Chinese Get Angrier About Pollution

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China's government is aware of the need to crack down on polluters. Officials in large coastal cities such as Guangzhou have promoted greener industries and encouraged factories that cause the worst pollution to move. At the national level, regulators have been targeting some of the worst polluters for years. "Provisions are really quite clear and explicit," says Peter Hills, a professor at the University of Hong Kong and director of the school's Kadoorie Center. The problem is "the implementation of regulations is not always consistent or effective from one province to another or even one municipality to another," he says. In a country going through a rapid economic transformation, China's pollution woes, in part, are the result of "a regulatory system that has been struggling to catch up with this incredible growth."

Exploring Legal Channels

Even some of the government's toughest critics say there is reason for optimism, though. Han Dongfang, who took part in the 1989 demonstrations that ended with the Tiananmen Square crackdown, is now the director of the Hong Kong-based China Labor Bulletin, a nongovernmental organization that focuses on issues related to worker rights. He says it's understandable people in Fujian and elsewhere have taken to the streets. "Whenever you have anger, you keep quiet, but when you cannot swallow it anymore, the only way to put it out is to explode," he says.

Still, Han adds, there are alternatives to violence that have proven to be effective. For instance, he says his NGO recently provided advice to more than 100 construction workers in Shenzhen, across the border from Hong Kong, who argued they suffered from lung disease as a result of exposure to pollutants on the job. Initially the workers got nowhere and staged a sit-in at a government office. Then they filed a lawsuit in local court, and soon officials showed willingness to negotiate about offering them compensation, says Han. Despite the extent of the pollution problems in China, he believes, violent demonstrations may not have to be inevitable. "When people figure out legal terms and start acting using the laws," he says, "it could help to improve the situation and prevent these unnecessary events."

Einhorn is Asia regional editor in BusinessWeek's Hong Kong bureau.

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