USA Today
Then the aftermath.Thousands of residents poured into the streets this weekend to oppose an industrial waste pipeline project in the east China city of Qidong. Some overturned police cars; others occupied and ransacked city hall.
They won their fight.
The pipeline that residents fear will pollute their water will not be built, the government promised on the Qidong police micro-blog and the website of Nantong city, which oversees Qidong.
This apparent victory for residents follows another one this month when protesters in the southwest city of Shifang, in Sichuan province, forced officials to scrap a planned copper refinery. A large demonstration halted a petrochemicals plant in Dalian, in eastern China, last year.
Environmental experts cheer the growing rights awareness among China's citizens that forced the Qidong decision, but they caution that China will face many more such protests unless the government overhauls its opaque decision-making process and allows the public to participate.
As China keeps up its frenzied pace of industrialization and urbanization, more protests are inevitable as China continues to "deny the communities the right to be informed and participate," said Ma Jun of the Institute for Public and Environmental Affairs.
"With rising public awareness, people will take action to defend their own rights," Ma said. "But we can't resolve them all through street action, we can't afford the social cost."
After startling scenes of protest Saturday, order was restored Sunday, said Pan Songhua, who runs a small company in Qidong. Some social media sites reported a heavy security presence.
The pipeline, intended to discharge wastewater from a Japanese-owned paper mill, also stirred local anti-Japanese feelings, Pan said.
Both the Qidong and Shifang demonstrations "reflect what happens when there are no effective formal channels for public input into environmental decision making," said Alex Wang, a Chinese environmental law expert at the University of California-Berkeley School of Law.
After years of rapid economic growth, "China's environment has reached the most dangerous stage, affecting the health of many ordinary people," said Wang Yongchen, co-founder of non-profit Green Earth Volunteers. "We will keep having incidents like these" until the government gives ordinary people a voice in decision-making, she said.
"I worry there will be more, and more violent, protests," said Beijing lawyer Xia Jun, who specializes in environmental litigation. "Many people will study Qidong and Shifang and copy them."
Protest may be the only recourse. "Even if a judge feels he wants to help the people, many local governments do not allow courts to accept environmental lawsuits" against government-approved projects, Xia said.
Berkeley's Wang said he hopes Qidong is "a wake-up call" for leaders: "If they don't create genuine channels for engaging with the public before polluting projects are approved, they will inevitably have to deal with the much uglier aftermath when protests erupt."
RawStory
The Chinese government is trying to ride a wave here, but frankly it's only gonna get harder as the Chinese people are going to want more.China’s most influential newspaper on Monday urged authorities to listen to people’s worries about pollution, after fears over a new waste water pipeline sparked weekend riots.
“The public’s awareness of environmental issues and their rights is increasing at a rapid pace,” said an editorial in the People’s Daily – the mouthpiece of China’s ruling Communist party.
China should strive to “establish an open and transparent decision-making mechanism, and build a tolerant environment for public opinion,” it said.
Authorities in the eastern Chinese city of Qidong agreed Saturday to cancel plans to build a new water pipeline after thousands of local people took to the streets, overturning cars and ransacking government offices.
They were concerned that the pipeline, from a Japanese-owned paper factory, would pollute a nearby fishing port.
China’s dependence on manufacturing for economic growth has left the country struggling with a legacy of industrial pollution, and the riots were only the latest in a series of environmental protests.
Last year, a large-scale demonstration in the coastal city of Dalian forced the local government to relocate a chemical factory.
The People’s Daily said the growing frustration surrounding pollution from industrial projects provides the country with an opportunity to shift away from low-end manufacturing towards less-polluting industries.
Many of the projects that have been the object of citizen protests had been approved by the local government without sufficient consultation with local residents, it said.
Such high profile protests highlighted the need “to promote interaction between citizens and government” when assessing the environmental impact of proposed industrial projects, the paper added.
