MIND THE ENVIRONMENT? BEIJING TAKES NOTE

FOR A 

BETTER BALANCE, 

MIND THE 

ENVIRONMENT? 

NANCHANG, CHINA, 1981 

First the prime minister, Wen Jiabao, brought up the issue, and now the environment minister, Zhou Shengxian, is weighing in on the need to balance economic development and the environment. Okay, so we are talking about the environment minister, after all, but this is China, the People's Republic-Growth-Ueber-Alles-of, and foxes have been put in charge of henhouses before, even in the U.S. of A. 

As can be seen from the photograph above, now almost thirty years old, pollution, in particular industrial pollution, is hardly a new phenomenon in the PRC.