Implementing ecologically sustainable development in China: The example of Heilongjiang Province

Georgetown International Environmental Law Review, Spring 2002 by Pickles, Michael

I. INTRODUCTION

The People's Republic of China ("China") is home to a host of environmental problems linked to a sizable population, a scarcity of arable land, a lack of potable water, and an inefficient industrial base. Because of its size and strategic importance, China's environmental problems have become an issue of international attention. China's great push for economic development comes at a time when the world's richest and most industrialized nations are seeking to balance economic growth with responsible policies for environmental protection. The essential question facing the international community is whether the developed nations of North America and Western Europe have a duty to reduce the output of pollution from their regions, while China and other underdeveloped "population powerhouses" build their national economies at the expense of adequate environmental protection. This issue most recently made international headlines when President George W. Bush announced that the United States would not comply with the clean air standards of the Kyoto Protocol.1

In its attempt to determine how China can simultaneously industrialize and relieve strains on the environment, the United Nations and other environmental policymakers have firmly touted sustainable development. This concept emerged as the environmental policy of choice at the 1992 U.N. Rio Conference2 and is based on a pragmatic and holistic approach to planning conservation and development for a particular region or ecosystem. The enormous multilateral support of the Rio Conference and its 800-page statement on the guiding principles of sustainable development3 inspired a multinational group of scientists and policymakers to attempt the creation of a comprehensive sustainable development plan in one of China's most ecologically fragile and internationally contentious regions: the Ussuri watershed region of Heilongjiang Province.4 This effort was a groundbreaking and ambitious experiment in sustainable development not only because it foresaw a complete land-use plan for a large, diverse geographical region and the implementation of a new Chinese regulatory body at the provincial level, but also because the planners worked to simultaneously duplicate these efforts in the Russian territory adjacent to Heilongjiang.5

This note will argue that although the process of developing a comprehensive land-use plan did not reach full fruition, the project helped raise environmental consciousness in Heilongjiang and led to new efforts to preserve the local ecosystem. Part II will give a brief overview of the history and significance of Heilongjiang Province and will also explain the basic principles of sustainable development. Part III will describe the goals of the Cooperative Report and its application of zoning principles. Part IV will examine three of China's most significant environmental problems and highlight the measures taken in the Cooperative Report to mitigate their threat to Heilongjiang's ecosystem. Part V will investigate the reasons for the Cooperative Report's failed implementation, and the subsequent successes in environmental protection in China that can be attributed to the project.

II. HEILONGJIANG AND THE USSURI WATERSHED: MANY PEOPLES, TWO NATIONS, AND ONE LAND

A. AN OVERVIEW

The Ussuri River6 flows north from Lake Xinkai to meet the Amur River just south of the Siberian city of Khabarovsk, forming the border between China and the Russian Federation. The land gradient flanking the Ussuri creates the low, marshy wetlands that occupy much of Heilongjiang's territory and the higher, drier hills on the Russian side.7 This region, which includes Heilongjiang and the Russian Federation's Primorskii and Khabarovskii Krais,8 is the primary home of the endangered Siberian Tiger and the near-extinct Amur Leopard.9

Heilongjiang Province in northeastern China comprises over 400,000 square kilometers and a population of over 36 million people.10 For more than a century, Heilongjiang has experienced a tumultuous history. Harbin, the provincial capital, is a cosmopolitan city with European-influenced architecture, designed mostly by the city's large Russian emigre population at the turn of the 20th century.11 The Russian population continued to increase after the Communist Revolution, but dwindled precipitously after the Japanese invasion of China in World War II, the post-war Soviet occupation, and the Maoist Revolution.12

Heilongjiang was also the geographic flashpoint for the deterioration of Sino-Soviet relations in the late 20th Century. In March 1969, Chinese troops crossed the Ussuri River and began to dig foxholes on an uninhabited island.13 This act led to clashes between Chinese and Soviet forces. Belligerent rhetoric passed between the two governments for the next several months,14 culminating in the visit to Beijing in October 1969 of a Soviet peace delegation, after which the threat of further military engagement receded.15 Nonetheless, the conflict caused irreparable harm to Sino-Soviet relations. The Chinese leadership decided to balance the threat of Soviet aggression by playing the "America Card," and Beijing began to make diplomatic overtures to the United States. By 1972, U.S. President Richard Nixon was in China.16