Prof. Liu Baocheng Comments on the Urbanization in China and Environmental Protection – Interview in the Program “Environment”

On January 5th, 2012, Prof. Liu Baocheng, the director of the Center for International Business Ethics, was invited to attend the scientific and educational program “Environment”, a TV documentary made in cooperation with China's environmental protection department and the Xinhua News Agency. The theme of the documentary was The Municipal Environment.

Even though the urbanization rate of China first surpassed 50% in 2011, and a more urban lifestyle to most of our citizens, the related unpleasant memories of the recent past still haunt us, such as in the unexpected arrival of the rainstorm to several cities last summer, causing the paralysis of the transportation and the sequential cloudy weather in the winter. Starting from the topic of the fundamental construction of a city, Prof. Liu made a list of advices and analysis of the numerous problems encountered in the process of the urbanization in China.

Prof. Liu said that the urban construction could not keep up with the speed of the overexpansion of the city due to the years of uncontrolled accumulations and the fact that the urban construction has focused rather on the constructions on the ground than the ones under the ground as the ground ‘greening’ is closely related to the achievement of a politicians. In terms of those issues, Prof. Liu added that we should learn the lessons of other international cities, like Paris, New York and Tokyo, and give more inputs into the municipal engineering. At the same time, he mentioned that the constant and practical monitoring system should be set up, which always is a indispensable ingredient of the well-performance of the public service and there is a need to organize a special leading team to coordinate as this job is related to many different departments. Besides, we should exploit the modern information techniques and manners to prevent the disaster, which can gain more than it was not.

Prof. Liu agreed with the current popular statement that the direct reason for urban air pollution is the rapid increase of the population of the motor vehicle. And he further pointed out that we should made the seemly painful balance between the economic development and environment protection, such as slowing down the speed of the urbanization and devoting greater efforts on environmental protection. All in all, the problems met in the wake of development should be solved in the process of development, instead of the approach of "grow first, clean up later". The country should perfect law and regulations especially on the regulation of the exhaust emission. At the same time, the related corporations should pay more attention on the control of the pollution and the relevant techniques. And the sense of the common people should be enhanced as well. For example, the second round of public opinion seeking for the “Standard for Environmental and Air Quality” has for the first time included the monitoring of PM2.5 as the major criterion to protect public health, which identifies the positive progress towards a better unban environment.

Lately, the host and Prof. Liu brought up the concept of ‘City Slow Lives’. Prof. Liu is a keen advocate of the lifestyle of public transportation and biking, which is not only beneficial to the environment, but also to the individual health. Besides that, Prof. Liu emphasized that the unregulated growing transportation structure  is a constant disease for the city, which needed to be coped with, such as the unclear construction signs, which leads to the waste of time to find the way out, and even causes the traffic accidents; the wrong entrance in the high way would lead to the unexpected miles to get back, which is costing numerous time and resource. Therefore, Prof. Liu concluded that the city should let the slow walking goes hand in hand with well walking, whose ultimate goals are the same, to enhance the convenience and health of the residents.

The program ended with the success of the application for the recognition of the West Lake as a world natural heritage place and the visit to the Cyprus Marine museum. In a nutshell, setting up the concept of building up a city in close harmony of the needs of human beings is the only way to make the cities in China a better place.