October 27, 2011
Hydrofracking is currently a hotly-debated environmental issue which has been attracting a lot of attention from policy makers, gas companies, academia, grass-root organizations and members of communities that may be affected. In order to maximize their own interests, all of the entities have different evaluations about the costs and benefits of hydrofracking and try to exert their influences on the process of policy-making. However, what Americans take for granted is the way Americans can undertake this debate. Such an open and heated debate would never occur in many other countries, especially my country – China.
What strikes me most is how organized and efficient the anti-hydrofracking activities on the grass-root level have been and how influential these activities are to the policy regarding hydrofracking. People in New York and Pennsylvania started campaigns, provided information sessions and launched protests to fight against hydrofracking. If hydrofracking were to take place in China, such citizen protests would not occur. The citizens would not think twice about the costs of hydrofracking and could easily be bought by gas companies. Even if they wanted to advocate against hydrofracking, they lack the expertise in organizing grass-root movements. Therefore, the citizens’ bargaining power would be so weak that it could exert little influence on the government. The government would likely not even take citizen’s petition into consideration simply because they would determine that the economic benefits of hydrofracking overweigh its environmental and social costs.
The reasons for these two different results stem from the different social and political conditions between United States and China. First, the property labeling system and property values are different in U.S. and China. For example, although land and water are considered private possessions in U.S., they are mostly public goods in China. As a result, the Chinese have much less incentive to protect the environment, since it’s not privately owned and the concept of property rights is not as prevalent.
Second, I think, in the U.S., the social problem-solving mechanism is traditionally operated by the interaction and balance between governmental and non-governmental forces. In China, most of the social issues are only raised and solved by governmental review, research and policy. The citizens who are most affected by the problems don’t feel the need to fight for their homeland yet and simply expect the government to get everything done correctly. For example, citizens can often access reports on some environmental issues drafted by the Chinese state department of the environment, but they could never make an independent movie reflecting the negative impacts of an environmental issue such as “Gas Land.”
Generally speaking, Chinese society is indifferent to bottom-up movements and lacks the cultural grounds for them right now. However, as I learn from the case of hydrofracking, grass-root movements play a vital role in solving the social issues in the US and supplement the disadvantage of one-sided governmental behaviors. I hope China will be more aware of the importance of promoting the property rights system and encouraging citizens themselves to engage into the process of problem-solving.