Mar 27, 2011
Ever
since Japan’s Fukushima nuclear crisis over two weeks ago, it has become
evident that Chinese officials are divided on nuclear safety. Zhang Lijun, Vice
Minister of Environmental Protection, stated on March 12 that China’s resolve
to develop nuclear power would not change. Yet on March 16, in an executive
meeting of the State Council, a comprehensive security check on nuclear
facilities was ordered posthaste throughout the country, and approval of
nuclear power projects was suspended.
Relying
on the Law is Not Enough
Government departments at various levels with
differing attitudes and responsibilities reflect that the country has been
taken hostage by interest groups. The country’s Environmental Impact Assessment
group (EIA) is the first hurdle for the establishment of a nuclear power plant,
which is exactly where corruption has hit the hardest.
As I have repeatedly stressed, a modern state
generally sets up three mechanisms for protecting the environment: the law, EIA
pre-operative interaction, and monitoring of industry pollution. The three
gate-keeping mechanisms do exist as a formality in China. The People’s Congress
and government at various levels have developed over 1,700 environmental
protection laws and regulations, according to 2008 data, and set up departments
dedicated to environmental assessment and monitoring. The depressing reality
however, is that China’s ecological environment is rapidly deteriorating and on
the brink of collapse. The EIA has become the first defective gatekeeper.
In the prevailing corrupt political setting,
with such a complete set of environmental agencies and over 1,700 regulations
failing to protect China’s environmental and homeland security, how can people
expect that the future “Atomic Energy Act” will be able to turn the tide?
Sources of Mistrust
The huge number of environmental problems,
including pollution and protests from environmentalists, has revealed a
maddening and depressing reality: with the steady increase of various types of
construction projects year after year, increasingly more people have come to
view the EIA as a big piece of pie, which has given birth to an interlocking
food supply chain consisting of business owners, EIA and local government
departments, and even officials of the Ministry of Environmental Protection,
all of whose interests are closely bound together.
An article published by Outlook Weekly in
April 2009 reported that from 2002 to June 2008, 487 staff from 22 provincial,
district and municipal environmental departments had been under investigation,
with several high ranking officials in environmental protection being fired due
to EIA corruption. The person in charge of the Ministry of Environmental
Protection’s EIA center was investigated for corruption. According to the
result of a random inspection conducted by the Ministry of Environmental
Protection in 2009, among 75 EIA agencies in 20 provinces, 30 have violations,
40 percent show poor work quality or poor management.
The EIA has already become a food supply chain
for some interest groups to seek profit: how can its reliability and
credibility be guaranteed? Moreover, regardless of technical skills, experts
cannot escape becoming servants to politics in China.
Take the Three Gorges project as an example.
In the 1989 Three Georges feasibility report, experts who withstood pressure
still concluded that the project would bring more harm than good to the
environment. However, the State Council rejected the conclusions and had
another team devise a more favorable report in 1991, for higher officials’
approval. The EIA treating even the epic Three Gorges project as child’s play
calls into question its handling of lesser projects.
It’s
no surprise that nearly all pollution cases in recent years have passed EIA
tests. Incidents where government departments tamper with expert reports have
been reported.
The Ministry of Environmental Protection
issued a “Notice about further strengthening the management of EIA on biomass
power generation projects” on Sept. 4, 2008. The appendix of this document
specifies that the minimum distance between the project site and neighboring
residential areas, schools, hospitals and other public facilities is 300 meters
(approximately 0.19 miles).
However, Zhao Zhangyuan from the Chinese
Research Academy of Environmental Sciences participated with the EIA on the
project, disclosing that the original safe distance was set to be 1,000 meters
(0.62 miles). He said that based on the toxicity of dioxin contamination, even
1,000 meters was too short, so there is absolutely no basis for setting the
distance at 300 meters.
Corruption
The
systemic corruption within China’s political infrastructure has also
infiltrated the field of nuclear power. Safety and quality control issues often
have to yield to cost control, profit and corruption. Since the end of 2007,
there have been three cases in China’s nuclear power system where senior
officials had been investigated for alleged corruption.
At the end of 2007, Jiang Xinsheng, the former
president of China National Technical Import and Export Corp. was investigated
by the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection for leaking secrets in a
nuclear-power-plant bidding.
At the end of 2008, Shen Rugang, the former
deputy general manager of China Guangdong Nuclear Power Group and over 20
staffers had been investigated. In 2009, Kang Rixin, general manager of China
National Nuclear Corporation was investigated.
Paul Felten, then-marketing director of the
French nuclear power company Areva, which was cooperating with China Guangdong
Nuclear Power Group, had been detained for more than two months in China for
alleged corruption. The prevailing critical issue is whether the quality of
nuclear power projects can be ensured.
Due to the strict censorship regime in China,
the government and the people have asymmetric information access. The regime in
China can block anything it does not want the people to know about as “state
secrets.”
A critical radiation leak occurred on Oct. 23,
2010 at the Daya Bay Nuclear Power Plant in Shenzhen, Guangdong Province (the
third accident in the plant within half a year.) The pipeline bearing coolant
from the No. 1 reactor had three cracks, with the longest being three inches,
leaking 2 mSv of radiation. China Light and Power Company, the major
shareholder of the plant, did not disclose the accident until three weeks
later.
Though
2 mSv is not a dangerous amount, the incident rattled residents. But only in
Hong Kong, which still has some freedom, could an emergency meeting of the
Legislative Council be held, criticizing the Chinese authorities for delaying
the release of relevant information and disregarding Hong Kong’s public safety.
Shenzhen residents were out of the loop.
Nuclear power projects carry much greater risk
than standard projects. Under China’s ruling system, nuclear safety is not just
a matter of technical competence; it is dictated by political and social
factors. Before the political root of corruption can be eliminated, suspending
construction of such projects is the only right choice.
_____________ He Qinglian is a prominent Chinese author and economist. Currently based in the U.S., she authored “China's Pitfalls,” which concerns corruption in China’s economic reform of the 1990s, and “The Fog of Censorship: Media Control in China,” which addresses the manipulation and restriction of the press. She writes regularly on contemporary Chinese social and economic issues.
