The Industrialization of China: How Industrialization and its Energy Use Contributed to
Pollution and the Development of Renewable Energy as a Solution
Cara Kita
Writing 39C: The Question of Sustainability
November 14, 2020
1
I.
Introduction
China has long been infamous for its heavy air pollution, so thick that it is visible to the
naked eye. Its dense smog is the culmination of a variety of factors, including manufacturing
plants and vehicular emissions, and it is evident that China has a severe air and energy problem.1
With the massive burning of fossil fuels and low-level environmental regulations, China’s rapid
advancement from an agricultural country to an industrialized nation was not without
consequence, and only recently has China started to counter this problem. The government not
only increased regulations and control of substance emission, but also intensified their research
and support of renewable, sustainable energy. Although China contains one of the world’s
largest populations and possesses several of the most polluted cities in the world,2 their strenuous
efforts to improve the environment and the air quality has met significant progress, allowing
China to come closer to its goal of carbon neutrality by 2060.3 This essay explores China’s long
journey from an agricultural to an industry-based country, and recounts the detriments of
industrialization and its energy use even as it modernized the people by drawing from research in
economics, environmental science, and historical analysis. Possible solutions to its extensive
Mason F. Ye, “4.2 Causes and Consequences of Air Pollution in Beijing, China,” in
Environmental ScienceBites, ed. Kylienne A. Clark, Travis R. Shaul, and Brian H. Lower
(Columbus: The Ohio State University, 2018),
https://ohiostate.pressbooks.pub/sciencebites/chapter/causes-and-consequences-of-air-pollutionin-beijing-china/.
1
“World’s most polluted cities 2019 (PM2.5),” IQAir, https://www.iqair.com/us/worldmost-polluted-cities.
2
Somini Sengupta, “China, in Pointed Message to U.S., Tightens Its Climate Targets,”
New York Times, last modified October 05, 2020,
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/09/22/climate/china-emissions.html.
3
2
problems with pollution are noted and analyzed as the current development and implementation
of sustainable and renewable energy by China is described.
II.
Industrialization of China: From Agriculture to Industry
Industrialization never really took off in China until the 1950s, when Mao Zedong and
the Chinese Communist Party took control. In 1953, they initiated the First Five-Year Plan with
the intent to rapidly industrialize and develop its economy. Heavily influenced by the Soviet
Union, they incorporated the practice of heavy industry, which included steel and coal
production, into their economy and introduced collective ownership, allowing the government
greater control over food prices and distribution.4 Subsequent Five-Year Plans shared similar
goals, seeking to advance the technology and industry as well as to implement a socialist system
and improve the overall condition of the country. This was a drastic change for China, for up to
that point, industrialization was practically nonexistent, with only a handful of outdated
factories.5 As summarized by John Joseph Puthenkalam, a professor in economics, the Five-Year
Plans were dedicated to increasing both industrial and agricultural output and readjusting and
improving upon flaws and issues discovered throughout the development of the economy.6
As new Five-Year Plans were created, a major change occurred about 30 years later
through the actions of Deng Xiaoping. Up to that point, every aspect of industrial production had
Rebecca Cairns and Jennifer Llewellyn, “The First Five Year Plan,” Alpha History,
September 24, 2019, https://alphahistory.com/chineserevolution/first-five-year-plan/.
4
Cai Qibi, “Chinese Industry: A Journey of 70 Years,” China Today, April 30, 2019,
http://www.chinatoday.com.cn/ctenglish/2018/hotspots/70y/journey/201909/t20190927_800179
742.html.
5
John Joseph Puthenkalam, “Emerging China’s Economic Visions during the Five Year
Plans and the Evolution of the Doctrine of ‘the Scientific Concept of Development,’” Semantic
Scholar, (2009): 30-33.
6
3
been stringently controlled by the Chinese government.7 Production goals, prices, and allocation
of resources were all determined by the state, and foreign trade was minimal in hopes of creating
a self-sufficient economy. This led to low outputs and low quality, as workers were only fixated
on meeting production goals, and thus low economic performance and poor product production.8
In 1979, China began to transition away from state-controlled enterprises, moving towards a
more market-based economy where the forces of supply and demand influenced production and
prices rather than the government, allowing the manufacturers a small degree of autonomy in
deciding the mechanics of their production.9 In agriculture, household responsibility systems
were created and implemented. Instead of collective farming, where a large group of different
individuals were grouped and assigned a harvest goal, individual households were responsible
for fulfilling a certain quota of crops, with the promise that any extra harvest could be kept,
enabling them to receive some extra income. This led to a substantial increase in food and
production.10 Additionally, China opened up to foreign investments and trade, a stark contrast to
its previous closed economy. This allowed new businesses to grow and develop as well as an
Wayne M. Morrison, “China’s Economic Rise: History, Trends, Challenges, and
Implications for the United States,” Congressional Research Service, last modified June 25,
2019, https://www.everycrsreport.com/reports/RL33534.html.
7
Karen Jingrong Lin et al. “State-owned enterprises in China: A review of 40 years of
research and practice,” China Journal of Accounting Research 13, no. 1 (March 2020): 35-36.
8
9
Lin et al., 37.
Justin Yifu Lin, “The Household Responsibility System in China’s Agricultural
Reform: A Theoretical and Empirical Study,” Economic Development and Cultural Change 36,
no. 3 (April 1988): 201.
10
4
increased exchange of technology and knowledge.11 Certain cities were designated as Special
Economic Zones (SEZs), which allowed easier access to possible foreign investors with the
possibility of tax incentives and a large pool of available workers.12 These exceptions led to rapid
economic growth for the cities, making them even more attractive to businesses and investments,
both foreign and domestic, and as illustrated in Figure 1, the number of SEZs has only continued
to increase, having demonstrated immense success with the cities’ rapid modernization and
development.13 Although the SEZs may have reaped enormous economic benefits, they were
also criticized for their lax environmental regulations, allowing the surrounding air and water to
be polluted with carbon emissions as well as toxic wastes and chemicals.14 This is demonstrated
in Shenzhen, China, one of China’s first established SEZs. Upon a study of the surface water
quality from 1991 to 2008, the Shenzhen Environmental Protection Bureau found a correlation in
increasing water pollution with industry development.15 Additionally, air pollution levels
increased with the construction of even more coal-powered factories, creating more carbon and
sulfur emissions and further worsening the air quality.
Shigeo Kobayashi, Jia Baobo, and Junya Sano, “The ‘Three Reforms’ in China:
Progress and Outlook,” Japan Research Institute, September 1999,
https://www.jri.co.jp/english/periodical/rim/1999/RIMe199904threereforms/.
11
Bret Crane et al. “China’s special economic zones: an analysis of policy to reduce
regional disparities,” Regional Studies, Regional Science 5, no. 1 (2018): 101.
12
Jean-Paul Rodrigue, “China’s Special Economic Zones” in The Geography of
Transport Systems Fifth Edition (New York: Routledge, 2020),
https://transportgeography.org/?page_id=4103.
13
Benjamin J. Richardson, “Is East Asia Industrializing Too Quickly? Environmental
Regulation in Its Special Economic Zones,” Pacific Basin Law Journal 22, no. 1 (2004): 170-71.
14
Yi Chen et al. “Water quality changes in the world’s first special economic zone,
Shenzhen, China,” Water Resources Research 47, no. 11 (2011), doi: 10.1029/2011WR010491.
15
5
Figure 1: China’s Special Economic Zones (SEZs)
The introduction of foreign countries and business into China stimulated its economy and
improved its reputation and standing in the global world. More and more industries came to
China to grow their business, wanting to take advantage of the tax exemptions and the available
land and factories. Additionally, the establishment of factories and manufacturing plants in China
was far more profitable for a variety of reasons: China contained an immense amount of workers
willing to work at extremely low wages, they had extremely lax labor and environmental
regulations, and they had abundant resources.16 With such a large number of people willing to
Qin Chen, “Inkstone Explains: How did China become the factory of the world?”
Inkstone, October 6, 2020, https://www.inkstonenews.com/business/inkstone-explains-how-didchina-become-factory-world/article/3103429.
16
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work for a barely-living wage and little to no labor laws, factories in China could easily take
advantage of the workers and squeeze the maximum possible production out of them. Little
consideration was placed on safety regulations and equipment, and any workplace injuries or
deaths were swept under the rug, with little to no repercussions.17 Additionally, employees could
be forced to work inhumane hours and in dangerous conditions, and if they opted out, there were
hundreds of other Chinese people willing to take their place. Not only did the cheap cost of
human labor play a role, but extremely lenient environmental regulations further encouraged
manufacturers to plant their roots in China. It was convenient to situate factories in places like
China, where environmentally friendly regulations were practically nonexistent as they did not
need to exert extra time and money to implement procedures to minimize and mitigate the
environmental damages.18 The few environmental regulations that existed were not enforced.
Consequently, many factories base themselves in China for the saved costs, showing little regard
for the potential pollution their machinery and production may generate.19 This enables them to
dump toxins and waste into the surrounding land or nearby rivers instead of proper clean-up
procedures and harm the health of the locals and environment without the fear of facing
repercussions.20 More than 60% of groundwater resources in large cities are polluted and more
Peter Navarro, “The ‘China Price’ and Weapons of Mass Production,” in The Coming
China Wars: Where They Will Be Fought and How They Can Be Won (FT Press, 2007),
https://www.informit.com/articles/article.aspx?p=683056.
17
Jianguo Liu and Jared Diamond, “China’s environment in a globalizing world,” Nature
435 (2005): 1184.
18
Spyridon Stavropoulos, Ronald Wall, and Yuanze Xu, “Environmental regulations and
industrial competitiveness: evidence from China,” Applied Economics 50, no. 12 (2018): 1378.
19
Kenneth Rapoza, “China’s Weak Environmental Laws Won’t Last Forever,” Forbes,
February 23, 2012, https://www.forbes.com/sites/kenrapoza/2012/02/23/chinas-weakenvironmental-laws-wont-last-forever/?sh=5975e01a7119.
20
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than 25% of the major rivers in China are harmful to humans.21 In addition to affecting their
health, it has also caused extreme harm to the surrounding land, rendering them useless for
farming and crops.22 With the application of coal and petroleum as energy sources, the multitude
of operating factories increasingly fill the air with CO2 and SO2 discharges, and further worsen
China’s environment.23 Inefficient and polluting technology further exacerbate the carbon
emissions from burning fossil fuels, releasing more toxins than necessary into the air.24 These
many factors have heavily influenced other nations to profit off of China and its people to their
detriment, and this has culminated in a wide range of environmental problems.
III.
Pollution and Possible Solutions
Although China’s economy and industry may have flourished, their great advances came
at a cost. Air pollution has become a severe and deadly problem and industrialization is the
major contributor.25 Many of the factories in China use older machinery, and to power such
equipment requires a prodigious amount of coal burning. Additionally, China contains many
coal-based power plants that continue to be in use, providing for a growing population of over a
billion people as illustrated in Figure 2, and the amount of energy burned from coal has increased
Mehran Idris Khan and Yen-Chiang Chang, “Environmental Challenges and Current
Practices in China — A Thorough Analysis,” Sustainability 10, no. 7 (2018), doi:
10.3390/su10072547.
21
22
Khan and Chang.
23
Liu, Jianguo and Jared Diamond, “China’s environment in a globalizing world,” 1180.
24
Liu, Jianguo and Jared Diamond, 1180.
25
Khan and Chang, “Environmental Challenges and Practices.”
8
per year.26 Figure 3 depicts the different sources of electricity used in China starting from 1990
up to 2015, with coal making up over 75% of the electricity generated, and growing in usage as
time passes.
Figure 2: Population of China from 1960 to 2015 in Millions
Figure 3: Annual electricity generation in China, history and projection 1990-2040
“Mapped: The world’s coal power plants,” Carbon Brief, March 26, 2020,
https://www.carbonbrief.org/mapped-worlds-coal-power-plants.
26
9
Consumption of coal releases pollutants like carbon dioxide (CO2) and sulfur dioxide (SO2)
emissions.27 Carbon dioxide is a commonly known greenhouse gas, contributing to global
warming and climate change as it traps heat in our atmosphere.28 Sulfur dioxide, on the other
hand, is harmful to both the environment and humans. It can cause trouble breathing and harm
the respiratory system, and also makes up particulate matter (PM2.5), which are deadly and small
particles that can cause problems to your lungs and heart.29 SO2 can also contribute to acid rain,
which can kill animals and trees.30 China’s air quality is so severe that over 700,000 to 2.2
million premature as well as a variety of different health problems are attributed to the toxic
gases released by coal.31
Coal is so essential to China that it takes up over half of its energy consumption, but its
use of petroleum in relation to vehicles also significantly contributes to the air pollution.
Previously, little emphasis was placed on the quality of fuel and their standards for oil was
limited. They were focused more on minimizing costs and convenience of production than health
and environmental wellbeing. Thus, the fuel would contain comparatively more sulfur than other
Keith Bradsher and David Barboza, “Pollution From Chinese Coal Casts a Global
Shadow,” New York Times, June 11, 2006,
https://www.nytimes.com/2006/06/11/business/worldbusiness/11chinacoal.html.
27
“Carbon Dioxide,” University Corporation for Atmospheric Research,
https://scied.ucar.edu/carbon-dioxide.
28
“Sulfur Dioxide Basics,” United States Environmental Protection Agency,
https://www.epa.gov/so2-pollution/sulfur-dioxide-basics.
29
30
“Sulfur Dioxide Basics.”
Robert B. Finkelman and Linwei Tian, “The health impacts of coal use in China,”
International Geology Review 60, no. 5-6 (2018): 580.
31
10
countries and when used, would pollute more per amount of energy burned.32 With the addition
of increased population growth and increased vehicle sales, the emissions of vehicles
compounded itself and became an even more serious problem in environmental pollution,
creating and releasing more CO2 and SO2 and further concentrating the smog. Figure 4 shows the
increase in car ownership in China as a whole as well as Beijing, one of the major cities of
China. As seen in Figure 5, the increasing contribution of oil to carbon emissions has steadily
increased from 1960 to 2018. China’s rapid population growth and its intense industrialization
led to an increase in energy consumption, and their reliance on fossil fuels further exacerbated
their air pollution, creating a permanent cloud of smog in their urban cities, and this has
encouraged them to formulate new forms and methods of energy.
Figure 4: Car sales in millions of units and car ownership in units per 100 urban households in
China
Jin Wang et al. “Vehicle emission and atmospheric pollution in China: problems,
progress, and prospects,” PeerJ 7 (2019), doi: 10.7717/peerj.6932.
32
11
Figure 5: Annual Fossil CO2 Emissions in China
Renewable energy is not a new concept; there are windmills, solar panels and
hydroelectric dams, all naturally replenishing with low greenhouse gas emissions. However, they
are unable to produce nearly as much energy and electricity as fossil fuels do, and not nearly as
easily. Thus, China is striving to develop its own form of renewable energy that is both
sustainable and productive enough to provide for the country and minimize its carbon footprint.
With the passing of the Renewable Energy Law in 2005, China signaled its commitment towards
renewable energy. The new law “requires power grid operators to purchase resources from
registered renewable energy producers” and offers financial incentives to encourage renewable
energy projects.33 This made the use of renewable energy more attractive, as energy distributors
“China Passes Renewable Energy Law,” Renewable Energy World, March 9, 2005,
https://www.renewableenergyworld.com/2005/03/09/china-passes-renewable-energy-law23531/#gref.
33
12
were obligated to pay for a form of energy with little to no carbon footprint, practically
guaranteeing some form of revenue, and thus the use of renewable energy sources has increased.
Wind energy, biomass energy, and solar energy are some of the possible alternative energy
sources, but each contains its own drawbacks.34 Wind turbines are costly, and there is no
guarantee that it will produce a consistent output due to its reliance on the wind. Additionally, it
takes up a large amount of land with its surrounding environment damaged by the turbines.35
Biomass releases comparatively far less air pollutants than fossil fuels, but despite its minimal
emissions, it also produces far less energy, making it an inefficient fuel source.36 Solar energy is
a huge presence in China, with the world’s largest solar capacity of over 100,000 gigawatts and
as the world’s largest manufacturer of solar panel technology.37 It has been used for a wide
variety of purposes, from heating water and buildings to creating electricity for general usage.38
Despite its benefits, it is difficult to utilize solar energy to its full potential. As solar farms cover
a large area of land, they are generally located in less populated areas. Thus, it takes extra effort
Zhenling Liu, “China’s strategy for the development of renewable energies,” Energy
Sources, Part B: Economics, Planning, and Policy 12, no. 11 (2017): 971-72.
34
Mohammad Hasan Balali et al. “An overview of the environmental, economic, and
material developments of the solar and wind sources coupled with the energy storage systems,"
International Journal of Energy Research 41, no. 14 (2017): 1951-52.
35
36
Liu, “China’s strategy for the development of renewable energies,” 973.
37
Chris Baraniuk, "How China’s giant solar farms are transforming world energy," BBC
News, September 4, 2018, https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20180822-why-china-istransforming-the-worlds-solar-energy.
Zhi-Sheng Li et al. “Application and development of solar energy in building industry
and its prospects in China,” Energy Policy 35, no. 8 (August 2007): 4122.
38
13
to deliver the produced electricity for the people to use.39 Furthermore, solar panels last about
only 25 years, and upon its expiry date, a bunch of waste and chemicals will be created and left
behind, unable to be easily recycled.40 Furthermore, the manufacturing of solar panels is a
lengthy, complex process and involves a variety of different materials, making solar panels a
costly venture. Although solar energy seems abundant and appears to be the ultimate solution to
green energy, it does not provide a sustainable substitute for coal and oil due to cost and land
limitations as well as future long-term consequences. Hence, the need to develop and discover
more efficient sources of renewable energy is critical, preventing the fast-paced development of
climate change and keeping the atmosphere at a manageable level, leading China to invest
billions of dollars in renewable energy projects.41
IV.
Conclusion
China has come a long way since the Chinese Communist Party took power and created
the People’s Republic of China. From an agricultural country to an industrial global power,
China has witnessed the most drastic and rapid change in a country. Moreover, when industry
came to the forefront and the environment was damaged in favor of business and economy,
China adapted once more to remedy this problem, investing heavily in favor of moving from a
coal-fueled industry to increasing development of renewable energy and preventing the
Chris Baraniuk, “Future Energy: China leads world in solar power production,” BBC
News, June 21, 2017, https://www.bbc.com/news/business-40341833.
39
Stephen Chen, “China’s ageing solar panels are going to be a big environmental
problem,” South China Morning Post, July 30, 2017,
https://www.scmp.com/news/china/society/article/2104162/chinas-ageing-solar-panels-aregoing-be-big-environmental-problem.
40
Jocelyn Timperley, “China leading on world’s clean energy investment, says report,”
Carbon Brief, January 9, 2018, https://www.carbonbrief.org/china-leading-worlds-clean-energyinvestment-says-report.
41
14
continued deterioration and degradation of the environment. Although fossil fuels still make up a
fundamental portion of energy consumption, China’s renewed efforts to find alternative energy
offers a promising future in a more sustainable and environmentally friendly energy. As people
continue to innovate and create, we must understand how it came to this point, and discover how
to mitigate and minimize the costs of manufacturing and create a better future for the world.
15
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