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Official on Int'l Efforts for Environmental Protection
Once a government official of the Republic of Korea told a visiting Chinese official, "Your sandstorm has almost reached my country."
The visitor, Wang Zhijia, director of the International Cooperation Department of the State Environmental Protection Administration, replied, "The sandstorm isn't mine. It's from the Mongolian Plateau."
It was a joke, but it does reflect the fact that environmental issues are international ones, said the director, in an exclusive interview with Xinhua.
For China, a country with a population of almost 1.3 billion, the issue is not only related to the health of the Chinese people but closely linked with the country's goal to realize sustainable development, according to the official. Therefore, international cooperation has always been an integral part of China's environmental efforts, he added.
Since 1972, when China sent its first government delegation to attend a UN environmental conference, China has achieved remarkable progress in international cooperation in environmental protection, Wang said.
China's achievements in the field include the introduction of international funds, advanced expertise, technology and equipment, the training and exchanges of personnel, and active participation in international environmental efforts.
During the Ninth Five-Year Plan period (1996-2000), China launched a cross-century environmental program including 1,500 projects and worth 180 billion yuan, including four billion U.S. dollars in foreign funds.
"China has learned a lot from its international partners, including financial and technical methods," the director said.
According to the official, over the past two decades, China has signed over 30 bilateral agreements on environmental protection with 27 foreign nations, reached agreements with 10 foreign countries on nuclear security, and joined a number of international environmental conventions.
Among China's cooperation agreements with foreign nations, those with Japan, the United States and Canada have been implemented, the official said.
In 1994, Chinese and Japanese governments reached an agreement on cooperation in environmental protection. In 1996, the China- Japan Friendship Environmental Protection Center" went into operation, which was built with a Japanese government donation of 10 billion yen.
Later, the two sides agreed to use 800 million U.S. dollars from the fourth Japanese government loan to China for the purpose of environmental protection; and since September 1997 Japan has helped launch a Sino-Japanese environmental program towards the new century, including over 20 million US dollars for environmental information networks in 100 Chinese cities.
The Sino-U.S. cooperation in environmental protection has been well under way for the last two decades, beginning in 1980, when the two governments signed an agreement on the issue. Since then, a number of agreements have been reached between the two countries, including those reached during the visits by Chinese President Jiang Zemin and Premier Zhu Rongji.
Since 1999, China and Canada have been cooperating on a three- year nature reserve program with a total investment of five million U.S. dollars, according to the official. In his remarks, Wang also listed a number of cooperative programs for environmental protection between China and the Untied Nations, and environmental projects using loans from the World Bank and the Asian Development Bank.
China has also received over 90 million US dollars from the Global Environmental Fund (GEF) for nine local environmental projects and 275 million U.S. dollars from the Montreal Protocol Multilateral Fund (MPMF) for 266 programs, Wang noted.
In the future, China will continue its cooperation with its international partners in environmental efforts, including key projects to control pollution in three rivers, three lakes, two zones, Beijing City and the Bohai Sea. China will also continue encouraging foreign investment, and import advanced technology and equipment from abroad, he added.
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