Full Text: Progress in China's Human Rights in 2013

Environmental protection measures are being furthered enhanced. In 2013 China set up 21 national nature reserves. Some 16 provinces (autonomous regions), including Hainan, Heilongjiang and Anhui, launched the Ecosystem-friendly Province (autonomous region) Project and over 1,000 cities (counties) launched the Ecosystem-friendly City (county) Project, with a total of 55 national-level ecosystem-friendly cities (counties) and 2,986 national-level ecosystem-friendly townships being set up. In addition, 46 cities (districts) launched the Water Ecosystem-friendly City Project. China's urban green areas reached 2,367,842 ha, covering 39.59 percent of the total urban land, with the per capita green area in public parks being 12.26 sq m. When 496 monitoring stations in 74 cities gave real-time updates of monitoring data of six pollutants, including fine particles (PM2.5 particles), a second batch of 116 cities were also building pollutant-monitoring stations and began providing real-time updates. The state deepened the prevention and control of water pollution in key basin areas. In order to strengthen water resources protection in basin areas, it launched the projects to enhance water resources monitoring capacity, established 14,000 national monitoring stations in water-consuming units, water function zones and provincial borders, and achieved online water-quality monitoring in 175 key drinking water source areas, so as to put water quality of over 70 percent of water volumes used with permission, 80 percent of key water function zones and all major inter-provincial and boundary rivers under surveillance. The state formulated the Management Measures of Water Function Zones, enhancing classified and categorized supervision and management. Among 577 water-quality monitoring sections in China's seven major river systems, 66.7 percent of water sections were graded in categories I-III, and 10.8 percent were graded as inferior category V, an increase of 2.6 percentage points and a decrease of 1.5 percentage points, respectively, compared with 2012.

Aiming to prevent and control air pollution, projects of emission-reduction by means of updating facilities are being greatly boosted. The large-scale smog in China's central and eastern areas since 2013 has caused great concern of the public. The State Council issued the Action Plan for Preventing and Controlling Air Pollution in September 2013, imposing 35 concrete measures, including reducing the emission of air contaminants, upgrading the industrial structure, speeding up enterprises' technical transformation, optimizing the energy mix, and applying strict criteria for energy conservation and environmental protection. China established a joint prevention and control system for regional pollution, promptly reacted to severe pollution days, mobilized the whole of society to participate in the actions of maintaining clean air, promoted air pollution control and reduced smog. In 2013 the desulfurization facilities of the active thermal power generating units with a capacity of 34 million kw were retrofitted to increase capacity, and the ratio of generating units with desulfurization facilities came to account for 90 percent of all generating units in China's coal-fired thermal power stations. A capacity of 205 million kw were retrofitted with generating units with NOx reduction facilities in the year, reaching 50 percent of China's total thermal installed capacity. The gas bypass of desulfurization facilities of thermal power generating units with a capacity of 203 million kw was cancelled, with the capacity of desulfurization generating units without gas bypasses accounting for 46 percent of the total thermal power installed capacity. Cement clinker plants with a capacity of 570 million tons were retrofitted with NOx reduction facilities, accounting for 50 percent of the total capacity. The emissions of four major pollutants-organic pollutants (measured by chemical oxygen demand), ammonia nitrogen, sulfur dioxide and NOx-decreased by 2.93 percent, 3.14 percent, 3.48 percent and 4.72 percent, respectively, compared with 2012, with the emission of NOx dropping below the 2010 reduction benchmark for the first time. The daily sewage treatment capacity in towns (including both incorporated towns and industrial parks) increased by 11.94 million tons in 2013, and 84.8 percent of the garbage in cities at all levels was made harmless after treatment.

Specialized environmental-protection inspections are being conducted, and environmental crimes are being cracked down on. Some 1.83 million law-enforcement personnel were sent to inspect 710,000 enterprises in 2013, investigating and dealing with 6,499 cases of environmental violation and illegal activities, and handling 1,523 cases within a set time limit under the supervision of higher authorities. The central government paused project environmental approvals of 16 cities in the provinces that had failed the 2012 examination of the implementation of the Plan for Preventing and Controlling of Heavy Metal Pollution during the 12th Five-year Plan Period. More than 300,000 tons of chromium slag was treated in the year, almost equal the total discharged volume, and 17 batches of solid waste were prevented from illegal entry. The revised Civil Procedure Law, which went into force January 1, 2013, established the environment-related public interest litigation system, stipulating that law-designated governmental organs and organizations can legally challenge activities that damage the public interest, such as those polluting the environment and those infringing consumers' lawful rights and interests. According to the Interpretation of Several Issues Concerning the Application of the Law in the Handling of Criminal Cases of Environmental Pollution jointly issued by the Supreme People's Court and the Supreme People's Procuratorate in June 2013, environmental crimes will be harshly punished, and the environmental regulatory authorities' misprisions in environmental monitoring will be liable to extra punishment. In 2013 public security organs all over China filed 779 environmental cases and roped in 1,265 criminal suspects; people's procuratorates at all levels charged 20,969 suspects with major contamination accidents, illegally mining or illegally felling trees, investigated 1,290 officials for work-related crimes in projects concerning environmental monitoring, pollution control and ecosystems restoration, and required related government departments to fulfil their statutory duty of supervision according to law by means of prosecutorial advice and urging them to bring to light illegal conduct; people's courts at all levels accepted and heard 134 environmental cases, with 104 concluded, and applied criminal sanctions to 139 persons. Moreover, the Supreme People's Court announced such typical cases of environmental-pollution crimes as the Zijin Mining Group's pollution spill at the Zijinshan Gold and Copper Mine, pollution accidents of Chengjiang Jinye Industry and Trade Co., Ltd. in Yunnan, a pollution accident of Yunguang Chemical Industry Co., Ltd. in Chongqing, and the dumping of hazardous substances by Hu Wenbiao and Ding Yuesheng.