ABSTRACT
China’s environmental problems, many of which are exemplified in and around Guangzhou and Hong Kong, are well understood and are set out in China’s Agenda 21 document (State Planning Committee 1994). They are mainly those of local environmental pollution and ecological degradation but it is also recognized that the country is not immune to global environmental impacts such as the effects of climatic change (Xie 1994). China also experiences great disparity in incomes between and within provinces,
between poorer, isolated rural areas and the richer urban areas. Incomes in Hong Kong exceed those in Guangzhou by a factor of ten and those in Guangzhou exceed those in some nearby impoverished rural districts by a factor of ten or more. The State Planning Committee of the People’s Republic of China (PRC) estimates that 80 million people, or 8.8 per cent of the total population, have incomes which do not allow them adequate food, clothing and shelter. (However, it should also be noted that overall, the impoverished population of China has dropped from the 1978 level of 250 million people). The majority of the most impoverished people in China live in the central and western parts of the country, and these impoverished areas often contain fragile ecosystems. Population increases have intensified human impacts in these areas by pressuring people to move into marginal agricultural regions. This has led to severe land degradation, soil erosion and water shortage. With low incomes and unemployment, there has been a drift to the cities in the east, such as Guangzhou, aggravating existing urban environmental problems. The link between the ability to generate acceptable incomes and the development of a sustainable environment, i.e. sustainable living, in China is clear. It brings the dilemma between development and the environment to the forefront.
