China: economic powerhouse, environmentally unsustainable - part two

China has risen to the point where it is the number one producer of manufactured goods in the world, the second largest destination for foreign direct investment, and the third biggest trading nation. But our rise is based largely on the consumption of natural resources, capital investment and cheap labour.

The contradiction between the population on one side, and resources and the environment on the other, is a time bomb with the power to stop our rise. Constraints do not only come from within, but also from the international community. Globalisation means that the environment and human rights are two huge factors influencing international politics and trade.

The process of globalisation, controlled and dominated by Europe and the US, is unfair in the extreme. At the same time as they accuse us of polluting the environment, they transfer their polluting industries to China and make clean technology unavailable to us. They have access to more resources than us, but set up green barriers that prevent us from taking part in international trade.

The Chinese people must fight back. We must represent all developing countries in fighting for justice from the developed countries, and get them to play by their own rules. We need to learn from the west’s advanced systems, technologies and ways of thinking, and tighten our belts and pursue green development. We need to unite with our regional neighbours, encourage co-operation and solve environmental disputes. We need to join with eco-socialists and left-wing organisations from developed countries to put pressure on multinational corporations and limit the transfer of polluting industries to China.

China can do a lot internationally for environmental protection, and you can also do a lot at home. Every day you talk about patriotism and the “spirit of the nation”. Well, you can express your patriotism in environmental work. On another level, any rise in the environmental awareness of the Chinese people is also a rise in their level of ethical sophistication.

There is much work to do. This is a moment full of both challenges and opportunities. My generation is old and cannot keep up any more. Our power to change things is waning, which only means that our hopes for your generation are all the greater. Only the young really make history.

When Liang Qichao led the Hundred Days Reform, he was only 22. Zhou Enlai was 26 when he became head of the politics department at the Whampoa Military Academy. Hu Shi was 27 when he became a professor at Peking University and launched the New Culture Movement. Mao Zedong was 28 when he started the uprising of railway workers in Hunan. In the field of the environment, Denis Hayes was only 25 when he led the 1970 Earth Day demonstrations, in which 20 million Americans took part. Therefore, I encourage your passion and creativity, and unconditionally support your hard work. Although we are older than you, age is a state of mind, not a number. Our hearts are still young and we will fight with you.

Liang Qichao once wrote an essay called The Young China. Allow me to quote it here:

Today’s responsibility lies with the youth. If the youth are wise, the country will be wise. If the youth are wealthy, the country will be wealthy. If the youth are strong, the country will be strong. If the youth are independent, the country will be independent. If the youth are free, the country will be free. If the youth progress, the country will progress. If the youth are better than Europeans, China will be better than Europe. If the youth are more heroic than the rest of the world, China will be more heroic than the rest of the world.

Liang wrote those words at China’s darkest, most uncertain hour, when the great powers mocked China for being an old empire in decline. However, Liang still believed that if the youth of China could join together in struggle, this decaying country could be transformed into a new, young country.

Today, we again find ourselves in an era which will decide China’s destiny. After 50 years of backwardness, can China rise again? What form will this rise take? The answers to these questions are in your hands. Only your generation can complete the task of building a sustainable, fair, democratic, harmonious and socialist green China. I believe that green China will also be a young China - the China which Liang Qichao described, with a long history and a glorious future.

See China: economic powerhouse, environmentally unsustainable - part one here.