China’s Poisonous Waterways
Writer Sheng Keyi reflects on her return trips home to the once “sweet and sparkling”...
Apr 4, 2014
Writer Sheng Keyi reflects on her return trips home to the once “sweet and sparkling”...
Dec 31, 2013
As 2013 comes to an end, we have compiled a list of our top ten most read posts from the year....
Aug 6, 2013
Falling prices, weak demand and mounting debt in China’s steel industry have led to a series of closures and mergers in recent years, leaving many mills abandoned. At China Dialogue, Gao Shengke reports that health risks...
Jul 2, 2013
China’s rapid development is creating a number of well-documented environmental problems, which in turn are leading to elevated cancer rates, especially in rural regions. Al Jazeera reports: While rising cancer rates are...
Jun 4, 2013
The Guardian’s Jonathan Kaiman talks to residents of some of China’s hundreds of “cancer villages” about the obstacles to their efforts to seek redress: Yanglingang residents count their home as one of...
Oct 18, 2012
In a new short documentary, ‘Hopeful’, Jonah Kessel shows the work of environmental NGO Friends of Nature in using new laws to hold companies accountable for their pollution. The film focuses on a Yunnan...
Aug 31, 2011
chinadialogue reports on illegal dumping of chromium waste, which threatens the water supply of tens of millions of people and livestock. In mid-August, the Yunnan-based blogger Dong Rubin revealed that a nearby factory in...
Sep 17, 2009
Reuters looks at the “cancer villages” that have sprung up around the heavily polluted river running through Shangba, Guangdong: The river’s flow ranges from murky white to a bright shade of orange and the...
May 8, 2009
Chinese reporter Deng Fei and Doubleaf have Google Mapped China’s cancer villages. A screenshot is below. See the Google Map here. The map also provides news report details on each of the listed villages. The following is...
Dec 14, 2008
Reuters reports on Liukuaizhuang, Tianjin, where one in fifty people have been diagnosed with cancer over the past ten years: Three decades of reforms and opening up since 1978 have transformed China from a rigidly ideological...
Jun 21, 2008
From The Observer: The walls of the village have recently been repainted with trees, waterfalls and the uplifting slogan: ‘I will contribute to the success of the Olympics and help establish a civilised new...
Dec 5, 2007
Sprol.com looks at Shangba, a village of 3,300 in Guangdong: When a closer look is taken, the people of Shangba have been living with a malevolent curse for years. In fact, this town is now known as “Village of Death.” It has earned this name because, over time, cancer has claimed the lives of approximately […]
May 26, 2007
From The Sydney Morning Herald: It has been a long time since the Feng Chan He, the River of Fertility, in Xiditou ran clear and locals could swim and fish. Today it is fetid and silted up, a casualty of the factories that line its banks and that brought unprecedented prosperity to this poor farming […]
Jan 17, 2007
From BBC News: Shangba has become one of the country’s growing number of what have been called “cancer villages”. A broad river runs to the side of the village, its shallow waters rippling over smooth stones. What they did not know was that mines further upstream were dumping their waste into it. Scientist Chen Nengchang […]