The diversion of water to Beijing for the Olympics and for big hydropower projects threatens the lives of millions of peasant farmers in China’s north-western provinces, according to a senior Chinese government official.
The Chinese government plans to pump enornous amounts of water from the provinces to Beijing to flush out water from polluted and degraded waterways simply to put on a happy face for the Olympics.
Yet this will have a severe effect upon the provinces.
“In order to preserve the quality of Beijing’s water we have to close all our factories. But we still need to live. So I say the government needs to compensate Shaanxi,” Mr An said. “If you don’t compensate the masses then how can they survive?”
China is trying to have it both ways, rigid state control as well as rampant capitalism. These contradictions can’t and won’t last. For one thing, the business owners will loudly protest is they don’t have adequate water supplies. Also, the state itself is often an part or full owner owner in those very same businesses.
I hadn’t heard about this yet. It seems the problems in China just keep growing and growing. Hopefully with the world spotlight shining so brightly on them right now, they’ll be forced to take some actions that they wouldn’t normally take to make things right. I guess we can only hope.
Mike Smith