'Social Risk' Test Ordered by China for Big Projects

Ray

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China Mandates 'Social Risk' Reviews for Big Projects - NYTimes.com

'Social Risk' Test Ordered by China for Big Projects


Residents protested last month in Ningbo, in Zhejiang Province, China, over the planned expansion of a petrochemical factory.

BEIJING — The cabinet of China has ordered that all major industrial projects must pass a "social risk assessment" before they begin, a move aimed at curtailing the large and increasingly violent environmental protests of the last year, which forced the suspension or cancellation of chemical plants, coal-fired power plants and a giant copper smelter.....

"No major projects can be launched without social risk evaluations," Zhou Shengxian, the environment minister, said at the news conference. "By doing so, I hope we can reduce the number of mass incidents in the future."

When the protests began, they drew mostly middle-age and older Chinese who had little to lose if the police put disparaging remarks about them into the files that the government maintains on every citizen. But over the past several months, angry youths have gathered from several towns and have used social media to coordinate their activities during clashes with security forces — trends that are certain to have dismayed the country's political leadership.....

Mr. Zhou also noted that effective Sept. 1, all government agencies in China had been ordered to make public all environmental impact assessments by posting them on the Internet, with a description of what the government planned to do about the assessments. The decision was announced at the time, but received limited attention.

Mr. Zhou said that mass protests tended to happen because of one or more of the mistakes that the government now intends to remedy. These mistakes involve projects that start without official approval, without proper environmental impact assessments and without an assessment of community sentiment, he said, and weak local governments may also be a factor.

He did not provide a description of how social risk assessments would be conducted, but he indicated that they would involve looking at the likelihood that a project would set off a public backlash....

Thousands of young protesters fought with the riot police for two nights in early July in Shifang, in western China, prompting the local government to announce the cancellation of a giant copper smelter that was seen by the demonstrators as a pollution threat. The government also issued a public warning on the Internet that any further protests would be met with force.

But the next night, the largest crowd yet gathered to demand the release of dozens of protesters detained during the two previous nights, and the local government backed down and released them.....

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With globalisation and abandoning Mao and Communism and forsake both for Western type of capitalism leading to corruption and get rich quick modes, the earlier caring for the common man has totally seared citizens of China and they are no longer ready to accept the heaps of indignity.

The Communist Party is aware that if there is another Tienanmen incident, China would explode, now that China has been opened to western thoughts of liberty and freedom, even if it is not being implemented.

It would shake and even topple the Chinese Communist and they dread that happening.

Therefore, now, Chinese Communist satraps will have to bother about the people and their concerns to the extent that it may simmer but not explode.
 

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