CFR’s Elizabeth C. Economy says there are increasing calls for more democracy in China and the Communist Party Congress will have to deal with who will become the so-called “fifth generation” of Chinese leaders.

If China ever agrees to binding greenhouse gas emissions caps, CFR’s Elizabeth Economy says the nation will need a “wholesale mindset change” to reach those goals.

China's environmental woes are mounting, and the country is fast becoming one of the leading polluters in the world. The situation continues to deteriorate because even when Beijing sets ambitious targets to protect the environment, local officials generally ignore them, preferring to concentrate on further advancing economic growth. Really improving the environment in China will require revolutionary bottom-up political and economic reforms.

Elizabeth C. Economy, CFR’s director of Asian studies, says that President Bush’s legacy in Asia “will not be a terribly positive one.”

Selected by the Globalist as one of the top ten books of 2004, The River Runs Black is the most comprehensive and balanced volume to date on China's growing environmental crisis and its implications for the country's development.