There is a place in China, Harbin, where from time to time some beautiful things happen, namely the Harbin Snow and Ice Festival which has been recorded in magnificent detail in 2003 and 2005 by R. Todd King. Over the years with the changes in the political and economic climate Harbin has fallen on some hard times
It was once a bustling hub of heavy industry, but many of its people have been out of work for years after local state-owned enterprises collapsed under the pressure of economic reform.
and most recently some very hard times
Wen visits Harbin; Russia offered sorry AP 200511270918 from China Daily China's premier visits waterless city 20051126
with the recent spill of over one hundred tons of benzene in the Songhuajiang River several hundred miles upriver from Harbin at Jilin. One hundred tons of benzene is an enormous amount of benzene by any measure, a large economic loss for those who spilled it, and a huge environmental and public health disaster for all those along the river. The immediate and future potential harm this benzene spill can have for millions of people is simply immense. The sheer ugliness of this chemical spill in every dimension stands in stark contrast to the great beauty that you can see in the photographs we've linked above from the Snow and Ice Festival. As China races headlong into the industrialized future, one she will likely dominate soon in the region and perhaps globally, the tension between economic and human values will only increase. We can only hope that broad public exposure of events like the recent ones in Harbin will help to achieve a better balance between the economic and human values. China will perhaps prove in the near future to be the ultimate test of how large societies can balance economic growth through free market systems, or nearly free market systems, with a broader concern for basic human values like adequate sources of clean water. What has happened here in China will affect the entire length of the Songhuajiang River downstream from Jilin through China, on through Russia and out into the North Central Sea of Japan which washes the shores of not only China, Russia, North Korea, South Korea and Japan, but also ultimately the Pacific Rim and the rest of the world. This is a global event that bears watching closely not only for the Chinese response but also the responses of all those affected.
No comments:
Post a Comment