Solar panel factory protests tarnish China's clean-tech efforts | Environment | The Guardian

China's ambition to build a harmonious clean-tech economy lost some of its sheen on Sunday after a violent confrontation over pollution from a solar panel factory.

Riot police broke up a four-day protest by several hundred villagers in Haining, Zhejiang province, who overturned cars and stormed the compound of a photovoltaic manufacturer that is accused of releasing toxins into a local river.

The demonstrators complained of police brutality and efforts to silence their voices in the latest in a rash of rallies and protests over environmental concerns in China.
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The clash highlights the difficulty that China faces as it tries to clean up its environment, reduce its reliance on coal and secure "clean tech" export business. The country is the world's biggest manufacturer of solar panels with about 70% of the global market, but overseas rivals say this dominant position has been achieved through unfair subsidies, low wages and lax environmental regulation.

Increasingly, however, Chinese citizens are uneasy about the consequences of pollution in all industries. As incomes levels and environmental awareness rise, there is a growing reluctance to accept dirty growth. Last month, the Dalian city government promised to halt a planned paraxylene (PX) plant after a rally by tens of thousands of people. In recent years, there have also been several violent demonstrations against battery factories and smelting facilities that are blamed for unhealthy levels of lead in the blood of children in some area. Many other smaller protests in the countryside go largely unreported.

Flashback: NYT's Thomas Friedman Again Praises Communist China for Getting Things Done | NewsBusters.org

[Friedman] There is only one thing worse than one-party autocracy, and that is one-party democracy, which is what we have in America today.

One-party autocracy certainly has its drawbacks. But when it is led by a reasonably enlightened group of people, as China is today, it can also have great advantages. That one party can just impose the politically difficult but critically important policies needed to move a society forward in the 21st century.