Poison Air, Dead Pigs, and Cancer Rice: The Reform China Really Needs

The bad news doesn’t stop coming. First, Beijing residents learned that breathing their air on a daily basis was akin to living in a smoking lounge. Then Guangdong residents learned that Hunan rice sold in their province in 2009 was contaminated with cadmium, which is carcinogenic and can cause severe pain in joints and the spine. And just this past weekend, Shanghai residents watched more than three thousand diseased pigs float down part of the city’s Huangpu River.

The good news is that the Chinese people finally know what they are up against. The bad news is that addressing these problems requires not only the technical fixes that are typically proposed but also the proper policy environment for the technical fixes to work. These problems are emblematic of a systemic challenge, and nothing short of an overhaul in how the environmental protection is managed from top to bottom will suffice. Here are a few things that the Chinese people appear to be seeking.