VZCZCXRO3066
RR RUEHGH RUEHVC
DE RUEHCN #0277/01 3341719
ZNR UUUUU ZZH
R 301719Z NOV 09
FM AMCONSUL CHENGDU
TO RUEHC/SECSTATE WASHDC 3573
INFO RUEAEPA/EPA WASHINGTON DC
RUEHOO/CHINA POSTS COLLECTIVE
RUEHCN/AMCONSUL CHENGDU 4284

UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 04 CHENGDU 000277 
 
SENSITIVE 
SIPDIS 
 
DEPT FOR EAP/CM 
 
E.O. 12958: N/A 
TAGS: SENV PGOV PREL ECON EMIN SOCI CH
SUBJECT: GUIZHOU PROVINCE: GREEN INITIATIVES BELIE ITS CONSERVATIVE 
IMAGE 
 
REF: A) CHENGDU 230; B) CHENGDU 162 
 
CHENGDU 00000277  001.2 OF 004 
 
 
¶1.  (U) This cable contains sensitive but unclassified 
information - not for distribution on the Internet. 
 
 
 
¶2.  (SBU) Summary: Southwest China's Guizhou Province, an early 
adopter of Beijing's relatively new "Ecological Culture" policy, 
has become a leader on some environmental issues.  Guizhou 
established China's first environmental court, claims to foster 
a greater role for civil society in environmental issues, and 
has its own "Cities with an Ecological Culture" initiative. 
Officials claim Guizhou has aggressive policies addressing 
biodiversity, wastewater, and solid waste, and credit frequent 
interactions with U.S. government agencies and the International 
Crane Foundation, a U.S. NGO, as instrumental to their success. 
End Summary. 
 
 
 
Guizhou: Embracing "Ecological Culture" 
 
--------------------------------------- 
 
 
 
¶3.  (SBU) Introduction: The enormous environmental damage 
wrought by 30 years of overemphasis on GDP growth has forced 
Beijing to shift its focus to environmentally-balanced growth, 
Qu Liya, deputy director of the Guizhou Environmental Protection 
Agency (EPA), told Consul General recently in the provincial 
capital of Guiyang.  [Note: The "Ecological Culture" (shengtai 
wenming; often translated as "Ecological Civilization") concept 
became part of Party doctrine at the 17th Congress of the 
Chinese Communist Party held in 2007. End note.] "Ecological 
Culture" is part of China's  broader "Scientific Development" 
[kexue fazhan] strategy, Qu explained.  While environmental 
strategy is crafted in Beijing, provinces have considerable 
latitude in its implementation, she said.  (Comment: Although 
provincial government bureaus have two masters, the head of 
their counterpart agency in Beijing and the provincial party/ 
government leadership, provincial organizations exercise more 
control through budgetary funding, and control of all but the 
most senior assignments.  End Comment.) 
 
 
 
Leading China in Environmental Law 
 
---------------------------------- 
 
 
 
¶4.  (SBU) In 2007, the cities of Guiyang and Qingzhen 
established China's earliest environmental protection courts, Qu 
stated.  The majority of their cases thus far have been related 
to water pollution.  The courts also handle cases of misconduct 
by environmental officials.  In 2008, the Qingzhen City EPA 
director was sentenced to three years imprisonment for accepting 
bribes from polluting factories.  The Guiyang Intermediate 
People's Court is particularly noteworthy for a case in which 
the All-China Environmental Foundation (ACEF), a 
government-sponsored NGO (GONGO), was allowed to sue a 
government body, the Guizhou Province Land and Resources 
Administration.  In the words of a Greenlaw legal blogger, the 
Guiyang Court "can be considered to have made the boldest 
judicial attempts in advancing public interest litigation by the 
environmental courts" (ref A). 
 
 
 
¶5.  (SBU) Qu laid out three reasons which prompted Guizhou to 
establish such courts: 
 
 
 
a)  Water protection was especially emphasized in Guizhou 
(probably in part due to concerns about mining-related 
pollution); 
 
b)  Guizhou sought clearer jurisdictional rights to empower 
lower-level courts to handle cases within their jurisdiction (as 
opposed to administrative remedies that may have been applied 
more arbitrarily); and, 
 
c)  Courts provided fair, consistent enforcement mechanisms. 
 
 
 
CHENGDU 00000277  002.2 OF 004 
 
 
 
¶6.  (SBU) Lawyers in Guizhou have begun to specialize in 
environmental law, Qu said.  In 2005, about 20 Guizhou 
environmental lawyers participated in training sponsored by the 
American Lawyers Association.  In 2008, the American Lawyers 
Association again returned to Guizhou to study the development 
of Guizhou's environmental courts. 
 
 
 
Burgeoning Role of Civil Society 
 
-------------------------------- 
 
 
 
¶7.  (SBU) Environmental groups dominate China's limited but 
growing NGO sphere, Qu said, and she expects an increased role 
for them in civil society in the future.  After the Guizhou 
Environmental Science Society broke away from the Guizhou EPA, 
where it had been a government-sponsored NGO (GONGO), the group 
began to operate "independently" as a full-fledged NGO.  Qu 
stated that companies, social organizations, or individuals have 
the right to sue polluters or even the government.  In cases 
where EPA investigation and mediation fail to resolve a dispute, 
she added, a case will then be raised to an environmental court. 
 Qu was unaware, however, of any examples of individuals or 
other civil society groups lodging complaints against the 
government. 
 
 
 
¶8.  (SBU) Comment: Qu made hopeful statements that civil society 
was playing an increasingly important role in environmental 
policy in Guizhou, but provided few concrete examples.  We had 
never previously heard of a GONGO evolving into an independent 
NGO, as in the case of the "Guizhou Environmental Science 
Society."  In China, being a "full-fledged" NGO requires 
registration with the Civil Affairs Bureau and a local 
government office "sponsor" to oversee its work.  This "NGO" 
sounds more like club of researchers than a mass organization -- 
the former something the Chinese Government might tolerate, the 
latter something that might alarm it. 
 
 
 
¶9.  (SBU) Comment continued: That Qu was unaware of any civil 
society groups lodging complaints against the government may be 
a sign that there are few such cases or an unwillingness to 
discuss a sensitive topic.  A fully independent NGO would have 
great difficulty filing a lawsuit since it would probably lack 
legal standing.  While Guizhou Province set a precedent by 
allowing a GONGO to file a case, GONGOs have been reluctant to 
take on more sensitive cases.  The real breakthrough, a true NGO 
filing suit, has yet to come.  (ref A). End Comment. 
 
 
 
Greening Guizhou: "Cities with an Ecological Culture" 
 
--------------------------------------------- -------- 
 
 
 
¶10.  (SBU) Consistent with Beijing's Ecological Culture 
initiative, Guizhou officials have crafted the "Ecologically 
Civilized Cities" initiative.  Based on guidelines set forth by 
Qinghua University and the National EPA, the Guizhou cities of 
Guiyang, Anshun, Qingzhen, Kaiyang, and Zunyi have embraced the 
initiative.  "Ecological Culture" is a group of ecology-friendly 
values affirmed at the 17th Congress of the Chinese Communist 
Party in 2007, including forestation, clean water, energy 
efficiency and low carbon emissions that are to be implemented 
by making them part of the guidelines for determining which 
officials are fit for promotion.  Linking promotions to progress 
is a key change in a personnel evaluation system that, up to 
now, has had a blind, Soviet-like focus on GDP growth.  Guiyang, 
moreover, has been chosen to be a model for the rest of China in 
balancing industrial development with environmental protection, 
Qu added.  Reflecting its importance, Guiyang has hosted the 
national "Summit on Ecological Culture" multiple times. 
 
 
 
Drawbacks of GDP: Looking to Alternate, Green Yardsticks 
 
--------------------------------------------- ----------- 
 
 
CHENGDU 00000277  003.2 OF 004 
 
 
 
 
¶11. (SBU)  According to an October 2009 Xinhua press agency 
report, Guizhou "will improve its responsibility examination and 
evaluation system by diversifying it and putting energy 
conservation and environmental considerations into the 
evaluation system so as to create an incentive system that will 
promote the production of high efficiency energy saving and 
environmentally friendly products, and put extra effort on this 
in certain key areas and key industries and put extra stress on 
energy conservation in enterprise management." (URL at 
http://tinyurl.com/guizhou-ecologicalculture )  Much of the talk 
of "ecological culture" in official statements is discouragingly 
vague.  Guizhou's intention to use a yet unpublished "ecological 
culture" to decide which officials will be promoted is a hopeful 
sign.  We'll see from the results after the ecological 
culture-based evaluation system is put into effect.  End 
comment.]  End comment. 
 
 
 
U.S. Cooperation and the International Visitors Program 
 
--------------------------------------------- ---------- 
 
 
 
¶12.  (SBU) Twelve years ago, the Wisconsin-based International 
Crane Foundation (ICF) sponsored a series of projects to improve 
villagers' living conditions, and protect the crane population 
in Weining County's Caohai wetlands.  The projects were so 
successful that the Organizational Department of the Communist 
Party used it as a model for other biodiversity projects 
throughout China.  Since that time, Guizhou has continued to 
cooperate with the state of Wisconsin on environmental 
protection and biodiversity.  Guizhou has also since partnered 
with the United States on coal bed methane extraction 
techniques, which make use of otherwise wasted methane gas as an 
energy source.  Last July, Qu and others from Guizhou EPA 
travelled to Washington, D.C. to study water management as part 
of the State Department's Voluntary Visitors Program.  Qu was 
particularly impressed by environmental coordination between 
government, civil society, and individuals in the United States. 
 
 
 
Wastewater Treatment 
 
-------------------- 
 
 
 
¶13.  (SBU) Guizhou EPA has taken several concrete steps to 
improve water quality: 
 
 
 
a) Industrial Waste Water: All new factories must now obtain EPA 
permission before beginning production.  Old factories that 
violate wastewater policies must rectify their practices within 
a certain period of time, or risk being shut down. 
 
 
 
b) Domestic Waste Water: The Guizhou EPA plans on building waste 
water treatment plants in Guiyang, nine other cities, and all 88 
county capitals of Guizhou by June 2010.  Japanese firms have 
provided some of the necessary technology.  U.S.-based firm 
Western Water Group also has several contracts to build plants 
in Guizhou, but a critical lack of piping systems that would 
link the plants to the city sewerage systems poses significant 
challenges (Ref B).  At the town and village level, two enormous 
challenges still remain: 
 
-- First, many villages are scattered in remote, mountainous 
areas which would make building waste treatment plant 
prohibitively expensive. 
 
-- Second, public finance is a problem.  Beijing has promised 
matching funds, but most towns and villages cannot afford to pay 
their share under the matching scheme.  Beijing is considering 
funding the entire project, but facilities would have to be 
built slowly on a village-by-village basis. 
 
 
 
Solid Waste Treatment 
 
 
CHENGDU 00000277  004.2 OF 004 
 
 
---------------------- 
 
 
 
¶14.  (SBU) According to Qu, Guizhou Province is the leading 
producer of industrial solid waste in China due to its heavy 
mining sector.  Through technological breakthroughs, Guizhou now 
has a high rate of comprehensive utilization of solid waste. 
She mentioned a new power plant in Zunyi, which operates 
entirely on industrial waste from aluminum and ferroalloy 
factories.  The Guizhou Economic Commission has offered 
financial incentives to reuse solid waste.  However, this has 
caused problems with solid waste being recycled in unsafe ways. 
To combat this problem, Beijing issued standards on what types 
of solid waste can and cannot be recycled.  Guizhou EPA has 
instituted a monitoring and control system to enforce these new 
rules, but still needs to improve these further, Qu said. 
 
 
 
Conclusion: 
 
Guizhou Early Adapter of Leading Edge Environmental Policies 
 
--------------------------------------------- --------------- 
 
 
 
¶15.  (SBU) Although one of China's poorest and most politically 
conservative provinces, Guizhou claims to have been one of its 
more innovative in promoting environmental protection.  We 
believe two main factors drive Guizhou's interest in 
environmental protection. 
 
-- First, Guizhou's economy relies heavily on its mining sector. 
 Authorities recognized early on the damage that resulted from 
unchecked development, and became an early leader in promoting 
environmental protection. 
 
-- Second, Guizhou, like Yunnan, is renowned for its natural 
beauty, minority populations, and tourist destinations. 
Authorities realized the current and future importance of a 
vibrant tourism industry and how this ties in with environmental 
protection and economic goals. 
BROWN