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Refusal to name polluters outrages journalists in China

by Shi-ren Hou | April 20, 2009 at 08:44 pm

118 views | 13 Recommendations | 5 comments

The Sina news portal has a headline news story claiming that the refusal of the Heilongjiang provincial government to release the names of companies that continue to violate pollution laws caused an uproar amongst journalists at an official meeting.

According to the news story, the Heilongjiang provincial government convened a work meeting concerning the implementation of environmental laws on 20 April, and invited over ten members of the press to participate as observers. Yet when the meeting insisted that information concerning companies that continue to violate pollution laws was "confidential", a number of the journalists stormed out of the meeting.

The news story states that journalists from the Xinhua News Agency - China's official state pres agency - were refused access to certain information by a member of the Heilongjiang Province Environmental Protection Department, with claims that such information was confidential and could not be released to journalists The official also asserted that the material that had already been provided to the press was sufficient.

The news story asserts that the information which was kept confidential is that which "people are concerned about", and should be released to the public for inspection. It then asks the rhetorical question of whether "(information) should be kept confidential from the media, or the public", and whether or not confidentiality with regard to companies that violate pollution laws is not contrary to the public's "right to information and right to supervision."

"With national efforts underway to address the issue of companies that violate pollution laws, concealing the names of such companies from journalists is the same as protecting them. What is the point of making polluting companies the objects of protection of the environmental protection departments?"

"At present, China is undertaking nation-wide environmental protection activities to deal with companies that violate pollution laws. Given the current backdrop of the international financial crisis, this is China's indication of the fact that it is unwilling to sacrifice the environment in order to achieve economic growth. This in turn demands that all levels of the environmental protection department do not conceal the sordid truth about polluting companies, and earnestly protect the right to information and supervision of the public. If this is not achieved, then the efforts of the environmental department will lose the faith of the public."

Here is a link to the original news story in Chinese:

http://news.sina.com.cn/c/2009-04-21/034717650535.shtml

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Shi-ren Hou

at 20:57 on April 20th, 2009

Thanks for the tip. The only issue is that the parts that I quoted at length at the end of the article are actually my own translations into English of the original article, which was written in Chinese. Do you have any recommendations of what I should do for quoted material which is translated?

Shi-ren Hou

at 21:00 on April 20th, 2009

Perhaps in future I could refrain from quoting so liberally, and just provided a brief summary of the sentiments expressed by parts of the original article.

Babel-Fish

at 08:26 on April 22nd, 2009

Article from the official news agency of China are really press releases and I can not imagine that anybody can be held up for infringing a copyright by translation. But there are rules concerning pasting and article reference the size of the post.

I am interested in new from China and I really welcome you here full heartedly in the hope of seeing a lot of articles that give me more insight of what is going on in China as I often write analyse of the global picture. Not many people in the west understand China as many of us do down here in southern Asia.

In reference to the article

This could be due to a policy of not naming the companies as to spoil the companies profile overseas. As long as offical weight is placed on the offenders and the offenders clean up their act there is nothing wrong with such policy. Knowing how things work in China and this is a national run clean up i expect the companies will have to toe the line and corruption will not be the highest item on the list.

Shi-ren Hou

at 08:48 on April 23rd, 2009

A friend of mine think it's because the officials in Heilongjiang were probably bribed by the companies doing the polluting, and had most likely been in a relationship with them for a long period of time.

The Central government is probably very displeased with this, and for this reason used Xinhua to draw attention to the issue.

There's actually a great deal more freedom in the Chinese-language press than most people abroad would imagine, because the central leadership employs it as a watchdog over lower levels of government. Even though direct personal criticism of the CPC is off-limits, anyone from the province level downwards appears to be completely fair game.

Maireid Sullivan

at 22:07 on April 26th, 2009

Apart from the fact that Shi-ren Hou is still learning "the ropes" at NowPublic, this is a very interesting report! I love the fact that the journalist are saying they have a responsibility to "earnestly protect the right to information and supervision of the public." This is what the Revolution was all about originally!

On the subject of China's ability to comply with climate change protocols, read this very interesting document: SUBMISSION TO CARBON POLLUTION REDUCTION SCHEME - GREEN PAPER

Because this is a pdf document, I can't put a link here, so you'll have to click on the first article on this link: response to green paper

http://www.waterright.com.au/index-19oct2007.html

and read more about the brilliant solution that Wicking Beds offer here:

http://www.waterright.com.au/ecoeducation.html

We're in the process of converting our garden to this system. It will save so much water, and teh veggies will be so much stronger. I have seen this in practice in a very dry area of Victoria - the old gold mining area.