Journalists, Report! China Urges Media Supervision of Energy Consumption
by Rachel Wasser, Beijing, China on 05. 5.07
Last year, China failed to meet ambitious national targets for reducing pollution and energy consumption. This year, the central government is calling on state media to serve as watchdogs on these issues, "assist[ing] the authorities' efforts to control pollution... arousing the public's awareness of energy-saving and exposing problems and irregularities." Reporters have been encouraged to report, in-depth, "on the issues that most concern the public and ones that receive the most complaints." There are plenty of pollution stories - and complaints - out there in China, and though the booming economy's energy intensity is a major concern for the authorities, last year the country fell far short of its annual goal for reducing energy consumption. (By 2010 the national government intends to cut energy consumption per unit GDP by 20% from 2005 levels, sticking to the target that was in place before last year's setback.) It's encouraging to see government calling on media to play an active role, and so soon after the promulgation of new transparency regulations. The more environmentally educated China's consumers are, the better. But it remains to be seen how helpful probing journalists can be in influencing China's energy consumption - or the industry and construction sectors, which are crucial. And we can't help thinking back just a couple of weeks to the government's call for more citizen activism, put out not long after the jailing of a prominent environmental activist. ::Xinhua News Agency. Also see ::China's Green Revolution: How Far Will It (Not) Go?
State media in China is controlled by the government so it is like the right hand telling the left hand to do the same work. If a journalist should strike a tender nerve in his individual assesment of a problem, he, most likely would be the one subject to disciplinary action, not the offender.
This passing the buck on the part of the Chinese government is only for the sake of appearing to take action because the government is essentially the only group with the authority to act.
It is somewhat of a vicious cycle but the nature of this suggestion is to be expected because this round about method is a part of the cultural heritage of China. Everyone wants to see improvement but who is to be responsible if the improvement should cause difficulty or harm to others.
Basically, what I am saying is that any clean up of their environment would require enforcement of regulations and enforcement of regulations would penalize some of their companies and impose restrictions that might have a backlash on their economic growth.
Enconomic growth is full steam ahead and the government may not permit interference with it by a few journalists or reporters, even at the expense of the environment.
The leaders in China are somewhat like those in the US in that they are detached from actual living conditions of the common people. They appear to live in a world of their own and are not affected except perhaps by criticism of their peers.
adrianakau@aol.com
Does "Click here" even read the posts s/he posts in?
I just want to point out that the US has a long history of jailing, harassing, and attacking environmental activists. Not only that, but we can just as easily point out that America arrests and detains independent journalists AND, even worse, that most of the media in the united states is owned by the one sector more troubling than the government: the corporations actually doing the polluting. This isn't a defense by any means of chinese state media, but just a reminder that before we go throwing rocks at glass houses, we should remember where we're looking from.
I don't disagree with the fact that there should be a collective responsibility in enforcement and compliance, but it would be unfair to just label chinese journalists as merely mouthpieces of the gov't. The sector is highly fragmented, entrepreneurial, with a sense of tabloidism. If stories about unscrupulous factory owners sell the papers, those stories will become prevalent. True there is a official "State media" like Fox but let us not dismiss the many young journalists who uncovered corrupt officials, or corporate coverups. Their ends may be questionable but their means should not be dismissed. Any blanket statement about "Chinese [foobar]" usually missed the point.