AsiaCast

Asia Cast Tuesday 31st July

Can China and the United States find common ground?
China sets up pollution blacklist and
China’s rain storm claims six-hundred and fifty lives.

There has been a lot of tension between Washington and Beijing recently. Washington suspects China is cheating at the game of global capitalism, and many in Beijing believe that the United States is worried that it will eventually be overtaken as the world’s largest economy and are trying to hold back a resurgent China.U.S Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson’s strategic economic dialogue was supposed to clean things up a bit and raise the level of debate between China and the United States. The thinking goes that if the two government¡¯s talk, with cabinet level ministers from both sides meeting regularly, then it will foster greater understanding.

Eight months on, and the relationship is more toxic than ever.

Many are wondering if Mr. Paulson’s regular meetings with China’s leadership are achieving anything. His four-day visit begins in Qinghai in the west, where he’ll be focusing on environmental issues, later he’ll meet with President Hu Jintao and Vice Premier Wu Yi.

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China’s environmental regulator is taking action on the countries growing pollution problem by blacklisting thirty companies that are pollution violators and Beijing has barred them from receiving bank loans.

The companies in question range from food processors to paper-makers and steel manufacturers. China’s emissions of carbon dioxide and pollutants have soared on the back of its ongoing economic boom.

China has set a target of cutting the emission of pollutants by 10% between 2005 to 2010.

However, with China now building about two new fossil fuel power stations every week, Western environmental commentators say it will be all but impossible for it to achieve that reduction.

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Chinese media have reported more than six-hundred and fifty people have been killed during weeks of flash flooding and landslides triggered by heavy rains.

The violent summer downpours have affected one-hundred and nineteen million people, destroyed four-hundred and fifty thousand homes and nearly eight million hectares of crops.

Seventeen people were killed across four provinces this weekend alone.

The Red Cross has launched a 7.7 million dollar appeal, calling it some of the worst flooding to hit China for a decade.

According to Xinhua news agency, more heavy rain is forecast for the south-west, north-west and north-east parts of China in coming days.

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In related news, Chinese media has reported that flash floods have trapped sixty-nine workers in a coal mine in central China¡®s Henan province.

More than one-hundred miners were working at Zhijian mine, two-hundred kilometres west of the provincial capital Zhengzhou, when the incident occurred early on Sunday.

Xinhua news agency said that the flooding triggered by heavy rain poured into the mine through an aluminium mine pit and an old shaft.

Thirty-three people escaped, but the rest were trapped by the water. Rescuers are trying to drill holes into the shaft where the miners are trapped to provide them with oxygen.

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Thousands of local people in Sichuan Province have protested against the Huaruen Beer Company Limited in China, for contaminating water sources, which led to clashes between the local armed police and petitioners.

China¡¯s Human Rights Information Centre said that Huaruen Blue Sword Beer Manufacturer under the banner of Huaruen Pioneer Company Limited, listed on Hong Kong Stock Exchange, undertook a general cleaning last week with its discharged water contaminating four channels that are used for agricultural irrigation at Yuanshi County of Shifang City.

It also largely polluted the underground water used by nearly ten-thousand local residents for consumption, agitating the local farmers. Shown in the government statistics, more than 70% of the rivers and 90% of the underground water in China has been contaminated nowadays.

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On the twenty-eighth of July, a heat wave hit Shanghai in China, reaching the highest recorded temperature of 39.1 o c.

The heat wave continued the next day with a temperature again breaking the record reaching as high as 39.6 o c.

These have been the highest recorded temperatures in China since 1963.