WE MUST BE DETERMINED TO TREAT THE UPSTREAM POLLUTION OF THE HUANGPU RIVER1
JULY 26, 1989
This meeting is not only about protecting the upstream waters of the Huangpu River, it is also about protecting Shanghai’s ecoenvironment. The Huangpu is Shanghai’s “river mother”—without the Huangpu, there would be no Shanghai. We should have the same deep affection for the river as we would for our mothers. I hope Shanghai’s writers and musicians can compose a song—“My Home Is on the Huangpu River”—that will instill the love of China and love of Shanghai in the people of Shanghai and arouse their enthusiasm to revitalize both. This is also a form of patriotic education.
Importance of Pollution Control
What benefits the Huangpu has brought to Shanghai! “A city prospers through its port”—without the port, there would be no city; without the Huangpu River, there would be no port of Shanghai, and there would be no prosperity in the city. Shanghai has no mineral resources—the Huangpu River is its most precious resource. Every day, we take 10 million tons of water from this river for production and for daily life—without the Huangpu River, Shanghai could not survive and develop. However, the pollution of the river’s water is now severe. I’ve received many letters from the public, all expressing great concern about pollution of the upper reaches of the river.
Huangpu’s pollution is getting worse by the year: in 1988 the water was foul for 229 days, a tenfold increase from 1963. We can’t keep ruining the Huangpu like this; we can’t keep treating our river mother with such an attitude! Protecting the sources of the Huangpu and Shanghai’s ecoenvironment is a major task that will affect the health of Shanghai’s 12 million or more people and their future generations.
Since 1985 the city government has taken a series of measures to protect the river’s sources and improve its water quality. For example,
At an on-site meeting held at the Shanghai Wujing Petrochemical Factory on protecting water sources in the upper reaches of the Huangpu River, July 26, 1989. On the left, Cai Yana, chief engineer of the factory, and Vice Mayor Ni Tianzeng.
—We drafted the “Shanghai Regulations on Protection of the Upstream Sources of the Huangpu River,” which was reviewed and passed by the Municipal People’s Congress.
—We embarked on 162 projects to treat pollution of water sources and have completed 60 of these, thereby reducing pollution of water sources by 30%.
—We completed phase one of a project to channel upstream water and built a water intake point at Linjiang, which has improved water quality for a majority of the city’s residents.
However, because the pollutants discharged by factories along the upper reaches of the Huangpu have not been effectively controlled and treated, water quality is still deteriorating. Many people, including deputies of the Municipal People’s Congress, are all asking us to immediately start work on phase two of the Huangpu upstream channeling project. That is to say, they want the water intake point to be moved further upstream from its present site at Linjiang to the vicinity of the Songpu Bridge. This is a good idea, and work on the second phase will start sooner or later.
However, some difficulties remain. First of all, we don’t have the money: RMB 800 million to 900 million had been budgeted for this project, but the actual amount required appears to be over RMB 1 billion. Shanghai cannot come up with so much money right now. Second, even if we had the money for such a large project, it would still have to be approved by the State Economic Commission. In view of the challenging economic situation, the money isn’t available, nor would the state approve. Third, even if this project were to be completed, water quality near the Songpu Bridge would still deteriorate unless the pollution was addressed. Hence the fundamental measure required here is to treat the pollution. This is much more urgent than moving the water intake site upstream; it would be far more effective and require much less money. Instead of making ineffective attempts, let us employ desperate measures and treat the pollution with the greatest determination—this is the most pressing task of the moment.
Of course treating pollution is a very tough job. Otherwise why would it have dragged on for such a long time? As I said just now, all parties have done a lot since 1985 to protect our water sources, and this achievement should be recognized. However, if we don’t do this job properly, all our previous efforts will have gone to waste. The most obvious dilemma we face now is: do we want the products of the polluting factories or do we want to protect the environment? Of course it would be best to have it both ways, but that’s hard to do. Instead we’ll have to sacrifice something no matter what, and we can only try to minimize production losses as much as possible.
Given this principle, the goal of our meeting today must be to resolve to treat pollution of upstream water sources. Discharges of polluted water from the 12 upstream factories now account for 85% of total pollution in upstream water sources. We’ve already reduced total pollution by 30%. If we can properly treat the pollution from these 12 factories, we’ll achieve an additional 30% reduction and reach our goal of a 60% reduction in the upstream area by the end of 1990. This way, water quality in the vicinity of the Linjiang intake point can be maintained at Grade III, and it will revert to the quality it had when the Linjiang intake point was built. Of course there may be a few days during tidal changes when the water quality is poor, but on the whole it will be stable. That’s why we must focus on these 12 big polluters and set pollution control targets for them one by one. Today, with the top three agencies all present, we’re making the decisions in person here and now. I’m asking our retired veterans Jin Huaigang2 and Wu Ruoyan3 to act as witnesses.
Six Expectations for Treating Pollution
As soon as this meeting is over, you should implement the things decided on here. I am laying out six expectations in this regard.
1. Targets Must Be Met. Pollution treatment targets for all upstream industries must be met on schedule by the end of 1990, and efforts should be made to do so ahead of schedule. We know the rates of progress for each pollution treatment project and have specified the expected months and dates of completion. These have all been entered into the records, and come next year, I will inspect the results. The expectations and rates of progress for each pollution treatment project decided at today’s meeting should become the most important criteria for assessing the performances of factory directors. By “most important criteria,” I mean that if these criteria are not met, then even if all other conditions are met, a factory director would not be considered a good director because he failed to act according to the intent of the Municipal Party Committee and government.
We are building socialism on a foundation of public ownership and cannot allow profit-seeking above all or putting profits before principles to serve as rules that guide our behavior. First and foremost, every enterprise must serve the needs of the big picture and give priority to the people’s interests. Party members must use their sense of Party values to ensure they complete the tasks given them by the Party and government. Factory directors must make full use of their subjective initiative and must not just stress objective factors. Penalties will be meted out to directors who don’t focus sufficiently on their work and who fail to complete their tasks because they subjectively did not do their best, rather than because of insurmountable objective difficulties.
After today’s meeting, the major criterion for evaluating factory directors at all industrial enterprises should be whether environmental protection targets have been met. If we don’t focus on this criterion, factories will keep producing and bringing benefits while they also keep polluting and ultimately offsetting those benefits—what good is it to go on producing like this? Of course there are many objective reasons—many problems were built up over decades, and we can’t effectively treat all pollution at once. However, we must make efforts at treatment, bring about gradual improvements, and not allow the environment to continue to deteriorate. We have to focus very hard on this, and we must keep tight controls on emissions targets. The Bureau of Environmental Protection must assume its responsibilities: evaluate strictly, be utterly impartial, and act according to the law. This is the only way we can hope to succeed in treating the pollution of Shanghai’s water sources.
2. Put the Clamps on Approvals of Projects That Pollute.We must stop reviews and approvals for all projects that create pollution in upstream water sources. No more polluting projects should be allowed within the water-source and feeder-protection zones. No projects that increase total pollution should be built within these zones. Whoever approves a project will be responsible for it.
After July 26 the construction of any newly approved polluting project will be halted as soon as it is discovered, and the person who approved it will be responsible for all losses incurred and for compensation. This must be strictly implemented by the district and county governments involved with upstream water sources, and they must act as good gatekeepers. The main districts and counties included in the protection zone are Minhang, Xuhui, Nanshi, Songjiang, Qingpu, Chuansha, Shanghai, Fengxian, and Jinshan. They must pay special attention to township and village enterprises (TVEs) as well as joint ventures and joint operations and prevent them from starting any more polluting projects. The Municipal Bureau of Environmental Protection must be strict in its supervision and inspections.
3. Halt Projects Already Approved. We must halt the implementation of all polluting projects that have already been approved. In principle, if a project has been approved but construction has not yet begun, it should be halted, or basically halted. In individual cases where a contract has been signed with foreign entities and our international reputation is involved, you might first talk it over with the foreign parties and tell them that the city government has ruled that pollution must be treated at all projects built on the upper reaches of the Huangpu River. Since this would require a large infusion of capital so the project would no longer yield many benefits, might it be possible to cooperate by switching to a different, pollution-free project? If there really is no way out, then you should prompt the foreigners to take practical measures to ensure that pollution emissions meet the designated targets. If a domestic project, halting it won’t lead to very great losses, so we must be resolved to stop its construction.
The 12 big companies account for 85% of total pollution; another 15% comes from TVEs, so they must also treat pollution and gradually get their 15% under control. They mustn’t spend all the money they make. They should save some of it and take active measures to treat their pollution.
4. Ask All Enterprises to Join in Pollution Control. All enterprises must emphasize treating pollution and protecting the environment. They should educate all their employees about treating pollution and protecting water sources, and enhance their awareness of environmental protection. Strengthen management, mobilize people to come up with ideas, think of ways, make reasonable suggestions, and use collective wisdom and a collective effort to reduce pollution as much as possible.
At the same time, improve the maintenance and upkeep of existing environmental protection facilities and make full use of them. Some factories have environment protection facilities but don’t maintain them properly, and some don’t even use them, secretly discharging untreated wastewater. This is reprehensible—it is falsification and should be punished. We should identify a few typical examples and publicly state our criticisms in the newspapers. News should be oriented in a way that prods enterprises to do better and promotes improvement of social mores—in this regard, oversight by the media can play a very great role. If a factory is found to continue discharging untreated waste, it must halt production. We cannot allow pollution treatment equipment to lie idle while polluting production goes on as usual. If pollution treatment equipment is not repaired, polluting production must cease. The Municipal Bureau of Environmental Protection must draw up some firm rules here.
5. Make Use of Sci-Tech to Treat Pollution. Scientific research must be closely integrated with environmental protection. Treating pollution properly and protecting the environment properly both require sci-tech breakthroughs. I call out to sci-tech circles in Shanghai: sci-tech workers should go to enterprises, identify research topics, accept tasks, help make breakthroughs, and use Shanghai’s strengths in sci-tech to do a good job of protecting Shanghai’s water sources and ecoenvironment. If we can’t solve the problems of sci-tech breakthroughs, we won’t be able to treat pollution merely through administrative fiats. Therefore we must draw up and adopt some practical and effective measures.
6. Provide Strong Leadership. Leaders at all levels and the departments in charge must truly help enterprises solve their difficulties and complete their pollution treatment tasks. The Bureau of Environmental Protection is not the only agency responsible—the municipal planning, construction, and science commissions as well as the industrial bureaus all have to give enterprises assistance that genuinely helps solve their difficulties, so that they can complete their pollution treatment tasks ahead of schedule and according to plan. Funds for pollution treatment will mainly have to come from enterprises themselves. The severe polluters must use some of their production funds for this purpose. They should inform all their employees that if pollution treatment targets are not met, the factory will halt production, bonuses will be withheld, and wages may also be cut. It is absolutely impermissible for treatment targets to go unmet, production to continue as usual, and wages and bonuses to be paid as usual. We also have to draw up some measures in this regard. In short, treating pollution will mainly depend on enterprises, but all the departments in charge must also work with them and help them address this problem.
If you don’t disagree with the points I have made, I’ll ask [Vice Mayor Ni] Tianzeng to submit a report to the Municipal People’s Congress. After its review, the People’s Congress will pass a resolution and draft a law on the matter. I hope that the People’s Congress will put a “golden hoop”4 on my head and that I can also put a “golden hoop” on all your heads. We must implement the laws strictly: we mustn’t take advantage of relationships, mustn’t think about saving face, and mustn’t favor those close to us. We must be determined to handle matters according to the law.
1. This speech by Zhu Rongji was delivered at an on-site meeting on protecting water sources from the upper reaches of the Huangpu River.
2. Jin Huaigang was formerly director of the Shanghai Bureau of Tunnel Projects and director of the Municipal Environmental Protection Bureau; at the time, he was a member of the city government’s Advisory Group on Urban Administration.
3. Wu Ruoyan was formerly deputy secretary-general of the Shanghai municipal government; at the time, he was a member of the city government’s Advisory Group on Urban Administration.
4. Translator’s note: in the classic Chinese novel Journey to the West, there is a weapon with magical powers known as a golden hoop. Such a hoop was fixed around the head of Monkey King Sun Wukong, and by reciting incantations that tightened the hoop, the monk Xuanzhang could control Sun Wukong. This later became an expression used to describe something that can constrain others.