Asia Water Wire - China

CHINA : Coveting Neighbourhood Energy Resources

Wed, 30 Jan 2008 01:02:20 -0600

By Antoaneta Bezlova

BEIJING, Jan 25 (IPS) - Even as it expands economic cooperation with its wary South-east Asian neighbours, China’s thirst for energy is compelling it to resurrect territorial claims to resources-rich spots in the region that have lain dormant for years.

ENVIRONMENT-CHINA: Liao River in Deep Trouble

Fri, 19 Oct 2007 07:06:38 -0500

By Jie Cao*

TIELING, China, Oct 19 (IPS/AMIC) - “When I was young, if we had visitors, we’d go to the river to catch fish with a net. We could catch many big fish of different kinds,” recalled septuagenarian Xie, who lives in this village in the north-eastern Chinese province of Liaoning. “At that time, there were big willows on the riverbank, so the villagers could relax under the trees in summer.

CHINA: Three Gorges Dam May Displace Millions More

Mon, 15 Oct 2007 21:42:53 -0500

By Antoaneta Bezlova

BEIJING, Oct 12 (IPS/IFEJ) - As a trickle of environmental problems emerging from the Three Gorges dam area steadily grows into a deluge, Chinese authorities have begun weighing plans to relocate several million people to avert an ecological catastrophe.

CHINA: Shanghai Under Siege

Wed, 13 Jun 2007 21:15:40 -0500

By Antoaneta Bezlova

SHANGHAI, Jun 7 (IPS) - Few people in this city ever imagine that their future would be defined by the ocean's rising tides. Dire climate change predictions have failed to stir public imagination into conjuring up images of China's most forward-looking city being engulfed by seawaters.

ENVIRONMENT: China — New Promoter of Mega Dams

Wed, 13 Jun 2007 21:18:01 -0500

By Antoaneta Bezlova

BEIJING, May 23 (IPS) - China is emerging as a new backer of massive dam projects around the globe, giving rise to fears for pristine natural resources and the cultural heritage of river peoples.

Decades Later, 'Model' City Still Battling Desert Storms

Thu, 30 Nov 2006 21:04:19 -0600

By Antoaneta Bezlova

KORLA, China, Nov 8 (IPS) - When the city of Korla rose from the Taklamakan desert in mid-1950s, it was hailed as a triumph of human willpower over adverse nature. Thousands of soldiers dispatched by the Chinese Communist Party put this place on the map in China's far west Xinjiang province, by digging 600 kilometres of channels to coax underground water to large collective farms.

Taklamakan - Where Oil and Water Don't Mix

Wed, 06 Dec 2006 20:33:03 -0600

By Antoaneta Bezlova

HOTAN, China Oct 30 (IPS) - It takes two people to do it. To keep a watch on the desert road which emerges from the sands and disappears back into the sands. The cabin by the road where they live -- the sole human dwelling that meets the eye in the flat, open infinity of the desert -- is a well station, identified only as ‘no. 27'.

Target -- Water Technology from Singapore

Tue, 24 Oct 2006 23:18:45 -0500

By Antoaneta Bezlova

BEIJING, Sep 21 (IPS) - Faced with water problems that many fear are beyond repair, China is looking to tap Singapore's expertise in growing and thriving on limited water resources.

Integration of Resource-rich Tibet Stepped Up

Tue, 24 Oct 2006 22:56:09 -0500

By Antoaneta Bezlova

BEIJING, Sep 15 (IPS) - China has intensified its long-term quest to integrate the remote land and people of Tibet by building new infrastructure and drawing up plans to tap the Himalayan region's virgin water sources and its rich reserves of copper, gold and hydrocarbons.

Congress Underscores Water Challenges

Tue, 24 Oct 2006 22:57:15 -0500

By Antoaneta Bezlova

BEIJING, Sep 8 (IPS) - When the World Water Congress convenes this weekend in Asia for the first time, the choice of the Chinese capital would be nothing but befitting. The 1.3 billion people of the world's most populous country have at their disposal only a quarter of the water per person that is available on average around the world.

Advance of Deserts Slows But Continues

Wed, 27 Sep 2006 03:47:07 -0500

By Antoaneta Bezlova

BEIJING (IPS) - China is claiming a partial victory in slowing the spread of encroaching deserts but has admitted that the centuries-old war to stop the sands eating up farmland will probably never be won completely.

The approaching 2008 Olympic Games, which Beijing has promised will be "green", has inspired the government to launch ambitious, expensive programmes to combat desertification.

Three Gorges Dam Holds Lessons for Green Activists

Wed, 27 Sep 2006 03:42:21 -0500

By Antoaneta Bezlova

BEIJING (IPS) - As the last loads of concrete are poured into the wall of the world's largest dam and the waters behind rise, the long battle against the Three Gorges Dam -- spanning generations of Chinese leaders -- is considered lost.

But green activists here say the completion of the huge reservoir is only the beginning of an even harder fight to preserve the country's last virgin rivers and dwindling water resources.

Groups Seek Audit of World's Biggest Dam

Mon, 29 May 2006 03:01:25 -0500

By Emad Mekay

WASHINGTON (IPS) - The mammoth Three Gorges dam in China is attracting renewed calls for an independent financial and environmental audit, as concerns mount over the hefty costs of the world's largest dam and its social and environmental impacts.

The Toronto-based environmental group Probe International (PI), which put up stiff opposition to Canadian financial backing for the multi-billion-dollar project, said that claims by the dam authorities that the Three Gorges project will cost some 25 billion dollars have never been independently verified.

Harbin Disaster Warns Cities of Water Shortage

Tue, 24 Jan 2006 05:49:10 -0600

By Wang Jiaquan

BEIJING (Asia Water Wire) - Water security is no longer an imaginary challenge for the China’s city officials to contemplate, after the shutdown of water supply in Harbin, capital of the north-eastern province of Heilongjiang, more than a week ago.

In Harbin Disaster, Rural Folk Take Brunt of 'GDP Mania'

Sun, 22 Jan 2006 23:26:08 -0600

By Antoaneta Bezlova

BEIJING, China (IPS) - As China grappled with the political and social fallout of trying to cover up a toxic spill in the country's impoverished north-east, rural communities emerged as the most forsaken in government responses to environmental hazards caused by rapid industrialisation.

An explosion at a state-owned chemical factory in Jilin city, earlier this month, caused large quantities of poisonous benzene to flow into the Songhua river that runs through Harbin city, forcing authorities to shut off running water to the 3.8 million residents for five days.