Recent public protests and debates in southern Xiamen City, Fujian Province, over the location of the city's largest-ever chemical plant finally concluded with the government's concession to move the paraxylene (PX) plant to the peninsula of a nearby city. Environmentalists in China hope that this unprecedented case of grassroots opposition forcing the government to give up on a large-scale project could set a precedent for the future.

Paraxylene is a petrochemical used to make purified terephthalic acid, a raw material for producing polyester film, and packaging resin and fabrics. The 10.8-billion-yuan ($1.5 billion) project that is expected to produce 800,000 tons of PX and generate revenues of 80 billion yuan ($10.8 billion) a year was a lure for local officials eager to strengthen the fledgling petrochemical sector of the costal city. Xiamen's annual gross domestic product (GDP) for 2006 stood at 116.2 billion yuan ($15.7 billion).

Since the construction of the project began in November 2006, opposition from the public was ceaseless. Zhao Yufen, a chemical professor of Xiamen University and member of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, sent letters proposing the relocation of the project to Party chief of Xiamen He Lifeng and Governor of Fujian Province Huang Xiaojing by the end of 2006.

In January 2007, top government officials of Xiamen invited Zhao and three other professors opposed to the PX plant to a debate about its future. The meeting ended in a deadlock with neither side convincing the other. During the annual session of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC) in March 2007, Zhao spearheaded a proposal recommending moving the Xiamen Haicang PX project signed by 105 CPPCC members. The project was originally located in Haicang District, 16 km from the city center.

Although the Xiamen Government announced its decision to put the chemical project on hold on May 30, 2007, the public opposition climaxed over the next few days when over 5,000 residents launched a quiet demonstration around the compound of the city government demanding relocation of the project.

According to a Xinhua report, at the government-organized hearings on December 13 and 14, of the 107 members of the public selected by lottery to represent Xiamen residents, 91 opposed the project, 15 voiced their support and one left without speaking.

It was reported by Nanfang Daily on December 19 that the Fujian Provincial Government and Xiamen Government had decided to move the multi-billion-yuan project to the Gulei Peninsular, near the city of Zhangzhou and that the Xiamen Government would compensate the Xianglu Chemical Fiber Company, the principal investor, for losses in initial construction. This arrangement is yet to be ratified by the National Development and Reform Commission.

Controversial buffer zone

In interviews with several Beijing-based media organizations in March 2007, Zhao said since PX was a dangerous petrochemical that can cause cancer and fetus abnormalities, there had not been a large enough buffer zone between the chemical plant and residential areas. She said over 100,000 people were living within a 5-km range of the plant, including two boarding middle schools, with combined residents of nearly 5,000.

"As a project with a high risk of poisonous emissions and explosions, the project should not be located close to a city. A safe distance would be at least 100 km," Zhao told the Beijing-based newspaper China Business.

Yet Xiamen Government and the chief investor of the project, Xianglu Chemical Fiber Company, hold different opinions over buffer-zone requirements. Xie Haisheng, Director of the Xiamen Environment Protection Bureau, told a press conference in June 2007, that based on extensive research by experts organized by the city government, PX was not highly polluting, nor does it induce cancer or fetus abnormalities.

According to an open letter to the public posted on Xianglu's website, the requirement of a 10-km safe distance for a PX plant from residential areas lacks scientific evidence and runs against practices in other cities of China and in other countries. Instead, the open letter claimed the national standard for a buffer zone between a PX project and residence should be at least 700 meters, which the company has implemented faithfully.

The local government decided to introduce a thorough environmental assessment of the city layout of Haicang to settle the argument. In July 2007, the Chinese Research Academy of Environmental Sciences was entrusted with the assessment task, which was completed at the end of November.

According to an abbreviated version of the report posted on the official website of the city government, experts concluded that the southern area of Haicang District, where the PX plant was originally to be located, was too small and inadequate for the diffusion of atmospheric pollution.

The Xiamen Government had set two contradictory development targets for the southern part of Haicang by 2020: to develop into a sub-center of the city and to create an industrial zone with petrochemistry as its pillar. The environmental assessment report advised urban planners to choose one or the other, but not both. The report revealed that pursuing both goals together would leave a buffer zone between the sub-center and the industrial zone of just 300 meters, insufficient to protect against air pollution.

Public involvement

While the environmental assessment of Haicang eventually forced the relocation of the PX plant, the project had passed an environmental impact assessment (EIA) by the State Environmental Protection Administration (SEPA) as early as July 2006.

For more than two decades, the practice of conducting EIAs in China was a subset of the nation's larger Environmental Protection Law. In 2002, the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress adopted the Environmental Impact Assessment Law, which requires that all relevant parties, including experts and the general public, evaluate the likely impacts of development projects, programs, and plans on the natural and human environments.

In the four years following the implementation, however, broad public involvement in China's EIA process has been limited. Access to information is often insufficient or even blocked, and participation is limited and unrepresentative. Consequently, public feedback tends to be minimal and ineffective. Moreover, because EIA assessors are trained and certified by SEPA and its branches, their close association with the agency and with local officials and investors has made them vulnerable to pressure from GDP-hungry local government officials. This situation has brought the credibility of their reports into question.

In 2006 SEPA issued a regulation intended to strengthen public participation in the EIA process. The new regulation includes stipulations on openness of information; safeguarding participants' rights; and procedures and methods for public involvement, including opinion surveys, consultations, seminars, debates, and hearings. It marks the first time that SEPA, or the Chinese Government as a whole, has opened the doors to widespread public input into national development initiatives.

As for the PX project in Xiamen, since its EIA process was completed before the 2006 regulation took effect, public access to the report is not compulsory. It was reported by magazine Life Week that its journalist's request for the full text of PX plant's EIA report to China Contracting and Engineering Corporation, the compiler of the report, was refused under the excuse of protecting technical secrets. The same report said Ma Tianna, head of the

city's biggest environmental protection non-governmental organization, had tried many times to get the EIA report from Xiamen Environmental Protection Bureau, but was refused.

"The EIA scheme is poorly-implemented. One problem is that public access to the EIA report, though mandated by SEPA regulations, is still blocked in many cases. Another vital problem is that there is almost zero supervision of the implementation of these EIA reports," said Ma Jun, founder of a Beijing-based environmental NGO dedicated to compiling and upgrading an online map highlighting all polluted rivers and polluting companies in China. He told Beijing Review that the participation of the public, as the third party besides business investors and environmental protection agencies, could be vital to boosting the effectiveness of the EIA in China. "In light of this, the significant role of civil society's elite in the Xiamen case is groundbreaking," Ma said.

Checks and balances

An editorial from Shanghai Daily on December 20, 2007, called the two-day hearing in Xiamen over the relocation of the PX plant "a victory not only for environmentalists but for democracy in decision making." It said, "The Xiamen model meshes well with the spirit of the 17th National Congress of the Communist Party of China held in October, which called for checks and balances among the power to decide, the power to implement, and the power to supervise." The editorial even called for the spread of the "Xiamen model" across China.

However, the comment of another Shanghai-based newspaper Oriental Morning Post was less optimistic. This editorial said that the victory of public opinion in the Xiamen case could not overshadow the fact that government decision-making remains unpredictable. "Easily as government decision could support the maximum of public interest, it could push people into the abyss of pain when they have no resorts to stop the violation of their interests."