With 4,200 people in Taiwan dying each year as a result of transborder air pollution from China, the Chinese government needs to face up to the serious health costs of its breakneck economic development or risk having its success undone.
With thick winter smog blanketing parts of China in the past few weeks, the health implications of the country’s coal-fired power plants and factories has once again returned to public attention, but while China’s air pollution is well-documented, the transborder effect of the problem on its East Asian neighbors is less well-known.
In recent years, Taiwan, Japan and South Korea have complained about air pollutants traveling from China. However, without data showing the effects of transborder air pollution, it is hard to build a case to call for action.
However, Chinese University of Hong Kong researchers have shown that 22 percent of premature death in Taiwan is caused by air pollution. An average of 4,200 deaths per year are caused by air pollution from China. This groundbreaking data is not only evidence of the scale and effect of transborder air pollution, but it also lends weight to long-standing grievances from China’s neighbors.
The high cost of transborder air pollution looks set to become a key item in cross-strait relations. Government cooperation is necessary to address these far-reaching health and environmental implications. Failure to do so would only stoke friction in what is already a volatile region.
However, to fundamentally roll back pollution, multilateral, long-term efforts would be needed to tackle the issue at source; China. Pollution is a severe problem within China too and its achievements in economic development and increased living standards might be undone unless a resolute, yet nuanced approach to address the problem is found.
According to the university study, outdoor air pollution causes about 870,000 premature deaths in China every year, of which an average of 18 percent are attributed to domestic transborder air pollution. Northern China is the largest contributor to the problem with 41 percent of the health implications caused by emissions from the region which are then borne by other regions.
There are several possible options that might compel Chinese regional governments to act. If meeting emission reduction targets for PM2.5 — an indicator of airborne particles measuring 2.5 micrometers or less, that are small enough to penetrate the deepest part of the lungs — is officially considered an achievement, it could motivate regional governments to adopt concrete measures for more effective air pollution controls.
Indeed, what is at stake in Chinese domestic politics should go beyond mere competition over annual GDP growth targets between regions and include tangible actions to mitigate air pollution.
On the other hand, the Chinese central government could tax heavy-polluting regions, effectively making them pay a bill for their damage. Applying the principle of “the polluter pays” taxes can then be allocated back to regions hardest hit by domestic transborder air pollution and invested in healthcare to treat pollution-related diseases, such as lung cancer, cardiovascular problems and respiratory illnesses.
However, while improved healthcare for pollution-related illnesses are much needed, taxes should also be spent on scientific research to generate “clean” production technology for a long-term solution.
There should be more control over what is a major national problem in China. This political commitment is crucial as the nation deals with the complex challenge of managing the myriad environmental consequences of its rapid economic growth on the back of heavy industry and development. At the same time, regional governments in China have to weigh the costs and rewards of their actions — or inaction — for air pollution that occurs under their watch.
Understanding transborder air pollution and the resultant health implications is important to the development of national and international environmental policy measures. It is a challenge that the Chinese government can and should rise up to.
Steve Yim is a professor in the department of geography and resource management at the Chinese University of Hong Kong.
You wish every Taiwanese spoke English like I do. I was not born an anglophone, yet I am paid to write and speak in English. It is my working language and my primary idiom in private. I am more than bilingual: I think in English; it is my language now. Can you guess how many native English speakers I had as teachers in my entire life? Zero. I only lived in an English-speaking country, Australia, in my 30s, and it was because I was already fluent that I was able to live and pursue a career. English became my main language during adulthood
The international women’s soccer match between Taiwan and New Zealand at the Kaohsiung Nanzih Football Stadium, scheduled for Tuesday last week, was canceled at the last minute amid safety concerns over poor field conditions raised by the visiting team. The Football Ferns, as New Zealand’s women’s soccer team are known, had arrived in Taiwan one week earlier to prepare and soon raised their concerns. Efforts were made to improve the field, but the replacement patches of grass could not grow fast enough. The Football Ferns canceled the closed-door training match and then days later, the main event against Team Taiwan. The safety
There are moments in history when America has turned its back on its principles and withdrawn from past commitments in service of higher goals. For example, US-Soviet Cold War competition compelled America to make a range of deals with unsavory and undemocratic figures across Latin America and Africa in service of geostrategic aims. The United States overlooked mass atrocities against the Bengali population in modern-day Bangladesh in the early 1970s in service of its tilt toward Pakistan, a relationship the Nixon administration deemed critical to its larger aims in developing relations with China. Then, of course, America switched diplomatic recognition
The National Immigration Agency on Tuesday said it had notified some naturalized citizens from China that they still had to renounce their People’s Republic of China (PRC) citizenship. They must provide proof that they have canceled their household registration in China within three months of the receipt of the notice. If they do not, the agency said it would cancel their household registration in Taiwan. Chinese are required to give up their PRC citizenship and household registration to become Republic of China (ROC) nationals, Mainland Affairs Council Minister Chiu Chui-cheng (邱垂正) said. He was referring to Article 9-1 of the Act
RSS