By John Richardson “THE mountains are high and the emperor is far away,” is a well-known phrase in China, which has been applied to many areas of legal enforcement. “The refinery in, say, Shanxi province might have installed a de-sulphurisation unit, or at least something that looked like such a unit,” an “old China hand”, […]
Asian Chemical Connections
China’s Cancer Villages
Source of picture: Wikispaces. By John Richardson CHINA has as many as 400 “cancer villages”, with many of the cancer clusters being blamed on the chemicals industry. Much of the nation’s countryside – the source of China’s food supply – is contaminated with toxic chemicals, it is claimed. Experts estimate that there has been an 80% increase […]
Managing China’s Middle Income Aspirations
Finding a way through…. Traffic in Shanghai. Picture: Rex Features By John Richardson WHEN the blog first visited China in the late 1990s, it travelled around Beijing in a fruitless and naive attempt to get people to really talk about everyday life. Last week was the complete opposite during our visit to Beijing and Shanghai. People initiated conversations […]
China’s New Expectations
By John Richardson THE difficulties of life in modern-day China was evident from several conversations the blog has held during the first two days of its visit to the country. “I had to get an apartment first, which cost a lot of money but luckily my parents were able to help me, and then I […]
China NPC Meeting: Quality Over Quantity
China’s National People’s Congress Source of picture: Rex Features By John Richardson The focus of next week’s National People’s Congress (NPC) meeting in China – the country’s annual “parliamentary” meeting – is likely to be on the quality rather than the quantity of growth. This is reflected in the fact that almost half of […]
Sinopec A Litmus Test For Reform
By John Richardson CHINA’s new leaders are under increasing pressure to do something about the dreadful pollution that blights the lives of hundreds of millions of people. One Shanghai resident told the blog, “The air quality is so bad here I have taken up smoking again. I figured that as my health was already in […]
PTA Price Decline Reflects Realities
By John Richardson The end of the eight-week long bull-run in China’s purified terephthalic acid (PTA) pricing might well indicate a wider problem about to beset other petrochemicals: Reality undermining the positive sentiment of the early part of this year. “PTA prices surged by 10% from early November to early January, mainly led by a […]
China’s Environmental Balancing Act
A woman wearing a mask looks across the Pudong on 16 January this year Source of picure: Zuma/Rex Features By John Richardson A DISPUTE between state-owned refiners Sinopec and PetroChina and environmental regulators serves as a good example of the difficulties China faces in reforming its growth model. The debate about the environment is […]
Beijing Smog Highlights Reform Agenda
Picture: HAP/Quirky China News/Rex Features By John Richardson THE toxic smog that enveloped Beijing over the weekend is another example of why China’s new leaders simply have to change the economic growth model. At its worst point on Saturday night, the level of harmful particulates in the air reached as much as 36 times […]
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