750,000 A YEAR KILLED BY CHINESE POLLUTION

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Beijing engineered the removal of nearly a third of a World Bank report on pollution in China because of concerns that findings on premature deaths could provoke “social unrest”.

The report, produced in co- operation with Chinese government ministries over several years, found about 750,000 people die prematurely in China each year, mainly from air pollution in large cities.

China's State Environment Protection Agency (Sepa) and health ministry asked the World Bank to cut the calculations of premature deaths from the report when a draft was finished last year, according to Bank advisers and Chinese officials.


Advisers to the research team said ministries told them this information, including a detailed map showing which parts of the country suffered the most deaths, was too sensitive.

“The World Bank was told that it could not publish this information. It was too sensitive and could cause social unrest,” one adviser to the study told the Financial Times.

Sixteen of the world's 20 most polluted cities are in China, according to previous World Bank research.

Guo Xiaomin, a retired Sepa official who co-ordinated the Chinese research team, said some material was omitted from the pollution report because of concerns that the methodology was unreliable. But he also said such information on premature deaths “could cause misunderstanding”.

“We did not announce these figures. We did not want to make this report too thick,” he said in an interview.

The pared-down report, “Cost of Pollution in China”, has yet to be officially launched but a version, which can be downloaded from the internet was released at a conference in Beijing in March.

Missing from this report are the research project's findings that high air-pollution levels in Chinese cities is leading to the premature deaths of 350,000- 400,000 people each year. A further 300,000 people die prematurely each year from exposure to poor air indoors, according to advisers, but little discussion of this issue survived in the report because it was outside the ambit of the Chinese ministries which sponsored the research.

Another 60,000-odd premature deaths were attributable to poor-quality water, largely in the countryside, from severe diarrhoea, and stomach, liver and bladder cancers.

The mortality information was “reluctantly” excised by the World Bank from the published report, according to advisers to the research project.

Sepa and the health ministry declined to comment. The World Bank said that the findings of the report were still being discussed with the government.

A spokesperson said: “The conference version of the report did not include some of the issues still under discussion.” She said the findings of the report were due to be released as a series of papers soon.


在北京干预下，世界银行(World Bank)中国污染报告近三分之一的内容被删除，因为中国方面担心该报告有关早亡的调查结果可能会引发“社会不稳定”。

这份报告称，中国每年约有75万人早亡，主要死因是大城市的空气污染。该报告是世行花费数年时间与中国政府部门合作完成的。

世行顾问和中国官员表示，在报告草稿于去年完成时，中国国家环保总局(State Environment Protection Agency)和卫生部要求世行删除报告中的早亡数据。
该研究团队的顾问表示，中国有关部委曾向他们表示，这些信息过于敏感，其中包括内容详尽的地图，标出中国哪些地区的早亡现象最为严重。

这份研究报告的一位顾问告诉英国《金融时报》：“世行被告知，不能发表这些信息。这些内容过于敏感，可能引发社会不稳定。”

世行此前的研究报告显示，在全球20个污染最严重的城市中，中国占了16个。

国家环保总局退休官员、曾协助中国研究团队的过孝民表示，由于担心研究方法不可靠，这篇中国污染报告中的有些内容被删除了。但他还表示，有关早亡的这些信息“可能会引起人们的误解”。

他在接受一次采访时表示：“我们没有公布这些数据。我们不希望使这份报告过厚。”

这份删节过的报告——《中国污染代价》(Cost of Pollution in China)——迄今尚未正式发表，但在今年3月北京举行的一次会议上，公布了可从网上下载的版本。

这份报告删除的内容是，该研究项目发现，中国城市严重的空气污染，正导致每年有35万至40万人早亡。但该研究团队顾问表示，每年还有30万人因室内空气污染早亡。但有关这一问题的讨论在报告中几乎没有保留下来，因为这超出了发起此项研究的中国有关部委的容许范围。

另外，还有6万多人因水质较差患上严重腹泻、胃癌、肝癌和膀胱癌而早亡，主要分布在农村地区。

该研究项目的顾问表示，世行“不情愿地”从这篇已发表的报告中删除上述死亡数据。

中国国家环保总局和卫生部拒绝置评。世行表示，仍在就报告内容与中国政府进行讨论。

一位发言人表示：“3月份会议发表的那份报告，没有包括一些仍在讨论之中的问题。”她表示，报告结果将很快以系列论文形式发表。