China’s environment minister enlists people power to help clean up the country’s “black and stinky” waterways.
Environmental protests expose weakness in China’s leadership
Mass protests are a growing fixture in China’s grassroots’ not-in-my-back-yard environmental justice movement. A lightning rod for public action concerns PX plants – chemical factories located elsewhere in the world that do not incite large-scale protests the way they do in China. Yet the Chinese government cannot convince citizens they are “no more harmful than a cup of coffee.”
“Under the Dome” and China’s “real blue sky”
Is the ultimate dome preventing China’s skies from clearing a political one?
“Under the Dome” finds its limits
A smog documentary that went viral in China over the weekend and riveted the nation with its TED Talks meets Al Gore blend of compelling data and engaging instruction, managed to both survive China’s censors and get “the chop”.
Policy: Four gaps in China’s new environmental law
China’s new environmental protection law is not enough without robust implementation mechanisms, accountability regimes and institutional arrangements. This report for the science journal Nature identifies four gaps that will cause challenges for the new law.
China’s water revival
Chinese citizens and industry are both willing to do their part to help turnaround the country’s water crisis, according to a new survey, but they don’t see how without a mechanism that allows the government, industry and end users to work together. Could that missing mechanism be market discipline, rule of law and citizen empowerment?
Saving China’s environment
Read in full Patricia Adams’ closing address to the International Symposium on China’s Environmental Crisis: Is There a Way Out? A resounding “Yes!” says Ms. Adams. “Give power to the people”.
China’s environmental crisis: Is there a way out?
China’s environmental crisis is the subject of an upcoming international symposium later this month, presented by the Riley Institute at Furman University and the Furman Department of Asian Studies. Probe International’s Patricia Adams will give the closing address on “Saving China’s Environment: Give Power to the People”.
China’s new dawn

(May 24, 2013) The new dawn of Chinese activism: organic, leaderless and technology-driven. This report by journalist Monica Tan looks at the rise of public protest in China, how activism has moved away from a select high-profile few to become a growing movement made up of ordinary people – ‘lao baixing’ – determined to stand up for their environment. Technology enables large masses of people to get the word out and to assemble at low risk: no one and everyone leads. Some see this grassroots’ movement as the road to democracy and accountability for China.
Ningbo’s people power halts petrochemical plant expansion – for now

(November 2, 2012) The power of protest in China continues to gain momentum as yet another show of strength in numbers by protesters in Ningbo, an affluent port city of 3.4 million people, has halted a plan to expand petrochemical production in nearby Zhenhai.
A hard rain’s a-gonna fall – people power the real story in Beijing
(July 30, 2012) As Beijing’s dramatic flood disaster unfolded, the people of Beijing did not wait for the government to step up—which, by all accounts, it did not—citizens instead relied on people power: a growing phenomenon, animated by social media, that portends winds of change for China’s political elite.
Who’s on notice: Ai Weiwei or the Chinese government?
(November 16, 2011) The notice from tax authorities has launched Ai as a cause célèbre yet again but, this time, and significantly, within China.