It is widely thought that the government plans, although incredibly ambitious, are not unrealistic to achieve in China, despite the fact that they would be unrealistic in most other countries, and it will require constructing and bringing them online much faster than has occurred in other countries to date. The nuclear disaster in Fukushima had an important impact. It sparked major media debate, and a temporary government reconsideration, especially relating to safety issues, and especially in coastal areas. A moratorium on further development of nuclear power stations in coastal areas in coastal areas was put in place.  Major energy think-tanks believe that the impact of this on the government’s nuclear programme will just be slowed down slightly, but not significantly altered. Policy framework is being developed and strengthened in relation to safety issues, and the budget for these areas has been increased. Projected expansion is still considered realistic within the timeframe stated by government. One important consequence of Fukushima is that regional cooperation on nuclear safety between Japan, China and South Korea has strengthened in the wake of the disaster, something that is widely seen as a positive development.

The nuclear sector is being developed by central government and state owned enterprises. It has been making use of foreign technology, but Chinese nuclear industry is growing rapidly and becoming less reliant on foreign technology. With the exception of China Power Investment Corp, the country’s “Big 5” power generating companies are not yet allowed to develop nuclear power.  Nuclear power development qualifications have only been granted to China National Nuclear Corp, China Guangdong Nuclear Power Group and China Power Investment Corp. China Guangdong Nuclear Power Group has the most nuclear projects currently under construction of any other company globally and is set to become the world’s largest nuclear developer over the next 10 to 15 years. The world’s major reactor manufacturers, including the French company Areva and US-based Westinghouse, are building their most advanced designs in China. Delays in other countries may even result in China becoming the first country in the world to use the EPR (European Pressurized Reactor). Importantly, Chinese companies are also actively buying up uranium supplies to fuel the reactors.

So far,  environmental and other NGOs in mainland China are initiating debates on nuclear development and safety concerns. There is still little public awareness and understanding of the technology and its implications (including risks), compared to in other countries.  Fukushima did generate important debate. As nuclear energy is such a central pillar of government energy plans, many people consider that it is impossible to have an anti-nuclear perspective. Instead the focus is on safety, transparency and public participation. Some NGOs have been active in trying to learn from European experiences with nuclear energy, and antinuclear movements. This has included visits to Germany and translation of German educational material on nuclear energy.  There have been a very small number of small protests about nuclear energy, including a commemorative action to mark the 25^th anniversary of the Chernobyl disaster, involving some students who were arrested. There are also isolated incidences of protests having delayed at least one new nuclear power station.

In  Hong Kong the electricity includes supply from nuclear energy from mainland China. The Dayawan reactor, which is about 50 km from Hong Kong in mainland China, was built, by agreements between the two governments,  especially to supply Hong Kong. Currently, the Hong Kong government has anticipated increased energy demand and has asked the Chinese government to expand the capacity of Dayawan. There have been protests against the Dayawan power plant, both before and after the transfer of sovereignty to China. This included about 1 million signatures that were collected and presented by Hong Kong groups to the Beijing government, calling for closing of Dayawan, in the wake of the Chernobyl accident. Greenpeace Hong Kong are advocating to reduce reliance on nuclear and are against expanding Dayawan’s capacity. They are proposing energy efficiency and wind energy (especially offshore) as alternatives. However, their position is not antinuclear per se, as they do not view this as realistic. Another coalition, No Nukes Hong Kong,  is calling for an outright ban on nuclear energy, and closing down Dayawan. They express frustration with more moderate perspectives. In addition to the Dayawan plant, the Chinese government now plans for a number of new reactors to be built in the three surrounding provinces, by 2020. This will have major implications for Hong Kong.

China’s river resources belong to the state and the government is responsible for decisions concerning their management, use and development. In 1958, the 5th Session of the 1st National People’s Congress resolved to consolidate the Ministry of Water Resources and Ministry of Electric Power Industry into Ministry of Water Resources and Electric Power. Later, in 1979, the Ministry of Water Resources and Electric Power was separated into two ministries. The institutional reform of 1982, led to the Ministry of Water Resources and Ministry of Electric Power being recombined into the Ministry of Water Resources and Electric Power. In April, 1988, the 1st Session of the 7th National People’s Congress passed the institutional reform of the State Council to set up Ministry of Water Resources. This was in turn reorganized in 1988.The hydropower sector has gone through a further major restructuring, since 2000.

This has meant that the smaller local state departments, which were previously responsible for hydropower, have now been consolidated into larger state owned enterprises. Consequently, these new (or reconfigured) state owned enterprises are becoming increasingly powerful and wealthy enterprises, gaining access to existing physical infrastructure as well as natural resources for further development. Together with local governments, these state owned enterprises control most of the development process. They are rapidly coming to lead the sector at a global level, and are expanding internationally, especially in Asia, Africa and Latin America. Some key corporations are Sinohydro, Datang, Zhongdiantou, Huadian, Huaneng, Gezhouba, Southern Grid.

Another important aspect is the question of financing. Within China itself, the majority of large hydro projects are receiving financing from the Clean Development Mechanism, or have received such funding. Chinese financial institutions have overtaken the World Bank as the main funder of dam projects throughout the world. Chinese banks and companies are involved in constructing over 200 large dams in approximately 50 countries, especially in Africa and Southeast Asia.

Current government plans are highly controversial, as they promote developing the installed capacity of hydropower to the maximum, pushing against the maximum internationally recognized limits of the capacity of rivers. As with dams throughout the world, there are huge social and environmental impacts associated with the dams. These impacts include: massive displacement, which in extremes cases, such as the Three Gorges Dam, has reached several millions. In 2007, (then) (check) Prime Minister Wen Jiabao reported that dams had displaced no less than 23 million people in China. Other problems include the submersion of fertile cultivated fields; non-transparent resettlement processes, in which communities are not consulted and do not participate in the decisions which affect them. Frequently the compensation is inadequate.  Following resettlement, communities have few economic possibilities and face worsened economic conditions.

Many existing dams, as well as those planned for the future, in the southwest region, are at high risk of earthquake damage. The collapse of a dam, or landslides in the area, will have a domino effect that impacts the whole downstream section of the river and its inhabitants. The dam construction process also has major social and environmental impacts to the surrounding communities, including creating difficult and unsafe transport conditions due to landslides and other disruptions. Dams have also seriously impacted on China’s biodiversity, causing fisheries to plummet, and threatening the endangered giant Chinese sturgeon and pushing other species, such as Yangtze River Dolphin, to extinction. In the case of the cross border dams in the southern part of China, many of these social and environmental problems occur also in downstream neighboring countries.

These problems are often acknowledged by the government and there is advanced social and environmental legislation in place to deal with this, especially in relation to questions about compensation and resettlement. However, these mechanisms are often implemented inadequately, and local governments have vested interests that may hinder implementation. Although Environmental Impact Assessments are required, project developers often fail to complete them before construction begins, thus making it very difficult to stop destructive projects. The fines for violating environmental laws are not high enough to have a serious impact.

Compared to other energy issues, hydropower is an area of important civil society activity, and important successes have been achieved by campaigns. Affected communities have also waged important struggles and protest against dams. However, conditions for organizing are very difficult. Firstly, it is hard for them to do much, since the land is state owned, so the government can decide what happens to it regardless of local opinion. Organizing efforts are met with heavy repression and labelled as unprofessional. Another important issue is the local perception of dams. Frequently communities believe government promises that they will get better land and that it is good they will be moved. Confusion exists about whether projects are private sector projects or government ones. Government projects still have a high level of popular trust, so if a dam is seen to be a government project people believe it must be good. However, sometimes after people have directly suffered the impacts, many lose trust and get angry, and this is when protests start.

Consequently, it is very hard for organizations and campaigners to be outright anti-dam, and this position is not considered as realistic, or even desirable. It is seen as more realistic to campaign for making the dams safer, improving the terms and conditions of displacement, resettlement and compensation, as well as distribution of the economic profits to affected communities. More transparency, community and civil society participation are demanded.  Some of these campaigns have had important successes. However, these campaigns are on specific local dams only and national coordination between the struggles at different water basins is extremely difficult. This is both due to China’s size, and also the dangers of repression.

Documents from Chinese governmental institutions

International Rivers Reports on Dams in China and China’s role in building dams globally

China’s role in building dams globally

Additional reports from civil society organizations

Recent Articles

Between 70 and 80% of China’s electricity is generated by coal.  Its percentage in the country’s energy make up is being very slowly reduced, stabilizing at around 70% over the last years. However, the overall volume of coal consumption is continually increasing as the country’s energy demand goes up. The government is engaged in very serious efforts to “clean up” the sector as much as possible, within the constraints set by the fact that coal simply is, and will continue to be, the most “dirty” energy source around, and has emphasized R&D for advanced technologies. This includes technologies such as coal gasification, processing and conversion, integrated gasification combined cycle (IGCC), supercritical and ultra-supercritical power generation, and large-scale circulating fluidized bed (CFB), and coal gasification-based poly-generation technology. As the world’s biggest coal producer, and having one of the largest proven coal reserves in the world (after Russia and the USA), China’s coal needs are mostly met from domestic supply. However, it is also importing increasing amounts from Indonesia and Australia.

Safety is considered a very major area for government intervention. The official number of worker deaths in accidents reached a peak of almost 7,000 in 2002. One of the main reasons for this was due to the number of small mines in operation, due to China’s history of developing village level industries, combined with the rapidly increasing demand. The government has successfully brought this number down, quite dramatically in recent years, through a twin process of closing smaller unsafe mines, and through mechanization. However, there are still large numbers of deaths of miners (approximately 2500 in 2010), substantially higher than most other coal mining countries in the world. Also, there is sometimes a problem of the smaller mines being reopened due to increased demand for coal. Frequently, a strong central-local government tension exists, as many local government officials are close to the owners of the small coal companies.

Although before the Chinese revolution there was major labour unrest amongst coal miners, and there continue to be sporadic strikes, it seems that there is not a high level of organization amongst workers, and that it is one of the very difficult sectors to organize in. Reports are sketchy, but there have been numerous strikes involving thousands of coal miners in Shanxi Province, Guizhou Province throughout the last years.  At least some of the mines, especially the larger and more modern state owned ones, have high level of training and rely on a professionalized and relatively well paid technical workforce. In such cases, health and safety regulations are strongly enforced.  Different levels of safety conditions exist alongside one another. In some of the modern mining areas in major mining areas, such as Datong, housing is being slowly improved and modernized, partly in an effort to improve conditions and partly because of subsidence. Subsistence is a major area of concern in some of the areas where extensive mining has already occurred.

Other major areas of concern are the environmental and land problems caused by coal. Again, the government is very much aware of these problems, and treats them as a major area of concern. In addition to making an enormous contribution to climate change, through high levels of CO2 emissions, the local impacts of coal use in China are very damaging. This includes: dust , both near the mining and along the transport route; subsidence from mines, especially in areas with a long mining history, such as in Shanxi and Inner Mongolia; water contamination; respiratory and other health problems of workers and nearby communities; and land conflicts with ethnic minorities in Inner Mongolia. Another key issue is that the coal sector takes up an enormous share of the country’s transport infrastructure, as the coal is not mined at the geographical location as where it is needed for consumption. This means that there are huge traffic problems due to trucks and trains transporting it.  Major delays, often of several days or even weeks, are routine. At times this makes it difficult to ensure supply.

The question of ownership, control, and pricing in the coal sector are all of great importance. In recent years, there has been a massive process of concentration of companies, led by the government. State owned enterprises have grown in size, at least in some locations, such as in Datong, and the major players operated in multiple locations. Many small companies have been closed by legal orders. Since around 2002, Coal has become increasingly profitable, which encourages increased extraction, from both national state enterprises and private enterprises. Speculation of coal price is becoming important and quite influential on wider economic development. At the same time, the electricity companies claim to be near bankruptcy due to high prices. The central government is going to great efforts to maintain a high degree of stability for the coal price, as it fears the political instability that is likely to result if the price becomes too high. This is becoming a big political battle. Expansion of Chinese mining companies into foreign markets is still in early stage, though likely to intensify and accelerate in the near future, as Chinese companies are already beginning to buy foreign companies in order to get hold of the technology.

Despite, and probably also because of, the fact that coal plays such an important part in China’s energy mix, there are very few “civil society” organizations working on it, either in relation to energy, or workers, or the environment. Even though it is incredibly important and has many serious social and environmental problems associated with it, it is a very difficult area for organizations to work on, due to strong governmental control and lack of transparency in the sector. Owing to the combination of the sheer quantity of coal that is used, the quantity of coal that exists in China, the political and economic power of the industry relative to other branches of the energy sector and the country’s massive dependency on coal, it is extremely difficult, if not impossible to talk about phasing out coal production and use in China. The only strategy that is widely perceived as viable is to look for ways to make it both safer and cleaner, to the extent that is possible

Coal and the Environment

The following articles deal with the environmental and the health impacts of coal. These are the most recent documents which exist in this field, and are all from Greenpeace China, which is the main civil society organization working on the environmental impacts of coal. A particular focus is on the question of how the price of coal and be made to incorporate the social and environmental costs.

Coal and workers

The following three documents deal in considerable depth with questions relating to workers in the coal sector, and contain political and historical analysis of how the sector has evolved and continues to evolve. They offer important analyses for a general understanding of coal in China, and of the changes brought about by the restructuring of the last twenty years. Although there have been important changes in the last few years and the documents are not completely up to date, they nonetheless provide a solid basis for understanding the background to understanding these recent changes.

Coal, from the point of view of international and regional policy makers and think tanks

The following articles provide analysis of the Chinese coal sector within a wider perspective of coal globally, looking at the industrial, institutional and  commercial aspects of China’s coal. The focus is not, or at least not primarily, on the social and environmental conflicts relating to coal, and nor are the articles in this section necessarily sympathetic to such purposes. However ,the comprehensive  global overview provided is necessary in order to situate any analysis of such conflicts.

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