China Social Issue Survey

Environmental protection is China’s fourth most important social issue according to survey results released on April 3 by the China Environment Awareness Program (CEAP) and the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences (CASS), with ten percent of the respondents listing it as the country’s most pressing social problem. Despite the fact that utility rates remain subsidized in China, 90% of those surveyed reported they saved water, electricity and gas, which ranked these conservation measures as the number one environmental protection activity undertaken by the Chinese public.

The survey also gauged public awareness of certain environmental issues and concepts. Here are the percentages of people who “had heard” of the following:
• 66% ”trash sorting”
• 52% “organic food”
• 50% “reducing the use of plastic bags”
• 41% “GHG emissions threat to the environment”
• 28% “biodiversity”

Although Al Gore may have his work cut out for him here, the survey results as a whole are fairly encouraging; they “represent a distinct increase in public awareness of environmental protection” and the Chinese leadership is by no means deaf to the concerns of the populace.

What’s not as encouraging is the fact that “employment” ranked as the second most important social issue. I think most Chinese still believe that you can grow jobs or you can protect the environment, but you can not do both. Remember that one of the priorities of the new Ministry of Environmental Protection is to undertake a “green” public relations offensive to “topple the ‘development is king’ mentality among cadres and the masses.” This type of campaign suggests that development and environmental protection are at war. Given the public’s anxiety about jobs, maybe the campaign should be tweaked to something more along the lines of “green and grow” or (given the fact that healthcare is the number 1 concern) “healthy environment = healthy body.”