Chindia Alert: You’ll be Living in their World Very Soon
aims to alert you to the threats and opportunities that China and India present. China and India require serious attention; case of ‘hidden dragon and crouching tiger’.
Without this attention, governments, businesses and, indeed, individuals may find themselves at a great disadvantage sooner rather than later.
The POSTs (front webpages) are mainly 'cuttings' from reliable sources, updated continuously.
The PAGEs (see Tabs, above) attempt to make the information more meaningful by putting some structure to the information we have researched and assembled since 2006.
BEIJING (Reuters) – Limiting marriage to a relationship between a man and a woman will remain China’s legal position, a parliament spokesman said on Wednesday, ruling out following neighbouring Taiwan in allowing same-sex marriage, despite pressure from activists.
Taiwan’s parliament passed a bill in May that endorsed same-sex marriage, after years of heated debate over marriage equality that has divided the self-ruled and democratic island.
China, which claims Taiwan as its territory, has a thriving gay scene in major cities, but there has been little sign the ruling Communist Party will legalise same-sex marriage.
Asked at a news briefing whether China would legalise same-sex marriage, Zang Tiewei, spokesman for parliament’s legal affairs commission, said Chinese law only allowed for marriage between one man and one woman.
“This rule suits our country’s national condition and historical and cultural traditions,” he said. “As far as I know, the vast majority of countries in the world do not recognise the legalisation of same-sex marriage.”
Individual Chinese legislators have occasionally in the past few years proposed measures during the annual meeting of the largely rubber-stamp parliament every March to legalise same-sex marriage, without success.
There are no laws against same-sex relations in China and despite growing awareness of LGBT issues, the community has been the target of censors in recent months, fuelling fears of a growing intolerance.
Activists have asked people in China to propose amendments to a draft civil code en masse, though they have admitted they see little chance of success. The parts of the code relating to marriage are expected to pass into law next year.
The code makes changes on issues such as sexual harassment, divorce and family planning, but does not further the rights of the LGBT community, drafts published by parliament show.
Zang said the marriage section of the draft civil code maintains the bond as being between a man and a woman.
Prominent gay rights activist Sun Wenlin told Reuters he was disappointed in the comments, but not surprised.
“I feel that my partner and I are sacrificing our happiness for the country’s legal system,” said Sun, who three years ago had his application to legally marry his partner rejected by a Chinese court.
“They are undermining our life plan of choosing to marry the person we love
He added, “I feel I am being excluded, and am absolutely not a consideration for policymakers.”
Another activist, who asked not to be named, told Reuters there were cases in China of same-sex partners who had lost their homes after one of them died, as they lacked the legal protection of marriage.
“We hope these tragedies don’t keen happening,” the activist said.
President says sale of Lockheed Martin F-16Vs will go ahead if ratified by Senate
Military experts have said the jets would bolster Taiwan’s ability to counter the threat of air strikes from mainland China
A Taiwan Air Force F-16V takes off during a drill in May. Photo: EPA-EFE
Beijing warned it would take countermeasures against Washington for selling 66 fighter jets to Taiwan after US President Donald Trump said he had approved the US$8 billion deal.
Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Geng Shuang on Monday said the sale of Lockheed Martin F-16V jets was a serious violation of the one-China principle.
“China has made numerous solemn representations to the US on the sale of F-16V jets to Taiwan,” Geng said in a press conference, adding that the United States should halt the sale.
“The US has to bear all the consequences triggered by the sale,” Geng said. “China will take necessary measures to defend its self-interest based on the development of the situation.”
Geng gave no details of the action China would take. In July, Beijing said it would impose sanctions on US firms involved in a deal to sell US$2.2 billion worth of tanks, missiles and related equipment to Taiwan, describing it as harmful to China’s sovereignty and national security.
Liang Yunxiang, an international relations expert from Peking University, said one countermeasure Beijing might use was to suspend military-to-military exchanges with the United States.
‘Fighter jets trump battle tanks’ in Taiwan’s US arms priorities
Speaking to reporters in New Jersey on Sunday, Trump said that the sale would need to be ratified by the US Senate but that he had approved it.
“It’s US$8 billion. It’s a lot of money. That’s a lot of jobs. And we know they’re going to use these F-16s responsibly,” he said.
If the deal is approved by Congress, it will be the first time since 1992 that the United States has sold F-16s to Taiwan. Previous requests were rejected by the Barack Obama administration, which instead offered to upgrade Taiwan’s existing fleet of about 140 F-16A/B Block 20 aircraft.
During months of slow progress since the sale was outlined earlier this year, some lawmakers and defence experts had suggested that Trump was using the proposed deal as leverage to secure a better agreement for the US in talks to resolve its year-long
Taiwan’s presidential office and foreign ministry lauded Trump’s announcement, calling it a strong sign of the US’ commitment to its security and saying the deal would help to maintain regional stability.
“The new warplanes will greatly strengthen our anti-air defence capability and we will continue to be devoted to safeguarding peace and stability across the Taiwan Strait and in the region, thereby maintaining freedom and democracy in Taiwan,” presidential office spokesman Alex Huang said.
‘Fighter jets trump battle tanks’ in Taiwan’s US arms priorities
In a statement, Taiwan’s foreign ministry said persistent war games by the mainland around the island and in the East and South China Sea had not only sabotaged peace and stability in the region but also triggered grave concern from China’s neighbours.
It described Trump’s approval of the deal as a “strong indicator of the close and growing security partnership between the US and Taiwan”.
Opinion: Care needed over Taiwan arms deal
Military experts have said the new variant of the F-16, the Viper – which can carry a wide range of short and medium-range air-to-air missiles – is more able to counter the threat of an air strike from mainland China’s fourth-generation aircraft, such as the Su-35 and J-10.
Last week, Republican Senator Marco Rubio said the US administration had made progress in advancing the deal, which he called “an important step in support of Taiwan’s self-defence efforts”.
In July, the US also approved arms sales to Taiwan worth US$2.2 billion, including 108 M1A2T Abrams tanks and 250 Stinger portable surface-to-air missiles.
Beijing strongly opposes arms deals with Taiwan, which it considers a renegade province, but the US is obliged to help defend the self-governing island under the terms of its Taiwan Relations Act, effective since 1979.
At least 13 people have been killed and more than a million forced from their homes as Typhoon Lekima hit China.
Sixteen people were also missing after a landslide was triggered by the storm, state media reported.
Lekima made landfall in the early hours of Saturday in Wenling, between Taiwan and China’s financial capital Shanghai.
The storm was initially designated a “super typhoon”, but weakened slightly before landfall – when it still had winds of 187km/h (116mph).
The fatal landslide happened when a dam broke in Wenzhou, near where the storm made landfall, state media said.
Lekima is now slowly winding its way north through the Zhejiang province, and is expected to hit Shanghai, which has a population of more than 20 million.
Emergency crews have battled to save stranded motorists from floods. Fallen trees and power cuts are widespread.
Image copyright EPAImage caption A worker looks for his belongings at a construction site shelter collapsed by the storm
Authorities have cancelled more than a thousand flights and cancelled train services as the city prepares for the storm.
It is expected to weaken further by the time it reaches Shanghai, but will still bring a high risk of dangerous flooding.
The city evacuated some 250,000 residents, with another 800,000 in the Zhejiang province also being taken from their homes.
An estimated 2.7 million homes in the region lost power as power lines toppled in the high winds, Chinese state media said.
It is the ninth typhoon of the year, Xinhua news said – but the strongest storm seen in years. It was initially given China’s highest level of weather warning but was later downgraded to an “orange” level.
Media caption Typhoon Lekima inches towards China
Chinese weather forecasters said the storm was moving north at just 15km/h (9mph).
It earlier passed Taiwan, skirting its northern tip and causing a handful of injuries and some property damage.
Coming just a day after a magnitude six earthquake, experts warned that the combination of earth movement and heavy rain increased the risk of landslides.
Lekima is one of two typhoons in the western Pacific at the moment.
Further east, Typhoon Krosa is spreading heavy rain across the Northern Mariana Islands and Guam. It is moving north-west and could strike Japan some time next week, forecasters said.
BEIJING (Reuters) – Eighteen people were killed and 14 were missing in eastern China on Saturday in a landslide triggered by a major typhoon, which caused widespread transport disruptions and the evacuation of more than one million people, state broadcaster CCTV reported.
Typhoon Lekima made landfall early on Saturday in the eastern province of Zhejiang with maximum winds of 187 km (116 miles) per hour, although it had weakened from its earlier designation as a “super” typhoon, the official Xinhua news agency reported.
Thousands of flights were cancelled in eastern China, according to the country’s aviation regulator, with most flights into and out of Shanghai’s two major airports cancelled on Saturday afternoon, their websites showed.
China’s weather bureau on Saturday issued an orange alert, its second highest, after posting a red alert on Friday, when the storm forced flight cancellations in Taiwan and shut markets and businesses on the island.
The deadly landslide occurred about 130 km north of the coastal city of Wenzhou, when a natural dam collapsed in an area deluged with 160 millimetres (6.3 inches) of rain within three hours, CCTV reported.
The storm was moving northward at 15 kph and was gradually weakening, Xinhua reported, citing the weather bureau.
High winds and heavy rains battered the financial hub of Shanghai on Saturday afternoon, and Shanghai Disneyland was shut for the day.
Nearly 200 hundred trains through the city of Jinan in Shandong province had been suspended until Monday, Xinhua reported.
More than 250,000 residents in Shanghai and 800,000 in Zhejiang province had been evacuated due to the typhoon, and 2.72 million households in Zhejiang had power blackouts as strong wind and rain downed electricity transmission lines, state media reported.
Some 200 houses in six cities in Zhejiang had collapsed, and 66,300 hectares (163,830 acres) of farmland had been destroyed, CCTV said.
The storm was predicted to reach Jiangsu province by the early hours of Sunday and veer over the Yellow Sea before continuing north and making landfall again in Shandong province, CCTV said.
Coastal businesses in Zhejiang were shut and the Ministry of Emergency Management warned of potential risk of fire, explosions and toxic gas leaks at chemical parks and oil refineries.
Image copyright AFPImage caption Lekima has brought heavy rain to Taiwan
Chinese authorities have declared a red alert as a powerful typhoon heads towards the eastern coast.
Typhoon Lekima is currently battering Taiwan with winds of more than 190km/h (120mph) and is due to make landfall in China’s Zhejiang province on Saturday.
Emergency teams have been deployed to the region to guide relief work, China’s emergency ministry said.
Thousands of people further up the coast in Shanghai have been warned to prepare to evacuate.
Lekima, which is the ninth typhoon so far this year, strengthened into a super typhoon late on Wednesday, but Taiwanese authorities have since downgraded it to a regular typhoon.
Flood warnings have been issued for eastern sections of China’s Yangtze River and the Yellow River until Wednesday. The provinces of Jiangsu and Shandong are also on alert.
Cruise liners have been told to delay their arrival in Shanghai and some train services have been suspended over the weekend.
Beijing has also cancelled some trains heading to and from the Yangtze delta region.
Lekima is one of two typhoons in the western Pacific at the moment. Further east, Typhoon Krosa is spreading heavy rain across the Northern Mariana Islands and Guam. It is moving north-west and could strike Japan some time next week, forecasters said.
Media caption BBC Weather’s Sarah Keith-Lucas on typhoons Lekima and Krosa
Lekima was passing the north of Taiwan on Friday, causing flight cancellations and the closures of schools and offices.
Power was cut to more than 40,000 homes and the island’s high speed rail service was suspended north of the city of Taichung, local media reported.
The huge storm came a day after eastern Taiwan was rattled by a 6.0 magnitude earthquake. Experts said the risks of landslides triggered by the tremor were made more likely by the typhoon dumping up to 900mm (35 inches) of rain on Taiwan’s northern mountains.
Media caption The 6.0 earthquake in Taiwan was caught on cat cam
Lekima also brought heavy rain and high winds to south-west Japan on Friday, cutting power to about 14,000 homes, broadcaster NHK reported.
China’s weather bureau said Lekima was expected to have weakened further by the time it made landfall. The country has a four-stage colour-coded warning system, with red representing the most severe weather.
Armed F-16 fighter jets simulate attack followed by medium and long-range missile launches into eastern waters
People’s Liberation Army launched two large-scale drills close to Taiwan Strait on Sunday
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Taiwan has launched a military exercise including F-16 fighter jets in response to Beijing’s war games, which began on Sunday. Photo: AFP
Taiwan responded to Beijing’s military drill targeting the self-ruled island by deploying its most advanced fighter jets and firing 117 medium and long-range missiles on Monday and Tuesday.
Defence ministry spokesman Lee Chao-ming said the missiles were fired from the Jiupeng military base to waters off eastern Taiwan, with a range of 250km (155 miles), in an exercise covering five types of training for the island’s forces.
On Monday, Taiwan’s air force also dispatched two F-16 fighter jets armed with AGM-84 Harpoon missiles in a simulation of an attack off the island’s southeast coast.
Song Zhongping, a military commentator based in Hong Kong, said the Taiwan drill was aimed at the mainland Chinese exercise which began on Sunday. The location of the Taiwan drill meant its missiles’ electronic data could avoid detection by the People’s Liberation Army’s radar, he said.
Chinese military starts Taiwan Strait drills amid rising tension
“Taiwan is focusing on boosting self-defence, and building up a comprehensive air and sea defence network to counter military threats from the mainland,” Song said.
“The test firing of missiles is to boost the island’s self-defence capability. The military drill of the PLA has triggered a lot of concerns in Taiwan, and Taiwan is responding to it also through a strong military means.”
The PLA launched two large-scale military drills close to the Taiwan Strait on Sunday, after a notice issued by the Zhejiang Maritime Safety Administration prohibited ships from entering the waters off the coast of the eastern province between 6pm on Saturday and 6pm on Thursday.
The Guangdong Maritime Safety Administration said another set of military exercises would be held in the waters off Fujian province between Monday morning and Friday evening.
Observers said they expected PLA forces from the Southern and Eastern commands – whose area of responsibility includes Zhejiang and Fujian, which lie across the strait from Taiwan – to take part in the exercises.
Japan’s Ministry of Defence said on Monday that six Chinese warships had passed through the Miyako Strait – a waterway lying between Okinawa Island and Miyako Island – presumably in preparation for the drills.
Japanese military vessels said a Chinese class-three missile destroyer – a type 054A missile frigate – was sailing 240km north of Miyako Island on Saturday.
On Thursday, Japanese ships reported China’s type 052D destroyer Xining, type 054A missile frigate Daging, the guided missile frigate Rizhao, and the ocean comprehensive supply ship Hulun Lake, all entered the Pacific Ocean through the Miyako Strait.
This is China’s first war game to involve simultaneous exercises at two locations in waters near Taiwan since the 1995–96 Taiwan Strait Crisis, during which the PLA conducted a series of large-scale live-fire exercises in response to then-Taiwanese leader Lee Teng-hui’s visit to the United States, and ahead of the Taiwanese presidential election.
Hanoi says it has sent several messages to Beijing that a Chinese survey ship vacate the waters located in its exclusive economic zone
‘Vietnam resolutely and persistently protects our sovereign rights … by peaceful means on the basis of international laws,’ a foreign ministry spokesperson said
Vietnamese foreign ministry spokeswoman Le Thi Thu Hang. Photo: Reuters
Vietnam on Thursday called for the “immediate withdrawal” of a Chinese ship in the
, as the stand-off over the disputed waters intensified.
Beijing last week issued a new call for Hanoi to respect its claims to the resource-rich region – which has historically been contested by Vietnam, as well as Taiwan, the Philippines, Malaysia and Brunei.
Hanoi responded by saying it had sent several messages to Beijing insisting that a Chinese survey ship vacate its waters, and doubled down on Thursday with new demands for the vessel’s removal.
“Vietnam has had several appropriate diplomatic exchanges … requesting immediate withdrawal from Vietnam’s exclusive economic zone,” a foreign ministry spokesperson told reporters, while refusing to disclose the ship’s precise location.
“Vietnam resolutely and persistently protects our sovereign rights … by peaceful means on the basis of international laws,” Le Thi Thu Hang added.
The ship, owned by the government-run China Geological Survey, begun research around the contested Spratly Islands on July 3, according to the US-based Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS).
Before it was spotted, a Chinese coastguard vessel also patrolled near Vietnamese supply ships in a “threatening manner”, CSIS said.
China has not confirmed the presence of its ships in the area.
China’s neighbours boost coastguards as tensions rise in South China Sea
Beijing invokes its so-called nine-dash line to justify its claim to historic rights to the waterway, and has previously built up artificial islands as well as installed airstrips and military equipment in the region.
The line runs as far as 2,000km (1,240 miles) from the Chinese mainland to within a few hundred kilometres of the Philippines, Malaysia and Vietnam.
In 2014 Beijing moved an oil rig into waters claimed by Hanoi, sparking deadly anti-China protests across Vietnam.
The latest stand-off in the sea prompted a swift rebuke from the United States over the weekend, calling for an end to China’s “bullying behaviour”.
US accuses China of acting like a bully in the South China Sea
“China’s repeated provocative actions aimed at the offshore oil and gas development of other claimant states threaten regional energy security,” the US State Department said Saturday.
Aircraft could also be used to counterbalance Japanese and US military activities in the region, analysts say
China’s J-20 stealth fighter has gone into service in the Eastern Theatre Command. Photo: PLA Air Force
China’s J-20 stealth fighter has been officially deployed to the country’s Eastern Theatre Command, suggesting it will be focused on the Taiwan Strait and military activities between Japan and the United States, observers said.
The People’s Liberation Army Air Force posted a photo on its social media account this week showing the fifth-generation fighter tagged with the number 62001, designating the aircraft as part of a frontline unit.
Chinese media reported that the stealth fighter had entered the Eastern Theatre Command, which encompasses Taiwan.
Collin Koh, a research fellow at the S Rajaratnam School of International Studies at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore, said the aircraft appeared to have two missions.
“The unit turning operational in Eastern Theatre Command is precisely aimed at Taiwan,” Koh said.
“And to challenge US military activities in Taiwan Strait, besides posing a threat to the median line that Taiwan’s air force patrols along.”
US Air Force gears up for aggressor drills to simulate combat with China’s J-20 fifth-generation fighters
The photo’s release came as China issued a defence white paper, highlighting the risks from “separatist forces”.
In the document, the military said it faced challenges from pro-independence forces in Taiwan but would always defeat those fighting for the island’s independence. It also said there were risks from separatists in the autonomous regions of Tibet and Xinjiang.
A day after the paper was released, an American warship sailed through the Taiwan Strait.
The J-20 is expected to enter mass production this year. If the aircraft was declared ready to go into active operations, it would signal China was a “greater threat” and had “greater capability” in the Pacific, General Charles Brown, the US Air Force’s Pacific commander, said in May.
Brown said US efforts to counter those developments included increasing deployments of next-generation F-35 jets and continuing overflights of strategic areas such as the South China Sea.
China’s J-20 stealth jet may be ready this year, US commander says
According to the US Defence Intelligence Agency, fielding the J-20 would add to what was already the region’s biggest air force and world’s third-largest.
China had more than 2,500 aircraft, including 1,700 combat fighters, strategic bombers, tactical bombers and multi-mission tactical and attack aircraft, in service, the agency said in a report earlier this year.
China’s J-20 fighter was part of a modernisation effort that had been “closing the gap with Western air forces across a broad spectrum of capabilities, such as aircraft performance, command and control and electronic warfare”, the report said.
Macau-based military expert Antony Wong Dong said that in addition to Taiwan, the J-20 fighter could also be used to counterbalance military activities by the United States and Japan.
But Wong added that the Chinese military was still exploring how best the fighter could be used.
“It will take a few years for the aircraft to be fully deployed and to mature. Right now, it’s still in the exploration stage,” he said.
BEIJING (Reuters) – China and the rest of the world must co-exist, Vice President Wang Qishan said on Monday, in an indirect jab at the United States, with which Beijing is trying to resolve a bitter trade war.
Top representatives of the world’s two biggest economies are trying to resume talks this week to try and resolve their year-long trade dispute, which has seen the two countries place increasingly harsh tariffs on each other’s imports.
The Trump administration has accused China of engaging in unfair trade practices that discriminate against U.S. firms, forced technology transfers and intellectual property rights theft. Beijing has denied all the charges.
“China’s development can’t shut out the rest of the world. The world’s development can’t shut out China,” Wang told the World Peace Forum at Beijing’s elite Tsinghua University.
He also warned against “protectionism in the name of national security”, but without mentioning the United States, and urged major powers to make greater contributions to world peace.
China has also been angered by U.S. sanctions against tech giant Huawei Technologies Co Ltd over national security concerns, and U.S. visa curbs on its students and academics.
In his speech, Wang, who is extremely close to Chinese President Xi Jinping and rarely speaks in public, reiterated China’s commitment to opening up.
“Large countries must assume their responsibilities and set an example, make more contributions to global peace and stability, and broaden the path of joint development,” he added.
“Development is the key to resolving all issues,” Wang, who became vice president last year, after having led Xi’s fight to root out corruption, told an audience that included Western diplomats based in Beijing and former European Council President Herman Van Rompuy.
“NOT A RATIONAL ACTION”
The United States should not blame China for the problems it is facing, Vice Foreign Minister Le Yucheng told the forum later.
“Viewing China as the enemy is not a rational action,” the foreign ministry quoted him as saying, adding that China would not put up “high walls” or “decouple itself from any country”.
China has been nervous that the United States is seeking to sever, or at least severely curb, economic links, in what has been called a “decoupling”.
Tariff, trade, finance and science and technology wars are “turning back the clock on history,” Le said. “The consequences will be extremely dangerous.”
The two sides have communicated by telephone since last month’s summit of leaders of Group of 20 major nations in Japan, at which U.S. President Donald Trump and Xi agreed to relaunch stalled talks.
Talks broke down in May, after U.S. officials accused China of pulling back from commitments previously made in the text of an agreement negotiators said was nearly finished.
The countries have also been at loggerheads over issues ranging from human rights to the disputed South China Sea and U.S. support of self-ruled Taiwan, which China claims as its own.
No matter how the international situation or China developed, Vice President Wang said, the country would follow the path of peace, and not seek spheres of influence or expansion.
“If there is no peaceful, stable international environment, there will be no development to talk of.”
The city’s ambitious waste and recycling rules took effect on Monday, aiming to emulate successes of comparable policies in Japan, Taiwan and California
President Xi Jinping has urged China – the world’s second-biggest waste producer after the United States – to sort rubbish better
Recyclables such as plastic must be separated from wet garbage, dry garbage and hazardous waste under the new rules in Shanghai. Photo: AFP
At 9pm, Li Zhigang was sitting in front of his fruit shop on a bustling street in central Shanghai’s Xujiahui area, peeling the thin layers of plastic from rotten pears and mangoes.
“This is so much trouble!” he mumbled to himself while throwing the plastic into one trash can and the fruit into another.
In the past, Li simply threw away what could not be sold with the packaging on, but from July 1 he could be fined up to 200 yuan (about US$30) for doing so.
Like Li, many of the tens of millions of residents in the eastern Chinese city have been complaining in recent weeks that the introduction of compulsory
is making life difficult, but at the same time have been having to learn to do it.
Calls for garbage sorting have brought little progress in China in the past decade, but Shanghai is leading a fresh start for the world’s second-largest waste producer with its new municipal solid waste (MSW) regime, observers have said.
China generated 210 million tonnes of MSW in 2017, 48 million tonnes less than the United States, according to the World Bank’s What a Waste database.
“If we say China is now classifying its waste, then it’s Shanghai that is really doing it,” said Chen Liwen, a veteran environmentalist who has worked for non-governmental organisations devoted to waste classification for the past decade.
“It’s starting late, comparing with the US, Japan or Taiwan, but if it’s successful in such a megacity with such a huge population, it will mean a lot for the world,” she said.
A cleaner re-sorts household waste left at a residential facility in Shanghai. Photo: Alice Yan
Household waste in the city is now required to be sorted into four categories: wet garbage (household food), dry garbage (residual waste), recyclable waste and hazardous waste.
General rubbish bins that had previously taken all types of household waste were removed from buildings. Instead, residents were told to visit designated trash collection stations to dispose of different types of waste during designated periods of the day.
Companies and organisations flouting the new rules could be fined 50,000-500,000 yuan (US$7,000-70,000), while individual offenders risked a fine of 50-200 yuan.
The city’s urban management officers will be mainly responsible for identifying those who breach the rules.
Huang Rong, the municipal government’s deputy secretary general, said on Friday that nearly 14,000 inspections had been carried out around the city and more than 13,000 people had been warned on the issue since the regulations were announced at the start of the year.
As July 1’s enforcement of the rules approached, it became a much-discussed topic among Shanghainese people. A hashtag meaning “Shanghai residents almost driven crazy by garbage classification” was one of the most popular on China’s Twitter-like Weibo platform.
“My daughter took a box of expired medicine from her workplace to the trash collection station near our home yesterday because she couldn’t find the local bin for hazardous waste,” Li said.
While the measures force a change of habits for most people, they bring opportunities for some.
Du Huanzheng, director of the Recycling Economy Institute at Tongji University, said waste sorting was crucial for China’s recycling industry.
“Without proper classification, a lot of garbage that can be recycled is burned, and that’s a pity,” he said. “After being classified, items suitable to be stored and transported can now be recycled.”
G20 set to agree on ways to reduce plastics in oceans
Shanghai’s refuse treatment plants deal with 19,300 tonnes of residual waste and 5,050 tonnes of kitchen waste every day, according to the municipal government. By contrast, only 3,300 tonnes of recyclables per day are collected at present.
Nationwide, the parcel delivery industry used more than 13 billion polypropylene woven bags, plastic bags and paper boxes as well as 330 million rolls of tape in 2016, but less than 20 per cent of this was recycled, according to a report by the State Post Bureau.
Prices of small sortable rubbish bins for home use have surged on e-commerce platforms, while bin makers are also developing smart models in response to new needs.
Some communities are deploying bins that people are required to sign in with their house number to use, and are equipped with a “big data analysis system”. The system records households have “actively participated” and which have not, so that neighbourhood management can publicise their addresses and make house visits, according to a report by Thepaper.cn.
In a residential community in Songjiang district, grocery store owner Nie Chuanguo has found something new to sell: a rubbish throwing service.
He has offered to visit homes, collect waste and throw it into the right bin at a designated time. He charges 30 yuan a month for those living on the ground and first floors, 40 yuan for those on the second and third, and 50 yuan for the fourth and fifth.
“This service will start from July 1. Many people have come to inquire about it,” he said.
According to Du, waste classification is not only about environmental impact or business opportunities. “Garbage sorting is an important part of a country’s soft power,” he said.
For China, it was an opportunity to improve its international reputation, he said. “In the past, Chinese people were rich and travelled abroad, but they threw rubbish wilfully, making foreigners not admit we are a respected powerhouse.”
He added: “It’s also related to 1.3 billion people’s health, since the current waste treatment methods – burying and burning – are not friendly to the environment.”
Shanghai’s part in tackling waste comes amid President Xi Jinping’s repeated calls for the country to sort waste better.
“For local officials, it is a political task,” said Chen, who heads a waste management programme in rural China called Zero Waste Villages.
Huang said the president had asked Shanghai in particular to set a good example in waste classification.
In March 2017, the central government set out plans for a standardised system and regulations for
, with a target for 46 major cities, including Shanghai, to recycle 35 per cent of their waste by then.
In early June, Xi issued a long statement calling for more action from local governments.
However, it was a long process that required input from individuals, government and enterprises, Du said.
“Japan took one generation to move to doing its waste sorting effectively, so we shouldn’t have the expectation that our initiative will succeed in several years,” Du said.
How China’s ban on plastic waste imports caused turmoil
“The lessons we can learn from Japan include carrying out campaigns again and again, and paying close attention to educating young pupils about rubbish classification.”
Chen echoed that Shanghai’s waste sorting frenzy now was only a beginning.
“What we can see now is that people are being pushed to sort waste by regulators, but what’s next? How shall we keep up the enthusiasm?” she asked.
She suggested that how well officials worked on garbage sorting should be included in their job appraisal, and that ultimately people should pay for waste disposal.
“The key to waste classification, going by international experience, is making polluters pay,” Chen said.
Most of Hong Kong and Taiwan’s dumped plastic bottles come from mainland
There is plenty of experience for Shanghai to learn from in California, where unrecyclable waste is charged for at twice the price of recyclables, and Taiwan, where people are charged only for disposal of residual waste, according to Chen.
Taiwan has one of the world’s most impressive recycling rates, with nearly 60 per cent of its waste between January and October last year having been recycled, according to the Taipei government.
The daily amount of garbage produced per person during that period was about 0.41kg – down substantially from 1.14kg in 1997 – the government said.
Hong Kong has tried to copy the Taipei model over the years but failed, with a recycling rate of MSW slightly above 30 per cent in recent years, according to official data.
until late 2020 at the earliest. Under its plan, 80 per cent of household waste will have to go into designated bags and will be priced at an average of 11 HK cents (1 US cent) per litre.
On Friday, Shanghai officials admitted that there were plenty of challenges involved in
sorting and transport.
Zhang Lixin, deputy chief of the municipal housing administration, said: “Many property management companies fear the difficulties brought by garbage sorting or are reluctant to implement the new rules.”
The administration trained the heads of more than 200 companies across the city in April, he said.
“We do find that some cleaners and rubbish trucks mix the waste, despite residents being asked to throw different types in different bins,” said Deng Jianping, head of the city’s landscaping and city appearance administration – the government department spearheading the initiative.
In the interests of curbing such practices, they could face fines of up to 50,000 yuan or even have their licences revoked, he said.
CHINDIA ALERT: You'll be living in their world, very soon 