Village doctor Zhang Changjian (张长建) has just had his clinic closed by local authorities. His offence? A decade of activism, trying to draw government and media attention to a wave of illness that, he claims, is caused by a local chemical plant. Tina Qian (钱霄峰) listened to his story.
I was born in 1960 in rural Fujian’s Houlong Village (后龙村), the second of four children and the only boy. My father, Zhang Linju (张林居), had joined the Communist-led guerrillas before the National Liberation, but was denounced as a counter-revolutionary in the 1950s and forced to return to his birthplace as a farmer. He wasn’t officially rehabilitated (恢复) by the Party until 1983.
I failed the college entrance examination on graduating from high school in 1980. I became a barefoot doctor after being trained by the county Health Bureau. I was also apprenticed for a while to an old doctor of traditional Chinese medicine. Being a doctor was one of the few choices for rural youngsters of my generation if they had no chance of going to university. My older sister is a doctor too, and so is one of my uncles.
In 1989, I moved the family to neighbouring Xiping Village (溪坪村) and opened a clinic, the only one in the village licensed by Ningde (宁德) Health Bureau. The economical and convenient medical service it offered attracted at least 60-70% of the villagers, who were neglected by the state-run hospitals in cities. With the income from the clinic, my family of six lived fairly well. My four daughters, three from the first marriage and one from my second wife’s previous marriage, are in college and junior high school.
Xiping village, with about four thousand permanent residents, lies in the southeast of mountainous Pingnan County (屏南县) of northern Fujian Province. It takes eight hours by bus to cover the 174 kilometres to the provincial capital, Fuzhou.
Pollution nightmare
In 1992, the Fuzhou No.1 Chemical Plant relocated to our village in response to a provincial poverty alleviation scheme, shanhai xiezuo (山海协作), calling for well-off coastal cities to help poverty-stricken rural, mountainous area develop. The Rongping (榕屏) Chemical Plant began production at the end of 1993 and went into full-scale operation in early 1994. Villagers were informed that the new plant would not cause any kind of pollution because it used very advanced technology and processes.
However, in less than half a year, some villagers noticed that bamboo and agricultural plants close to the plant began to turn yellow and withered, and fish and shrimp in the river became less visible.
Four or five years later, bamboo seven kilometres away had started to wither. I had also begun to find a dramatic increase in diseases, especially respiratory and digestive diseases. Villagers came to complain that they often felt nausea, headache and itching skin. And some conditions that in the past were only seasonal now seemed to be lingering throughout the year. Another ominous sign was that cancer was increasing. Most cash-strapped villagers, after being diagnosed with cancer in bigger hospitals, chose to come home to wait for death. Gradually I began to suspect that our new neighbour was the prime culprit.
Individual villagers tried to report their concerns to various government agencies, from the village level upwards, hoping that the government would take measures to stop the pollution. I, as the village doctor, also reported the very high morbidity rate I had observed to the County Epidemic Prevention Station, requesting a public health survey. My idea was very simple: it’s a citizen’s responsibility to prevent the whole village from moving closer to a bigger disaster. But, disappointingly, none of us received any feedback from any government department.
Some villagers tried to negotiate with the factory leaders as well. But they denied that a factory formally honoured as an “excellent environment protection work unit” (环保优秀单位) could produce any pollution. Some leaders even accused us of forging evidence. We know the local government was backing the factory, which contributed one quarter of the county’s annual revenue.
In 1995, the factory head agreed to provide compensation of CNY 10,000 (USD 1,200) shared between a dozen households closest to the factory, for losses arising from affected bamboo. The bamboo suffered even more the next year, but the factory closed the door on any further negotiations. Once we were trying to persuade the plant’s gatekeeper to let us in, but the 110 [emergency police response] arrived within minutes to disperse us.
For years, I kept writing letters to as many government agencies as I could find, but received no feedback. In 2000, the State Council transferred my letter to the provincial Environment Protection Bureau and ordered Ningde authorities to investigate the issue. Soon a delegation of ten came to conduct a one-day investigation, including a brief meeting with some villagers. No other visible change happened except that the plant was deprived of the “excellent work unit” title.
Email activism attracts media
In 2000, I bought a computer with which I meant to establish a patient database for my clinic. In the end I made use of the machine to appeal via email. I expanded my target to include media and personal websites. For example, in 2001, I sent lots of stuff to former premier, Zhu Rongji (朱镕基), as soon as I knew he had his own website, and I received his reply email on January 12, 2002.
In December 2001, the Information and Education Centre of the State Environment Protection Agency sent a short reply to my email, asking us to deliver a formal appeal report. I was encouraged and wrote one, with over one thousand villagers’ signatures attached.
It marked a turning point. From that time, a group of us began to take actions in a united team. A lot of villagers volunteered to help us. For example, I was deeply moved by 78-year-old villager, Song Taiyao (宋太耀), extremely ill with a chronic disease, who volunteered to help us sort out materials.
Yang Jianmin (杨建民) from Fang Yuan (方圆) magazine, sponsored by the Supreme People’s Procuratorate, was the first reporter to come all the way from Beijing to cover our story. Yang was surprised at my courage. I firmly believed that as soon as the government knew the situation, they would step in to resolve it. Our responsibility was to let them know what is happening here.
In March 2002, Yang’s report in Fang Yuan brought our story into the public eye for the first time. In the following months more media, including several influential national newspapers and China Central TV as well as some foreign media joined to highlight the issue. This eventually led to the Rongping factory being listed by SEPA in July 2002 as one of 55 cases that seriously damage the environment.
On March 12, during the county’s “two conference” period (the annual meeting of the National People's Congress and the People’s Political Consultative Conference), we held a fundraising and environmental education event in Pingnan county town. Many conference representatives read the pink “Protest pollution to save our lives (抗污保命)” petition that we pasted in every possible place. This was a very successful communication effort, through which many villagers became our supporters. Some officials and cadres show their support privately, helping villagers polish their letters. Unfortunately, the City Management Team (城管队) confiscated our donations and beat several villagers.
Legal remedy
It was the reporter Yang Jianmin who inspired us to bring the case to the court. He convinced us that only through litigation could we get reasonable compensation. Our experience of fruitless petitions 1994 to 2002 discouraged us from persisting in this approach any more.
With Yang’s help, we got in touch with Professor Wang Canfa (王灿发) at the China University of Politics and Law. In November 2002, the Centre for Legal Aid to Pollution Victims that he founded in Beijing agreed to represent 1,721 villagers, free of charge, to sue Rongping Chemical Company.
Though the Beijing centre covered most of the legal costs (诉讼费), travel costs for three lawyers, and assessment fee (鉴定费, to cover a third party assessment of the level of damages), villagers themselves contributed part of the CNY 30,000 assessment fee.
Nearly two years later, the Ningde Intermediate People’s Court heard the case and announced the first verdict in January 2005. The Fujian Provincial Supreme Court issued a final verdict at the end of 2005, ordering the plant to clean up dangerous wastes immediately and to pay CNY 680,000 (USD 85,000) in compensation to the 1,721 villagers. The court didn’t support our compensation claim for CNY 10.33 million, which had included economic damages and CNY 3.2 million compensation for emotional stress.
To make matters worse, although the company paid 680,000 to the Pingnan County Court, the court kept hold of the money with the ridiculous excuse of maintaining social stability, because, they said, there might be quarrels over how to divide up the money.
The verdict was a big blow to all of us. Over the last five years we have lived in daily fear worrying an explosion might destroy the whole county. The plant is producing highly risky chemical products, and located so close to where people live. Personally I am really worried that villagers may lose control of their feelings and get into violent conflicts with the factory or the government.
Harassment
My life has changed since I got involved in the anti-pollution campaign. In local officials’ eyes, they may have no way to deal with ordinary villagers who make a living from farming, but for me, as the owner of a clinic, they have more than enough ways to teach me a lesson. My clinic has been inspected much more often than is normal: once in 2000 there were three inspections within a single week. In order not to give them any excuse, I tried my best to satisfy their requirements, however unreasonable.
In 2004, the local Health Bureau issued a notice ordering me to close the clinic. On the advice of Professor Wang’s Centre, I went through a complicated legal process. Fellow villagers supported and cared for me. At the time, they believed in legal justice and that we would eventually win.
But on March 22 of this year I was ordered to close down the clinic immediately. I sometimes still treat village patients when they come to ask for help. I can hardly turn them away.
The factory owners and the local government used various methods to work on me. A delegation of six officials, led by one of the County vice governors, went to Beijing to dissuade Professor Wang from allowing me to attend an environmental litigation seminar in Japan. The stupid officials think I’m reactionary (反动的) and wouldn’t come back to China if I were let out. In the end I attended the conference, but I didn’t come to know the story until a reporter mentioned it during an interview. Professor Wang kept it a secret before the conference in case it upset me.
One of the chemical company managers, a Mr. Heng, once tried to bribe me by inviting me out and even offering me a job as his assistant. Someone has been paid to brainwash me to give up my efforts. I refused all these offers without hesitation.
Just three days ago, I received a threatening phone call at home. He warned me not to do too much. I know the caller is a thug (混混儿) who makes a living by threatening people like me. In 2003, my wife and I were both beaten up. I became more cautious after that—for example, seldom going out at night.
In rural China, it’s very common for farmers’ interests be infringed. I used to teach them how to protect their rights and they would come to seek my help. But my personal misfortune has disappointed them, making them think that law is in the hand of officials. It’s useless to revolt.
December 2004 saw the formation of an environmental NGO in Pingnan County, “Pingnan Green Home” (屏南绿色之家), writes Tina Qian. Most of its founding members were Xiping villagers who united during the fight against the chemical company, but the group is addressing other issues of local concern. These include a proposed dam project that, the NGO says, will threaten a natural habitat of macaque monkeys, and a domestic refuse dump sited in the immediate precincts of a village.