Clinton's visit can help clear the air in China

By Daniel A. Viederman
Special to CNN Interactive

U.S. President Bill Clinton should be advised not to jog in Beijing. A couple of days without wind, and smog fills the air. The combination of sulfur and nitrogen oxides and particulates emitted by cars, boilers and factories causes buildings across the street to disappear from view, eyes to sting and lungs to burn. Beijing is one of five Chinese cities among the 10 most polluted cities in the world, so the problem is not limited to the capital.

Clinton's pre-trip publicity notes that balancing growth of China's economy with improved protection of the environment is one of the topics he'll address with Chinese President Jiang Zemin. Clinton should take this discussion as far as he can, as the environment is one arena where U.S. interests clearly dovetail with Chinese needs. China's environmental performance has a global impact on climate change, biodiversity, acid rain and agricultural productivity. U.S. action on this front is vital not only for China, but for the world.

China's rhetoric on the need to balance economic development with environmental protection has been strong. As a developing country whose per capita forest and water resources are far below the world average, China cannot afford to further degrade the quality of its resource base, nor neglect persistent poverty. The government has vastly improved its environmental protection laws during the 1990s. Environmental non-profits have proliferated, evidence that citizen involvement in environmental issues has grown dramatically. Environmental reports on television, investigative journalism targeting polluters, and talk shows on environmental themes are now common. However, actual environmental improvement remains distant, hampered by continued prioritization of economic growth, local conflicts between environmental protection and jobs, and inefficiencies in China's regulatory enforcement.

In the view of Beijing policy makers, the least painful way for China to enjoy continued growth without sacrificing environmental quality is to aim for "clean production." Chinese policy documents charting the course to "sustainable development," like China's Agenda 21, emphasize the central role that modernized industry must play. Increasing the efficiency of China's energy use and the cleanliness of China's industry will move the country closer to meeting environmental protection goals, while maintaining the economic growth that is the source of legitimacy for the current political regime.

Importantly, China aims to have much of this transition to cleaner production paid for by others. Aid donors, primarily from Europe and Japan, hoping to promote their own producers of modern industrial technology in the Chinese market, fund industrial improvement projects and provide low-cost financing. The Chinese government frequently pits international against one another by the Chinese government, by granting operation licenses only to the companies that provide the most generous technology transfer.

Instead of being wary of helping China become more efficient, however, the United States should engage the opportunity wholeheartedly. U.S. interests will benefit along with the global environment. In the context of a cantankerous overall Sino-American relationship, practical assistance to protect China's environment can offer a non-controversial alternative.

Climate change is one sector that provides obvious opportunities. In the 21st century, China could replace the United States as the world's leading emitter of carbon dioxide and other so-called greenhouse. American assistance could help reduce China's greenhouse gas emissions while simultaneously reducing global demand for oil resources, forestalling plans to build hydroelectric projects on the scale of the Three Gorges Dam, and providing opportunities for American businesses to export efficient technology. Instead of fruitlessly trying to force China to accept curbs on its carbon dioxide emissions as part of the climate change convention -- a position to which China will not agree -- the U.S. Congress should much more productively debate practical assistance that will achieve the same ends. The U.S. government should increase aid available for China from the current paltry sum, and should focus it on environmental protection.

Because the U.S. Agency for International Development has been prevented from working in China, so has its subsidiary, the U.S. Asia Environment Program, whose mission is to promote U.S. companies selling environmental protection technology abroad.

The AEP's approach deserves support for matching environmental objectives with commercial ones.

The United States' relationship with China is littered with complex and controversial issues. Clinton's visit to Beijing provides a chance to make China's environment a healthier one and advance U.S. interests. Clinton must emerge from his discussions with China's leaders with concrete plans to cooperate in this mutually beneficial area.