I Have a Dream

Narrated by QU GEPING & collated by LI YONGFENG

    Qu Geping was born in June 1930 in Feicheng, Shandong Province. In 1976 he was appointed China's chief representative to the United Nations Environment Program (UNEP), and later became the first director of the State Bureau of Environmental Protection and chairman of the Environmental Protection and Resources Conservation Committee of the National People's Congress (NPC). He received many international awards for his outstanding contributions, including the UNEP Sasakawa Environment Prize in 1992 and the Blue Planet Prize in 1999.

    FORTY years have passed since 1969 when I first realized the staggering importance of environmental issues. People like to call me "the first person of Chinese environmental protection," but actually I was only a witness to this undertaking in China. I remember the first environmental protection organization was established during the "cultural revolution," by direct instruction from then Premier Zhou Enlai (1898-1976). At the outset of the reform and opening-up in the late 1970s, environment protection was listed as a basic state policy. In 1997, a policy of sustainable development was regarded as central to the nation's development strategy, so a series of laws, regulations and policies were made to support it. My retirement plans were to help make China's sky bluer and water clearer.

    I Am Not China's "First Person of Environmental Protection"

    In 1969 I was transferred to the Planning Office of the State Council. Still operating under a planned economy, every aspect of fiscal and social development had to be pretty much strictly in line with the "meta plan," which forced my 15 colleagues and I to work around the clock. Back in those days, I was in charge of energy resources, particularly chemical fuels, and the textile industries – all of which directly related to pollution levels in China, and I believe this eventually led me to my life-long career.

    I remember in early December 1970, a group of Japanese guests came to visit, headed by Ms. Teiko Asanuma, wife to the late Inejirô Asanuma, chairman of the Japanese Socialist Party. Her son-in-law was a reporter concentrating on public hazards in that country. Premier Zhou, who always attached great importance to all environmental issues, had a long discussion with the reporter, probing for details on remedies for the environmental ailments.

    Even at that time, people in the developed countries were irritated by environmental pollution and effects were being felt in the economy. China was a developing country, but Zhou realized that, sooner or later, the degradation of nature would be a universal problem.

    Following their discussion, Zhou invited him to give a lecture – not only to technicians but also heads of state departments. The concept of environmental protection was unfamiliar to many people, including those required to attend the lecture, and what they did know they regarded as a matter for developed countries. It took us a lot of time to persuade them to go to that lecture.

    In 1972 the United Nations called its first conference on the environment in Stockholm, Sweden. Premier Zhou decided to send a delegation, but few people had a clear grasp of this issue. Some equated environmental protection to refuse treatment, and protection to the tasks of sanitation workers. Meanwhile, the "cultural revolution" was still underway, pushing the national economy to the brink of collapse.

    Zhou's decision was undoubtedly visionary, but the preparation generated a lot of debate. The first list of proposed delegates mainly consisted of Ministry of Public Health staff. But Zhou insisted that environment related to many respects of the national economy rather than to human health alone. So the final list involved many departments, with the State Planning Commission at the core.

    Of the 40 delegates, only two had some access to environmental information – Jiang Xiaoke, who later became director of the Beijing Municipal Environmental Protection Bureau, and me. Experiencing the conference told me that "environment" referred to everyone's habitat on the globe and certainly implicated economies. Looking back, I found it was that meeting that ignited a hope in my deep heart and illuminated my future like a torch.

    The scene that impressed me the most was none other than a protest right next to the venue, where some of the people gathered there actually carried Japanese victims of environmental hazards for all to see. It was at that moment that I decided to devote my rest life to China's environmental protection.

    Our report to Premier Zhou stressed, at my suggestion, the worrisome situation in China where urban pollution was serious and natural ecological system had been damaged to various extent. Aware that his worst fears were coming true, Zhou immediately commissioned a national conference to be organized specifically on this issue.

    In China's first meeting on environmental protection in August of 1973, Zhou put forward a principle of "prevention first," an idea borrowed from the country's medical policy. He warned us not to repeat the Western countries' pattern – pollute first, control later.

    The conference also created a special organization called the Environmental Protection Leading Group, an office of the State Council, flagging that environmental issues had become part of the central government's agenda.

    In 1976, I was nominated chief representative to the UNEP in Nairobi, providing me with a good opportunity to study how these issues were framed in the larger world. I spent a lot of time visiting foreign experts and collecting materials from other countries. One effective measure indispensable to developed countries, I found, was comprehensive legal control. After I left my post at the UNEP and returned to Beijing, I lobbied relavant departments for the drafting of such legislation in China. A drafting team was soon set up, and of course I was one of the members.

    The Environmental Protection Law of PRC (for Trial Implementation) was passed in September 1979, establishing a new era where the environment would be protected by law. The legislation also explicitly stipulated the establishment of a related organization and its duties in that respect.

    Much of the 1970s were marred by the chaos of the "cultural revolution," so it was an astonishing achievement for environmental advocacy. For my part, I made some contribution and was called the "first person for China's environmental protection," but actually it was Premier Zhou who was the real instigator and founder of this undertaking.