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• Related Materials

  • The Lessons of Harbin
    By Elizabeth C. Economy, C.V. Starr Senior Fellow and Director for Asia Studies
    Op-Ed
    November 27, 2005

  • Economic Boom, Environmental Bust
    By Elizabeth C. Economy, C.V. Starr Senior Fellow and Director for Asia Studies
    Op-Ed
    October 22, 2004

  • The River Runs Black
    By Elizabeth C. Economy, C.V. Starr Senior Fellow and Director for Asia Studies
    Book
    April 2004

  • Interview with Elizabeth Economy - China's Development and the Environment
    Interview
    January 30, 2003

  • China’s Transition at a Turning Point: Session IV
    Transcript
    September 24, 2003

  See Also

  China, International Finance, Environmental Pollution

  Academic Modules

  Academic Module: U.S.-China Relations: An Affirmative Agenda, A Responsible Course

  Scorched Earth: Will Environmental Risks in China Overwhelm Its Opportunities?

  Authors:	Elizabeth C. Economy, C.V. Starr Senior Fellow and Director for Asia Studies Kenneth Lieberthal

  June 2007
  Harvard Business Review

  Many multinationals think they understand, and have tried to mitigate, the serious risks posed by operating in China—intellectual-property–rights violations, corruption, lack of transparency, potential political instability. Yet one of the highest risks of all—China’s massive environmental degradation—is barely discussed in corporate boardrooms.

  Consider the following: In December 2005, a chemical spill forced a four-day cutoff of water to a major northeastern city. There is serious concern about the potential impact of Beijing’s noxious air pollution on athletes during next year’s Summer Olympics. The International Energy Agency recently announced that China will surpass the United States as the leading contributor of the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide by 2009, more than a decade earlier than anticipated.

  In fact, China’s environmental problems are reaching the point where they could constrain its GDP growth. China’s State Environmental Protection Administration (SEPA) concluded in June 2006 that environmental degradation and pollution cost the Chinese economy the equivalent of 10% of GDP annually. This figure is echoed in more specific costs reported in the Chinese press: up to $36 billion in lost industrial output from a lack of water to run factories, $13 billion from the degradation and health impact of acid rain, $6 billion from the spread of desert regions, and the list goes on.

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  New CFR Books

  

  In Termites in the Trading System, Jagdish Bhagwati reveals how the rapid spread of preferential trade agreements endangers the world trading system.

  

  America Between the Wars explores how the decisions and debates of the years between the fall of the Berlin Wall and the collapse of the Twin Towers shaped the events, arguments, and politics of the world we live in today.

  

  In The Fall and Rise of the Islamic State, Noah Feldman tells the story behind the increasingly popular call for the establishment of the sharia—the law of the traditional Islamic state—in the modern Muslim world.

  Complete list of CFR Books.

  

  

  New Independent Task Force Reports

  Confronting Climate Change

  This report argues that the United States must lead with domestic action on climate change and proposes a U.S. negotiating strategy for a global UN climate agreement that includes commitments from all major economies, while also promoting a less formal Partnership for Climate Cooperation that would focus the world's largest emitters on implementing aggressive emissions reductions.

  U.S.-Latin America Relations: A New Direction for a New Reality

  This Task Force report examines changes in Latin America and in U.S. influence there, while taking account of the region's enduring importance to the United States. The Task Force offers an agenda for U.S. policy toward Latin America and identifies four critical areas that should provide the basis of a new U.S. approach.

  About Independent Task Forces at the Council.

  

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