On the one hand, it has helped the country create millions of new jobs and sustain its double-digit economic growth for nearly 30 years.

On the other hand, China must be held responsible for the worsening environmental crisis that has shocked the nation and the world. At least that's what you might think if you've read the news about environmental disasters in China in the last month.

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Most of the country's waterways are seriously polluted. Lands on which to grow arable crops are also contaminated. The air in many cities is unbearable. China is fast catching up with the United States to become the top greenhouse gas producer in the world.

In many regions, disease and death caused by pollution is rising dreadfully.

There is no doubt the environmental and health cost to achieving this economic miracle is extremely high.

While multinationals flocking to China generally have higher environmental standards than most local Chinese companies, they have also contributed a large part to the environmental degradation.

In the last three decades, multinationals have undertaken a massive relocation of their factories to the Chinese mainland. Huge markets and cheap labor costs aside, low environmental standards and lax law enforcement are surely attractive to many of them, especially those that face tough environmental scrutiny in their home countries.

This is especially true for those companies in chemical, metallurgical, building materials, pharmaceutical, textile and food industries, who have come to China in droves in the last few decades.

According to the China Water Pollution Map released not long ago by the Institute of Public & Environmental Affairs (IPE), a non-governmental organization, some 5,500 companies are on the blacklist, including more than 80 run by multinationals. These include Changchun Pepsi Cola Beverage Co, Suzhou Samsung Electronics Co, SAIC-GM-Wuling Automobile Co Ltd, a joint venture of General Motors.

Late last year, factories belonging to 33 multinational companies - including Nestle, American Standard and Panasonic - were also exposed by the IPE for violating Chinese laws by discharging wastewater that did not meet government requirements.

Although the much larger number of local Chinese companies on the list should be equally punished, these two cases are proof that many multinationals are also taking advantage of China's low environmental standards by doing things they would not dare do in their home countries.

Of course, these two blacklists exposed only those causing water pollution. It did not include those producing air, soil and other forms of pollutions.

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