July, 2008:

Clear view for the Games? It’s too early to tell

Shi Jiangtao and Al Guo in Beijing – Updated on Jul 21, 2008 – SCMP

Beijing kicked off massive traffic restrictions and building bans yesterday in a bid to clean up the city’s air ahead of the Olympics, but the real test of the measures is yet to come.

While traffic eased slightly yesterday and the sky appeared clear after thunderstorms, authorities admitted it was too early to tell whether the stringent new measures had worked.

“It’s a Sunday and there are not as many cars on the roads as during the week,” said Zhou Zhengyu , deputy director of the Beijing Municipal Committee of Communications. “The real test comes tomorrow during the morning rush hour.”

After shutting down polluting factories in and around the capital and restricting Beijing-bound cars from neighbouring provinces, Beijing yesterday banned construction work and imposed an odd-even licence plate restriction for the next two months.

Drivers whose cars have licence plates that end in an odd number were banned from the road yesterday and those with even numbers will be off the road today.

Beijing also opened three new subway lines, including an Airport Express line, and began operating 286km of Olympic traffic lanes designated for athletes, officials, dignitaries and the media.

But the Olympic lanes vexed drivers. Many complained they had worsened traffic jams in main streets, such as the Second Ring Road, and they expected things would get worse today.

Beijing also launched 10 Olympic shuttle bus lines to competition and training venues and opened a new transport hub in Dongzhimen , which is only half-finished.

The 28km Airport Express line, similar to the one in Hong Kong, will run every 15 minutes between the new Terminal 3 at Beijing’s airport and Dongzhimen station. The line can carry a maximum of 30,000 passengers a day.

Although the scheduled in-town check-in will not be ready until after the Games, the new airport line was widely praised for its convenience. “I think this is great. It’s a much preferred alternative to driving or taking a taxi,” said Robert Burrahm, a Beijing representative of US Southwest Research Institute.

The new traffic restrictions are estimated to take about two-thirds of the city’s 3.3 million cars off the roads.

But indications on the first day of the traffic ban were inconclusive because the traffic was light in the morning and early afternoon but congestion returned to some busy areas later in the day.

Meanwhile, thousands of building sites within the Sixth Ring Road were also ordered to halt work yesterday, forcing hundreds of thousands of migrant workers to leave the city.

Additional reporting by Edwin Lee

Buildings silent as workers exit, cranes stop

Shi Jiangtao in Beijing – Updated on Jul 21, 2008 – SCMP

Building sites across the capital fell silent yesterday and the last of hundreds of thousands of migrant workers began leaving the city in Beijing’s last-ditch effort to curb pollution and ensure Games security for the Olympics.

As part of a flurry of sweeping measures taking effect during the countdown to the Olympics, thousands of construction sites within the city’s Sixth Ring Road came to a standstill and will stay that way for 60 days.

Infrastructure projects, including interior decorating operations at office buildings and residential areas, have also been banned since yesterday in Beijing.

But Olympic-related projects have been exempted, with workers being kept busy adding final touches or cleaning up construction sites.

The building sites, a major source of dust, have been blamed for the widespread, thick air pollution in the capital, along with the private cars that clog its roads. Restrictions on driving came into effect yesterday that should see about half of Beijing’s cars off the road each day.

Halting construction across the city has left hundreds of thousands of migrant labourers jobless and seen them virtually forced out of the city.

The municipal government gave assurances last year that this would not happen.

Building sites were deserted throughout the city yesterday, steel bars reaching skywards and cranes and other construction machinery eerily silent.

Although most migrant workers had already left for home or transferred to sites in other cities, some remained at a few sites, packing up or doing a final cleanup for the Olympic Games.

“We were told to leave Beijing for 60 days. Most people have already left,” said Li Yinchao, a native of Shandong province working at Sanlitun Soho, a large commercial and residential complex next to the popular Sanlitun bar district. “The rest of the workers will leave in the next few days.

“Only a few will be allowed to stay to keep the site clean and I am one of those lucky ones,” he said.

He said cranes at the site had to be lowered by at least 20 metres by noon today.

Liu Jie, another migrant from northeast Jilin province who worked at a residential project near the East Fourth Ring Road, said he would leave the downtown area as soon as he got his wages.

“My fellow workers have all gone back to their hometowns. But I am still waiting for my wages.

“I will have to go soon and I hope I can find some jobs in Tongzhou district in the city’s eastern suburbs,” he said.

“We were told to have some rest at home, but we did not get a penny in compensation for our losses.

“We need to make money to raise our children rather than take holidays at our own expense.

“Few of us are willing to go home so most of my co-workers decided to go to other cities to find temporary jobs,” he added.

He noted that the traffic restrictions affecting trucks – the major means of transporting building supplies – had dealt a heavy blow to projects and workers.

“All construction sites are short of building materials after the traffic restrictions and prices of those items necessary for infrastructure projects have been pushed up drastically in the past few weeks,” he said.

Migrant workers are not the only ones paying dearly for the sake of the Olympics.

Dai Jie, an engineer at machinery supplier Zoomlion, said his company, which operated over 100 concrete mixing stations for building sites across the city, has been deeply affected.

“Our customers have received written notices informing them of the two-month ban. Fines up to 10,000 yuan (HK$11,460) will be levied for sites that dare to violate the ban,” Mr Dai said.

Olympic-related projects were unfazed yesterday by the cleanup deadline announced in March. Glaziers were still working on the walls of China Central Television’s twisted glass-and-steel tower, while the giant transport hub at Dongzhimen, which opened during the weekend, was only half-finished.

But some projects that are not linked to the Olympics have also been given an extended deadline till the end of the month, according to Mr Dai.

Like the building ban, stringent traffic restrictions, including the use of special lanes for Olympic traffic in some congestion-plagued streets, were also criticised by many, especially motorists.

“I don’t see any reason to enforce the Olympic traffic lanes so early, as the Olympic village has yet to open in a week,” said Wu Baolin, a taxi driver.

“It may be well-intended, but it will definitely not help ease the city’s traffic jams.”

Games organisers have cordoned off 286km of lanes, which cover Changan Avenue, the second, fourth, fifth ring roads, to reduce congestion for athletes, officials, dignitaries and accredited media.

Drivers have been warned of fines between 200 yuan and 1,800 yuan or even arrest for being caught in the wrong lane. Officials said the lanes were clearly marked, but drivers yesterday complained that signs were difficult to recognise and confusing.

Additional reporting by Woods Lee

Aljazeera.net – 20th July

Restrictions on driving have been introduced in the Chinese capital, Beijing, in an attempt to improve the city’s air quality in time for the Olympic Games.

The directive, which bans private vehicles with odd- and even-numbered licence plates from Beijing’s roads on alternate days, came into effect on Sunday, 19 days before the sporting event begins.

The rules to reduce Beijng’s notorious air pollution will remain in effect until September 20.

The latest measures come after Jacques Rogge, head of the International Committee (IOC), said last year that poor air quality during the August 8-24 games would threaten some events.

Pollution concerns

A fine of $14 – a significant amount in China where incomes are lower than those in more developed countries – will be levied on those who drive their vehicles on the wrong day.

Traffic on the streets of the Chinese capital was light as the restrictions came into force, but it will take some time for the haze to clear.

There are 3.3 million vehicles in Beijing. A package of similar restrictions to reduce their use was introduced for a trial period last August but the haze from pollution remained.

This time, the authorities have also ordered the shutting down of polluting industries in the region around Beijing, as well as the halting of construction in the city.

A day before the road traffic restrictions took effect, Beijing opened three underground railway lines to absorb the amount of extra passengers using the city’s rail network.

Farmers protest

The Chinese government is taking considerable steps to promote an image of harmony and unity in the run-up to the games.

But concerns remain about government attempts to quell any social unrest.

Two people were killed by police officers during a battle with villagers in southwestern China in the latest incident, an activist group said on Sunday.

About 1,000 rubber growers demonstrating over the price at which they have to sell their crops, clashed with police in Yunnan province’s Menglian county on Saturday, the Hong Kong Centre for Human Rights and Democracy said.

The farmers are angry at having to sell their entire crop to local government departments at prices 40 per cent lower than they could obtain on the open market.

Xinhua, China’s state news agency, said the local government had been instructed to put an end to the dispute.

It quoted Bai Enpei, a senior Communist party official, as saying that the provincial authorities should listen “attentively to the complaints and appeal of local residents, making great efforts to rescue the injured people, and consoling family members of the dead to prevent the matter from escalating”.

China recently ordered local governments to make every effort to resolve social disputes to prevent protests from spreading to the capital.

0:52pm UK, Sunday July 20, 2008 – James Jordan, Sky News Online

Motorists in Beijing can only drive every other day as the city battles to clean up air quality for the Olympics.

The Chinese government is hoping to tackle Beijing’s smog for the Olympics

Cars with licence plates that end in an odd number are banned from the roads every second day, to alternate with cars sporting even-numbered plates.

There have been concerns about air quality in the Chinese capital ever since it was awarded the Games by the International Olympic Committee in 2001.

So far, more than £8.5bn has been spent by the city’s authorities to try to beat the smog.

The cash has been spent on shutting down factories, unleashing cloud seeders to encourage rain and now the car ban.

It is estimated that there are about 3.5 million vehicles on the roads in Beijing and the ban, first trialled in August 2007, will reduce road numbers by around one million a day.

Drivers will be compensated by not having to pay road and vehicle taxes for three months – at a cost of £93m to the government.

Also, 70% of all government cars and trucks owned by state-run enterprises will be banned from the roads for the two-month period.

At the British team’s final news conference in London before the Games, chef de mission Simon Clegg said: “With the smog, in the main, things are improving and there are still some substantial changes to be implemented – the reduction of cars on the road and implementation of Olympic lanes.

“I’m really confident the Chinese will be able to deliver a blue-skies games, which was their dream.”

It is feared that the pollution levels may trigger respiratory disorders like asthma and pose a health risk for the 10,000 athletes who participate in the Games from August 8-24.

The IOC has already indicated that certain events may be rescheduled if they deam the air quality is unsafe.

The British teams will wear specially designed masks, and Ethiopian athlete Haile Gebrselassie has said he won’t run the marathon for health reasons.

Australia has recently said its athletes will remain in Hong Kong during the opening ceremony to limit their exposure to polluted air.

Al Guo – Updated on Jul 18, 2008 – SCMP

The Capital Steel Group has reaffirmed its long-standing promise to cut production during the Games in a well-orchestrated publicity move by Beijing authorities to show the world its efforts to provide athletes and visitors with a clear sky and cleaner air.

Group president Zhu Jimin said that its plant in the capital’s western suburbs would run at only 27 per cent capacity to help cut emissions.

“Shougang [the Chinese name of the company] is a group with a strong sense of social responsibility,” he said. “I’m happy we can do our part to help present a great Olympics.”

He said Shougang could afford to cut production temporarily.

“Our group had record profits in the first half of the year, and I believe our profit in the second half should still be all right after we resume production after the Olympics.”

The group posted net income of 5.26 billion yuan (HK$6.03 billion) in the first half of the year – much higher than last year’s total of 4.36 billion yuan.

The company has shut down three big plants this year, allowing only one to run while the Games are on. Full operations will resume after October 1. However, Shougang will move all its steel production to Caofeidian in neighbouring Hebei province by 2010.

Founded in 1919 in Beijing, the group has contributed dramatically to the economic development of the capital, but its emissions are thought to be one of the main causes of the city’s pollution problems.

Although it has invested billions in the past decade to upgrade its filtering systems, the group has been at the centre of criticism whenever Beijing’s air pollution problems are mentioned.

Some academic research suggests the group is responsible for a tenth of all air pollution in Beijing.

In a move co-ordinated by the State Council and authorities in Beijing and Hebei, the group began building a new base in Caofeidian, Tangshan , in 2005. A newly built plant with an annual production capacity of 1.3 million tonnes will start running by October 18.