Huang Runqiu, China’s Minister of Ecology and Environment, delivered a work report titled "In-depth Study and Implementation of the Spirit of the National Conference on Ecological and Environmental Protection and Comprehensively Promote Modernization Featuring Harmonious Coexistence between Man and Nature through the Building of a Beautiful China" at the 2024 National Ecological and Environmental Protection Work Conference on January 23rd, 2024. It had been five years since the previous conference at this level was held. The conference aimed to implement Xi Jinping's speech at the National Conference on Ecological and Environmental Protection on July 17th, 2023. Earlier, the official website of China Ministry of Public Security also released a special article titled “Public Security Organs to Crack Down on Environmental Pollution Crimes in Accordance with the Law and Contribute to Fight Pollution” on January 12th. The article claimed that China’s public security organs would thoroughly study and implement Xi Jinping's speech at the National Conference on Ecological and Environmental Protection and carry out crackdown on environmental and natural resource crimes. The article shows that China still faces serious environmental and natural resource crimes. Major cases in 2023 included falsifying monitoring data in Tongzhou, Beijing, water pollution in Hangzhou, Zhejiang, illegal dumping of hazardous waste and soil pollution in the south bank of Chongqing. These cases show that China’s environment and natural resources suffers amid its economic downturn in the wake of COVID-19. Such situation continues to spill over to environmental and natural resource crimes. Cracking down on such crimes has become a political task that the CCP must carry out since the onset of 2024.
China’s Ministry of Ecology and Environment released the 16th batch of typical cases of ecological environment law enforcement on November 16th, 2023, including seven typical cases in the field of cracking down on crimes related to illegal hazardous waste dumping. Its main purpose was to warn against and deter illegal activities related to environmental crimes. It is worth noting that the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress (NPC) unprecedentedly held a special meeting to deliberate and inquire about three reports on the same topic of law enforcement and judicial work in the field of ecological environment and resource conservation presented by the State Council, the Supreme People's Court and the Supreme People's Procuratorate on October 22nd. These developments demonstrate that China now faces severe problems in the field of environmental protection and resource conservation. China’s law enforcement, judicial and procuratorial work also encounters the daunting challenges of how to crack down on environmental and resource crimes more effectively, how to properly balance high-quality development and high-standard protection and how to further improve legal supervision. Huang Runqiu pointed out that it is imperative to continue the joint efforts of the Supreme People's Procuratorate and the Ministry of Public Security to carry out the "two crackdowns" (cracking down on crimes related to illegal hazardous waste dumping and falsification of automatic monitoring data of key pollutant discharge units). Besides China’s multiple years of interdepartmental efforts to punish related crimes, greater civil awareness and more environmentally friendly attitudes are still needed to cure both the symptoms and the root causes of the serious problem.
For years, China has reiterated the political significance of cracking down on environmental and resource crimes. In his speech at the National Conference on Ecological and Environmental Protection on July 17th, 2023, Xi Jinping pointed out that the building of ecological civilization is still in a critical period facing multiple pressures and heavy burdens. Xi also explicitly laid out external pressures. He said that China must keep abreast of the times, have world views, shoulder its responsibilities as a major country and realize a transformation from a participant to a leader in global environmental governance. Moreover, Xi highlighted the difficulty in interdepartmental and multidisciplinary coordination as he stated that China must adhere to systematic concepts, grasp the principal contradiction and main aspects of the contradiction, take effective measures against outstanding ecological and environmental problems, strengthen coordination in goals and the control of multiple pollutants and improve interdepartmental, regional and policy coordination. The conference also exposed China’s predicament of lacking internal motivating power to combat environmental and resource crimes. Xi Jinping pointed out the relationship between external pressures and internal motivating power. He said that China must have recourse to the strictest institutions and the strictest law enforcement to protect the ecological environment, make external pressures become something normal and let internal motivating power stimulate the whole society to participate in ecological conservation and environmental protection.
It is noteworthy that there are internal problems in China’s fight against environmental and natural resource crimes. The report of the 20th National Congress of the Communist Party of China (CPC) claimed that China will resolutely investigate and deal with corruption that involves both political and economic elements and resolutely prevent leading officials from acting for any interest group or power group. China will also crack down on any collusion between officials and businesspeople that undermines the political ecosystem or economic development. There must be no mercy for corruption. Therefore, it is not difficult to understand why Xi Jinping had to repeatedly emphasize at the Third Plenary Session of the 20th Central Commission for Discipline Inspection on January 8th, 2024 that China must make greater efforts to rectify corruption in power-concentrated, capital-intensive and resource-rich areas such as finance, state-owned enterprise, energy, medicine and infrastructure projects. Xi said that it is imperative to tackle risks and hidden dangers and punish the “corruption of flies and ants.
（Chiu-lung Huang, Adjunct Associate Professor of Department of Public Security at the Central Police University）
（Excerpt translated by Cindy Li）
