Might a Looming Water Crisis in Northern China Derail China's Economic Growth?
Status: This talk is in preparation - details may change
Twelve provinces in northern China suffer from water scarcity or acute water scarcity. Around a thousand rivers, a year has disappeared over the last quarter of a century. While the Chinese Communist Party has put considerable resources into combatting water pollution, that will not make a significant difference. Nor will water transfers, including the famed South-North Water Transfer Project, or desalination. The biggest problems come on the demand side and involve a number of politically sensitive measures, which will test the resilience of the CCP’s governance model. In March this year, the Party put out a water conservation plan for the ‘Jinjinji’ region (Beijing, Tianjin Hebei), which is one of the hardest hit. This ‘experimental zone’ will garner lessons for the wider north of China. But time is running out. Charles Parton will assess the scale of the problems, look at the measures which Beijing needs to adopt, and assess whether the CCP’s interests and governance model will allow it to avoid severe economic dislocation.
Date: 5 December 2019, 17:00 (Thursday, 8th week, Michaelmas 2019)
Venue: Dickson Poon Building, Canterbury Road OX2 6LU
Venue Details: Kin-ku Cheng Lecture Theatre, China Centre
Speaker: Mr Charles Parton (The Royal United Services Institute (RUSI))
Organisers: Dr Jérôme Doyon (University of Oxford), Dr Christopher Foster (University of Oxford), Dr Hannah Theaker (University of Oxford)
Organiser contact email address: jerome.doyon@area.ox.ac.uk
Part of: China Centre Seminar
Booking required?: Not required
Audience: Public
Editor: Paola Quevedo Garzon