Beware of turning blind eye to losses
Li Xing China Daily  Updated: 2005-12-08 05:49

Dinner tables for banquets at restaurants and hotels are being booked. Theatre seats for ballet shows or variety gigs are being reserved.

As the year draws to its end, it is time to tally achievement scores and celebrate.

Governments at various levels, especially, are expected to issue reports summarizing, for instance, the percentage rise in gross domestic product (GDP) and per capita income increases, as well as the completion of numerous public-concern projects.

The public will applaud the accomplishments, as some of the GDP increases have come from new roads, new community services and medical establishments, or investment in cleaning the air and environment.

However, the public should demand a genuine account of what sacrifices the people as well as the environment have sustained while these goals are being realized. The governments also should offer an authentic explanation of whether their undertakings will bring long-term benefits to the people, society, the Earth and even to the country's cultural heritage.

For instance, industries registered an increase of 11.1 per cent in value-added productions in the first three months, according to the National Bureau of Statistics.

However, in the same period of time, some 1,159 coal miners perished in 40 gas explosions or floods, according to the State Administration of Work Safety; this is not the total number of deaths in coal mine accidents as only those that killed 10 or more miners were counted.

This year, the State Environmental Protection Administration (SEPA) has been monitoring some 21,949 industrial plants, which are likely heavy polluters. In September, it reported that, in the first six months, these plants discharged 5 per cent more sulphur dioxide and 22 per cent more smog.

In the same report, SEPA also claimed that the discharge of solid waste, waste water and some chemical pollutants into the atmosphere and river systems saw a "significant" decrease. But that "decrease" has been tarnished as the administration is still grappling with the serious benzyl spill in the Songhua River caused by an explosion at a chemical plant of Jilin Petrochemical Corporation in Jilin City.

Meanwhile, we learn from medical professionals that the number of people suffering from lung or breast cancer or from various heart and coronary diseases continues to rise. We have yet to know how much more common people must spend on medical care and children's education, even though many already complain that medicines for a light cold cost several hundred yuan and the family of a retired teacher who died in the ICU of a hospital in Harbin of a serious coronary disease paid up to 5.5 million yuan (US$680,000) for 67 days' emergency treatment.

While we see more fancy hotels and office buildings springing up and new squares opening, we are saddened to see cities and towns lose their own traditional fabric and charm...

All the above facts and happenings should keep the public as well as the governments at all levels sober when the achievements are scored and tallied.

We should not only look at how much more we have recouped for revenue, how many more cars or much coal we produce and how fast the economy as a whole grows.

We should check and re-evaluate the losses in terms of human lives, the degradation of the environment, and the disappearance of our cultural and community tradition as well and find ways to make up for what we lose.

Email: lixing@chinadaily.com.cn

(China Daily 12/08/2005 page4)