We also need green cats Qin XiaoyingChina Daily Updated: 2006-03-10 06:07
The colour green is taking on increasing connotations of everything related
to environmental friendliness and resource protection. Green issues are the
focus of panel discussions at the ongoing sessions of the National People's
Congress (NPC) and the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference
(CPPCC).
As the public's "green" awareness grows across the world, decision-makers
must heed the people's calls. The ideas of "green politics," such as calling for
resource and ecological conservation, are gaining credence in the
decision-making process.
Interesting enough, some Chinese, on the eve of the NPC and CPPCC sessions,
jokingly urged that "black and white cats be turned into green cats."
"A cat is good if it catches mice no matter whether it is black or white."
The saying, cited by Deng Xiaoping, chief architect of China's reform and
opening up, to push his pragmatic approach, has now become a widely known
phrase.
This "cat theory" helped millions of Chinese break free from the
straightjacket of the leftist mentality. This was of vital importance to
shifting the country away from "class struggle" and towards economic revival.
At the same time, the phrase encouraged grass-roots leaders to seize the
opportunities of economic development, which likely knocked but once, and go in
for economic tasks whole-heartedly.
Many foreigners related China's reform and opening-up undertakings to the
catchphrase.
Now the country's per capita GDP has reached US$1,400, which indicates that a
very important transitional period is approaching. If the transition is a
success, the country's modernization process will be accelerated. But if the
transition goes awry, the country could fall into traps of modernization and pay
dearly.
Whether we can make the best use of and protect our natural resources is one
of the most important indicators in gauging the success and failure of the
transition.
Many NPC deputies and members of the CPPCC National Committee, driven by
their sense of crisis, are showing great concern for the protection of natural
resources and the environment. Their sense of crisis may help introduce the
concept of the "green cat" to enrich the "black cat-white cat" theory.
A big problem now is that many government leaders at various levels are
ignorant of the "3R" concept "reduce," "re-use" and "recycle," which are
important principles of a cyclic economy.
"Reduce" means reduction in the volume of materials used in production and
consumption. "Re-use" refers to making secondary use of things, lengthening the
service life of products. "Recycle" means turning used articles into resources
again.
The process covering the production, consumption and disposal of a product is
divided into three stages (upper, middle and lower streams) for analysis. People
have to make Herculean efforts in each stage so that the strained supply of
resources and environmental pollution can be fundamentally resolved.
Regretfully, however, environment authorities and polluting enterprises focus
almost exclusively on tackling incidents of pollution and waste of materials
that have already occurred, ignoring the questions of cutting the total input of
materials into production, raising the utilization ratio of resources and
lengthening the service life of products.
This gives rise to the phenomenon that whenever polluting materials are
spotted, they are buried in landfills; whenever waste discharge is discovered,
fines are meted out.
While people are preoccupied with stemming the damage in the lower stream,
they forget to do any "dredging" work in the upper or middle streams.
If every enterprise tries to economize resource input and bring down costs in
the "reduce" stage, improve the product quality to lengthen their service life
in the "re-use" phase and further cut down on resource consumption in the
"recycle" stage, the "green" principles championed by the central government
will be carried out smoothly.
If environmental protection and resources saving are separated from economic
development and public life, and the old habits of taking reactive measure to
cope with emergencies continue, China's "green" cause will get nowhere,
regardless of how much money is spent on initiatives and publicity
Worse, this old-fashioned mentality, which mistakes the finish line for the
start line, will ultimately lead to the quagmire of an out-of-date
industrialization mode, which runs contrary to our wishes of embarking on the
road of new-type industrialization.
Only when scientific concepts of development, as advocated by the central
government, are translated into scientific concepts of environmental protection
and social management, can black and white cats become "green" ones, equally
beautiful, and just as capable of catching mice.
The author is a researcher with the China Foundation for International
and Strategic Studies.
(China Daily 03/10/2006 page4)
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