China’s Path of Industrialization by Bei Jin

Author:Bei Jin
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9789811515064
Publisher: Springer Singapore

© China Social Sciences Press 2020

B. JinChina's Path of IndustrializationChina Insightshttps://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-15-1506-4_6

6. Seeking Balance: Resource Conservation, Environmental Protection and Industrial Development

Bei Jin1

(1)Institute of Industrial Economics, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, Beijing, China

Bei Jin

Email: [email protected]

Those who love to talk about how to keep fit and healthy often tell us what kind of food is healthy and what is not. As a matter of fact, I am afraid there is almost nothing that human beings haven’t ever tasted or eaten in the long history of human evolution spanning millions of years. There might be only one indisputable truth that matters the most to humans, which is, eating less does good while eating too much does harm. Too many metals in the water would result in heavy-metal pollution; water containing a few metals is called “mineral water” or “hot-spring water”; as for water without any impurities, humans are unable to enjoy it. Too high sound is called noise and might do harm to health; but humans cannot live in a world without any sound. It is said that deadly white arsenic (Arsenic trioxide) is also a cure for leukemia. Such discovery will probably make Chinese medical scientists win a world medical prize or even another Nobel Prize in medicine.

A few words eulogizing industrialization ever appeared on a textbook for primary school students in the 1950s, “Smoke pours out from the factor chimney into the sky in the shape of peony, forming a beautiful ink wash painting”; however, the factories whose smokestack chimneys belching heavy smoke into the atmosphere are nowadays either forced to close down or fined. Sparsely populated cities are called “ghost cities”, while densely populated cities suffer “metropolitan diseases” and are labelled as “places not good to live in”. Urban people who have seen too many high-rise buildings want beautiful country scene, i.e., green hills and blue waters to stay away from the hustle and bustle; whereas rural people who always live a serene countryside life envy very much the hustle and bustle of the city full of high-rise buildings.

Humans are always bothered by having too much or too little. They lust for what they don’t have and don’t appreciate what they already have. In the process of industrialization , humans are always bothered by such problem, that is, after they gained something and lost something, they always lament what they have lost and keep asking themselves whether the loss outweighs the gain. So, what is just perfect? How can one have his bread buttered on both sides? How to be satisfied? Maybe there is only one passable answer, that is, to keep weighing things up and try to strike a basic balance.

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