China People's Congress environment surprise
TIM PALMER: In China the fallout is still being felt from an open rebellion over air pollution at the country's annual session of parliament.
It was a dramatic shift for a Congress that's normally seen as no more than a rubber stamp.
Sensing a growing environmental crisis, a third of the delegates rejected a key anti-pollution measure.
Meanwhile China analysts are now expecting major economic reforms from the new administration in Beijing after premier Li Keqiang declared that more sections of the economy needed to be handed over to private enterprise.
China correspondent Stephen McDonell has been covering the closing stages of the National People's Congress in Beijing.
(Ceremonial music)
STEPHEN MCDONELL: China's annual session of parliament, the National People's Congress, has closed with plenty of big vision from the country's new generation of leaders.
Xi Jinping told some 3,000 delegates what an honour it was for him to be president and he was talking up the so-called “China dream”.
(Sound of Xi Jingping speaking)
“China is a great nation with great creativity,” he said, “We created this Chinese culture and we will be able to expand our path towards Chinese development.”
But a third of the delegates listening to him had just staged a large revolt on the floor of the Great Hall of the People over pollution.
When it came time to endorse the members of a key committee overseeing environmental protection and resource conservation, 850 delegates voted no and 120 abstained.
Phi Beta Iota: This is one third of the delegates — an extraordinary turn of events. What is missing from the equation is true cost economics — the USA as a real-world investigatory lab (true costs of doing it wrong for the past fifty years), Brazil and Russia and India and Indonesia as collaborators in finding new solutions before the follow China into the abyss — and China as THE focus for future-oriented decision-support: how do we help China migrate toward moral capitalism in the context of ecological economics? Recent developments in desalinating sea water and achieving very low cost solar energy are pertinent. Also pertinent is the increasing focus on micro-grids (both energy and wireless) and localized resilience gardens as well as urban gardens. We are at the end of win-lose era and the false sense of competitive advantage. The only competitive advantage in a closed system is win-win — non-zero. It takes intelligence with integrity to appreciate this, and it takes intelligence with integrity to achieve non-zero.
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