Spotlight: China makes solid progress in building ecological civilization: experts

International scholars and experts, in commenting on China's efforts for environment protection lately unveiled by the minister of environment protection, said that China has made solid progress in protecting the environment and building ecological civilization.

Speaking at a press conference on the sidelines of the ongoing annual session of the National People's Congress (NPC), China's national legislature, in Beijing on Friday, Minister of Environment Protection Chen Jining said that China attaches great importance to adjusting the energy structure, one of the tasks in the draft 13th Five-Year Plan (2016-2020) for socioeconomic development.

Chen specified that China, in particular, is promoting clean use of coal to curb air pollution.

It will be a revolutionary effort that will overturn the conventional wisdom that coal is not clean, and that will positively impact the endeavor to curb smog, the minister said.

In their comments, international scholars and experts said China's environmental protection is no longer a purely domestic issue within a global context, highlighting the Chinese government's promise to protect the environment and build an ecological civilization.

Krzysztof Szumski, former ambassador of Poland to China, said he believed that China will change the way to a large extent in environmental protection by pressing a number of high pollution and high emission enterprises to make improvement or correction.

George Tzogopoulos, a research fellow at Hellenic Foundation for European & Foreign Policy, said that as the so-called "new normal" (a popular term referring to China's current economic situation) is the main objective for economic development that has already been put to implementation, the government has revealed how it plans to meet its targets for growth and environment protection.

"It is highly important that attention is paid to protection of the environment and improvement of the quality of life of Chinese citizens," Tzogopoulos said.

"The ongoing comprehensive overhaul of approaches towards environment protection governance at all levels of public administration has already led to some visible improvements, particularly in air quality improvement," said Michal Kolakowski, expert of the Polish Economic Congress Foundation.

The Polish expert said this deep reevaluation of environmental policies is akin to changes in Japan in the late 1970s, when, after several high profile environmental disasters, the government initiated major reforms in environmental protection enforcement. Thanks to these efforts, now the Japanese enjoy a high quality environment and good public health conditions, he said.

"China's environmental policy reform is a vital part of overall efforts for creating right conditions for further social development, improving areas from agriculture to public health and living standards. It is also an important factor stimulating the supply-side reform at the grassroots level, primarily in terms of cutting overcapacity of the sector of heavy industries that generate high pollution, and promoting expansion and innovation of emerging green industries," he added.

The international scholars and experts also expressed the belief that China's efforts to build an ecological civilization will help improve both the life of Chinese citizens and the ecological environment of the whole region.

Fernando Reyes Matta, Chile's former ambassador to China, said the Communist Party of China has committed itself to the concept of an "ecological civilization" and Chinese officials appear determined to tackle the problem.

As the environment affects the basic life of people, "whatever the government does in this area will have a huge impact," said Matta, who is now director of the Chinese-Chilean Culture Institute.

The world is "watching how China manages environmental issues" since China has unveiled environmental protection targets as part of its development plan, Matta added. Endi