The Coming China Wars: Where They Will Be Fought and How They Can Be Won, Revised and Expanded Edition

Lax Environmental Regulations—China’s Rivers Run Black

The nadir of Zhang Jinhu’s career occurred in the fall, when thousands of his ducks unsteadily wobbled out of the nearby river with singed feathers and burned feet, became paralyzed, and died. A prosperous farmer with a flock of 4000 birds here on the northern outskirts of Beijing, Mr. Zhang had weathered the sporadic deaths of some his ducks from caustic river water over the last few years. But he was not used to this sort of prolonged carnage. No one doubts the pollution in the sudsy green river killed the ducks. But in this relatively poor and extremely polluted country, there is often no simple remedy for the millions of people such as Mr. Zhang whose livelihoods have been destroyed ...