This article raise a number of questions that I am interested in and hope to research on.
- Why are the local governments unwilling to make information more transparent?
- What are the costs for doing so? What are the benefits? Cost and benefit whom?
- How is the information made available to the public? IT? Newspaper? Radio?
- And who are the public? General public? Environmental NGOs and environmental interest groups?
Polluters in China are operating in a “black box” of secrecy, the Ministry of Environmental Protection has warned amid a rash of violent protests related to industrial poisoning.
Offenders are protected by the vast majority of local authorities defying Beijing and violating state law by refusing to disclose information about pollution, with a study showing just 4 out of 113 local governments complied.
The ministry said this lack of transparency was partly to blame for recent riots over lead and manganese poisoning in Shaanxi, Hunan and Fujian, which has affected thousands of children.
via Local governments keep Chinese public in the dark about pollution | Environment | guardian.co.uk.
Later in this article, Majun commented that
“China has never had a tradition of opening up government information before,” said Ma, a winner earlier this week of the coveted Ramon Magsaysay Award for integrity in government. “The conclusion from our survey is that this is doable. If the local governments share best practice they can easily improve.”
Given China’s economic and political context, is it really that easy to change the “tradition?” Or do the local governments (with the central government’s “encouragement”), need a more detailed, well thought-out, and incremental roadmap?
