Agence France-Presse
November 13, 2006

The degradation of China’s environment was reaching a critical point where health and social stability are under threat, the country’s top government official on the environment said today. “In some places, environmental problems have affected people’s health and social stability, and damaged our international image,” Zhou Shengxian was quoted as saying in today’s China Daily. Rapid industrialisation over the past two decades had transformed China into one of the world’s most polluted countries, with local governments and industries shunning ecological protection in the pursuit of short-term gains. Mr Zhou, the head of the State Environmental Protection Administration (SEPA), noted in an address to the annual meeting of China’s top environmental thinktank that half the country’s rivers were severely polluted and a third of its territory was damaged by acid rain. … “We import the raw materials, send the products abroad and keep the waste and pollution ourselves,” said Shen Guofang, a thinktank expert and a vice president of the Chinese Academy of Engineering, according to the report. Read the full story.