seen by Human Rights Watch, more than 400,000 middle and junior high schools, which are for children ages 12 to 16, nationwide are running agricultural and manufacturing schemes. In 2004, proceeds from Work and Study programs generated over 10 billion yuan (US$1.25 billion), the statistics show.  
 
Chinese law prohibits the use of child of labor under age 16 but stipulates that children may be employed under special circumstances, such as in sports or in the arts, or if their "occupational training" and "educational labor" does not adversely affect their personal health and safety. Regulations that govern Work and Study programs in middle and junior high schools prohibit hazardous work and stress that "education must come first," but fail to provide a clear definition of the acceptable kind, intensity, and overall time duration of this special category of work.  
 
The majority of schools limit these schemes to seasonal agricultural work (such as growing and harvesting crops), improving school facilities, or producing small handicrafts over summer breaks, either independently or through contract with outside employers.  
 
But overly vague Work and Study regulations and poor supervision have led to widespread abuse of the system by schools and employers alike. Children as young as 12 have been employed in heavy agricultural and hazardous construction work. Others have been dispatched to local factories for weeks or months of "summer employment." Some schools have turned into full-fledged workshops to produce local handiwork or foodstuff while relegating teaching to a few hours a week. 

 
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