II. Reflecting on the traditional development model

“First pollution, then control; first damage then recovery” seems an unavoidable established law and vicious circle in the industrialization process of all countries and regions. The Industrial Revolution, which began in the mid-18th century, ushered human society into industrial civilization. Whilst industrialization brought mankind great material wealth it was accompanied by heavy resource and environmental costs. Environmental pollution problems kept on emerging in developed countries in the process of industrialization, some of them posing serious dangers to their economic development and people’s lives. Environmental problems, growing more serious by the day, have stirred environmental awareness among mankind. Silent Spring, by the US writer Rachel Carson, exposed the fact of pesticide abuse in pursuit of profits and issued the cry “If environmental problems are not solved, mankind will live in the grave of happiness.” Subsequently, in 1972, the Club of Rome released a report “The Limits to Growth,” its main stance being that “prosperity without environmental protection is a delayed disaster.” In the same year, the first World Congress on Environmental Protection, the United Nations Conference on the Human Environment was held in Stockholm, Sweden. It published Only One Earth, saying “Without action on environmental protection, mankind will go from the cradle directly to the grave.”

It can be seen that, rapid economic development that follows the development model of traditional industrial civilization will inevitably lead to severe resource depletion and environmental pollution, a problem that all countries and regions have encountered in the industrialization process. In mankind’s 200-plus years of modernization, to date fewer than 30 countries and fewer than 1 billion population have achieved industrialization. China has taken just several decades to complete development that developed countries took centuries to achieve. In conditions of relatively insufficient resources and inadequate carrying capacity of the eco-environment, the Chinese government has led its so very large population to create such great economic volume in such a short time, and at such a rapid development pace. This means that, compared with other industrialized countries, China will face even greater challenges in a more complex situation over a more difficult course. China’s constraints of resources, environment and ecology have also prompted comprehensive summary and profound reflection on traditional industrial civilization and on China’s nearly three decades of rapid development.

Sole pursuit of economic growth in development. After the end of the Second World War, and since the 1980s in particular, “development” has become almost a common task for all countries, especially developing countries. China as the main birthplace of farming civilization long led the world in agrarian civilization. However, after the industrial revolution, for historical and societal reasons, the Chinese economy fell far behind those of the Western developed countries, having missed the opportunities of the industrial revolution.

In 1978, China’s per capita average income was only US$190, placing it in the ranks of the least developed low-income countries in the world. There were still 250 million people in poverty. Therefore, shaking off poverty through rapid industrialization was the most direct, the simplest, and the strongest desire of the Chinese people at that time. During reform and opening up, GDP has long been seen as the one and only indicator measuring the national and regional economic growth, and the pursuit of rapid GDP growth became the chief development goal of the entire nation. It was not just China that equated economic growth with development at that time: Other countries did so too. The United Nations also took economic growth as the main objective in its first and second ten-year development plans drawn up for developing countries. This out-look was compatible with the characteristics of China’s developmental stage at that time and with the demands of economic and social development. The all-out pursuit of economic growth played a positive historical role in China’s rapid establishment of a complete industrial system and lifting people out of poverty in the short term. That said, it is an undeniable fact that we paid a price in resources and environment. China needs to explore a development path that is more intelligent, more efficient, more environmentally friendly and resource-saving.

We followed the mode of extensive economic development in an industrial civilization context. Since 1978, owing to the simple pursuit of economic growth in development, economic growth was chiefly measured by GDP growth, and China’s pillar industries were almost all energy-hungry and high-pollution industries, such as mining, textiles, metallurgy, paper, steel, chemicals, petrochemical, and building materials manufacture. In the steel industry, for example, China’s crude steel6 production in 1996 ranked first in the world, accounting for 13.46 percent of world crude steel production; it has ranked first in the world’s crude steel production ever since then, with its share of the world’s crude steel production climbing from 13.46 percent in 1996 to 50.19 percent in 2015. It is undeniable that the developed steel industry has brought huge economic benefits and employment, but it has also led to serious pollution. In some regions or cities water, soil, and air are seriously polluted because of the concentration of large iron and steel enterprises there. Hebei Province, China’s largest steel producing province, ranked first in the country for its pig iron, crude steel and steel output for 12 consecutive years. In the Chinese steel industry there is a common saying,“For the world’s steel production, look to China, and for China’s steel production, look to Hebei.” While the iron and steel industry in Hebei has brought significant GDP growth, it also makes the province China’s hardest hit area of smog pollution. Tangshan, Baoding, Xingtai, Handan, etc. have long occupied top ten positions in China for their poor air quality. One of the most important sources of pollution is the steel industry. In 2016, Shijiazhuang City in Hebei Province took extreme measures for 45 days at year end in order to fulfill its annual assessment targets of reducing PM2.5 concentration by 10 percent over the year, and to ensure that there was no weather with an air quality index daily average of 500 before the end of the year. It implemented the most stringent air pollution control operations in November-December, ordering the shut-down of thousands of coal-fired enterprises, so that all Shijiazhuang’s steel, cement, coking, casting, glass, ceramics and calcium and magnesium industries ceased production. In recent years, similar practices have not been uncommon. In 2015, the APEC Summit was held in Beijing. In order to improve air quality, Hebei Province shut down 7,926 enterprises for the period of the APEC meeting, limiting the production of more than 500 enterprises. According to incomplete statistics, the economic losses caused by the control of air pollution during this period reduced Hebei’s GDP that year by 1.75 percent. It can be seen that the contradiction between economic development and ecological protection is already very acute.

China’s position as “the world’s factory” shows the gravity of polluting emissions. China overtook the United States in 2010 as the world’s largest manufacturer. In 2015, China ranked first in the world for some 200 of the world’s 500 major industrial products. These include: crude steel (eight times the US level, 50 percent of total global output), cement (60 percent of total global output), coal (50 percent of total global output), automobiles (more than a quarter of the world’s total supply). China is also the world’s largest producer of ships, highspeed trains, robots, tunnels, bridges, highways, chemical fiber, machinery and equipment, computers and mobile phones.7 Trade statistics show that the share of exports of goods from developing countries to the world’s total increased from 33 percent cent in 2005 to 42 percent in 2015, and China’s contribution to this increase is particularly striking. Since the 1970s, the share of exports of goods from developed countries such as the United States and Europe, which used to occupy an important position in the world’s exports, has declined continually, whereas China’s share of exports had continued to climb, especially in the early 21st century, not only surpassing Western developed countries, but becoming the world’s largest exporter. By 2015, China’s exports of goods had accounted for 14.2 percent of the world’s total, and China’s manufactured exports, which took up 94.85 percent of China’s total exports, had represented 18.6 percent of the world’s total.8 Undeniably, trade exports have pushed the development of China’s economy, but over the years, China’s production and exports have chiefly been labor-intensive and low value-added products, with high resources and energy consumption, low added value, and high carbon intensity. In the pattern of economic globalization, China is at the low end of the international industrial chain, and, in the process of undertaking international industry transfer, the “polluters’ paradise” effect is obvious.