China has been cracking down on both corruption and pollution, two huge problems that are sadly intertwined. The Chinese government is now recognizing the fact: pollution is now the Number One cause of social conflict in the country.
One of the dilemmas in the country is that the central government has been pushing its officials to produce growth almost at all cost, but that causes a lot of pollution in return. So when officials get contradictory messages – protect the environment by keeping growth high – they tend to ignore the environmental part and focus on growth because the consequences for pollution aren’t serious, but low growth is considered unacceptable.
But that’s changing. Apparently. We’ll see how much this is enforced, as relayed by the state media that even officials who have retired will be held accountable and punished for pollution that occurred while they were in charge. You can no longer just retire and wash your hands off any damage you caused.
According to the source, Beijing has repeatedly promised to strengthen monitoring and law enforcement and a new environmental law in force since Jan 2015 imposes unlimited fines and jail sentences on repeat offenders.
Under new guidelines on environmental monitoring, it is officials in senior positions who will be held accountable for whether or not the environment is being protected.
