Collaboration between the United States and Chinese industry and government is essential if the United States wants to help China improve its environmental practices, a top Chinese environmental official told Bryant College students recently.
Speaking at a forum on the impact Chinese environmental law and policy has on U.S. investment in China, Geping Qu, chairman of the Environmental Protection and Resource Conservation Committee of the National People’s Congress of China chided the United States. He said this country must share its technological advances in environmental protection with his nation.
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Qu said both sides would benefit from the collaboration. China would be cleaner, and U.S. companies would profit by selling their technology, he said.
“I see large potential in terms of collaboration between the United States and China in terms of the environment. It would also help you reduce the trade deficit,” Qu told students and faculty through an interpreter, adding that, “the technology carries no military secrets.”
Specifically, Qu cited U.S. technology that can make coal burning cleaner. He said coal is still China’s principal energy source, and that its use is a primary reason for China’s environmental problems. Most countries, he added, rely on coal while they are developing, but later switch to petroleum or natural gas.
But China does not have access to large supplies of either, and thus relies on coal for 75 percent of its energy, he said.
“Perhaps God was unfair in distributing resources,” he said.
Asked which of China’s industries has proved most environmentally unfriendly, Qu cited the mechanical and steel sectors, noting that his country’s steel factories lack modern equipment. He added that the Chinese government has closed 77 private and state-run plants in the past year because of their poor environmental practices.
Qu, who said he has met recently with the head of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, was also asked whether business people working in China should be concerned about how to dispose of mass-produced goods there properly. Qu replied that the Chinese government is now working on a ‘clean production law.’ He added that China can learn about environmental legislation by looking at American laws.
In response to a question about whether China has a recycling industry, Qu also said the government is now considering a recycling law.
One of the attendees brought up the emerging field of genetically engineered crops, and asked whether the government and public in China support it or not. Qu noted that China has limited farmland, and thus the public and government have been supportive of it.
But he added that China’s study of biotechnology has not extended to the cloning of animals, nor has it any desire to attempt to clone humans. “We’ve got enough people in China,” he said.
Qu, who is the former director of China’s Environmental Protection Bureau, the Chinese equivalent of the EPA, met with a dozen Bryant students who will travel to Eastern China this summer to study environmental issues and U.S. investment there. Students will visit companies such as Kodak and Motorola there, and discuss the links between science, technology, and business in international trade.
While China may have much work to do in order to improve its environmental business practices, the rest of the world must also do its part, forming agreements on sound environmental policies, he said. “Environmental protection is a global effort,” he said.
