2013年5月6日 星期一

昆明市 (春城)

昆明市中華人民共和國雲南省省會,有3000多年歷史,是雲南省的政治經濟文化科技交通中心,中國西部第四大城市[3]西南地區重要的中心城市,中國面向東南亞南亞開放的門戶樞紐,是中國唯一面向東盟的大都市。同時也是中國著名的歷史文化名城和優秀旅遊城市[4]。因夏無酷暑、冬無嚴寒、氣候宜人,具有典型的溫帶氣候特點,素以「春城」著稱。擁有世界自然遺產——雲南石林


Kunming montage.png
昆明市風光,由上至下順時針分別為:
昆明市天際線、昆明火車站滇池圓通寺
漢語拼音 Kūn míng shì
簡稱
別稱 春城


Chinese Protest Plans for Industrial Plants
Environmental Fears Are Fueling Opposition Against New Projects That Officials Say Are Needed for Economic Growth

By BRIAN SPEGELE
[image] Agence France-Presse/Getty Images
A child participates in a protest against a planned factory in Kunming that would produce paraxylene, or PX, a petrochemical used to make fabrics.
BEIJING—Tension is bubbling in two western Chinese cities as opposition grows against planned industrial facilities, the latest examples of growing public environmental concern threatening to derail projects that officials say are needed for economic growth.
In the southwest city of Kunming, capital of Yunnan province, at least several hundred people flooded downtown streets on Saturday, demonstrating against an oil refinery and petrochemical processing plant planned nearby.
Local organizers and the state-run Xinhua news agency confirmed the protest. Photos posted to China's Sina Weibo microblogging service showed crowds of perhaps more than 1,000 gathering in downtown Kunming. The demonstrations appeared to be peaceful.
Activists there are calling for a third-party environmental-impact assessment of the project, and many fear the facility will hurt Kunming residents' health, said Zheng Xiejian, a Kunming native and opponent of the planned project. "We will see how the government reacts to today's protest," he said Saturday. "If they have no response, we will continue protesting."
In Chengdu, the capital of neighboring Sichuan and an important inland industrial center, officials worked in recent days to head off potential protests against a planned nearby oil refinery. Photos on Weibo showed a heightened police presence in the city on Saturday, which appeared to deter potential protesters.
Growing environmental activism among urban Chinese has emerged as a concern for senior Chinese leaders, and a headache for state oil executives who need to develop greater oil and gas infrastructure to produce a range of products from gasoline for growing numbers of Chinese cars to plastics and chemicals needed for the textiles industry. Repeated demonstrations in recent months against planned industrial facilities have highlighted public mistrust of state-owned enterprises and their ability to develop industry in an environmentally responsible manner.
The heightened aggressiveness of China's environmental movement in some ways represents a rejection of China's growth-at-all-costs development model, which has spawned gleaming new cities and alleviated poverty but raised acute concerns over air, water and soil quality, as well as food safety.
The movement is particularly sensitive as it highlights a confluence of public concern with the party's rule: lagging transparency, weak institutions and rule of law, and the power of heavily polluting state enterprises.
Environmental consciousness among ordinary Chinese rose further in recent months after a spate of severe air pollution blanketed large swaths of the country this winter. During a news conference on the sidelines of China's annual National People's Congress in March, Premier Li Keqiang acknowledged the severity of this environmental crisis, and has vowed tougher measures to deal with polluters.
That is particularly true for inland Chinese cities such as Chengdu and Kunming. Growth in smaller, western Chinese cities has picked up in recent years as companies increasingly migrate operations there, where labor and other costs can be substantially lower than in the highly developed east. Among the questions facing officials is how to rapidly build energy infrastructure to fuel growth in western China without spurring wide social unrest.
The weekend protest in Kunming follows a similar uprising against a planned refinery expansion in the eastern city of Ningbo last year. Protests there lasted for days, and local officials eventually promised to suspend a planned expansion of the industrial facility.
Protesters in Kunming, as in Ningbo last year, opposed production of the chemical paraxylene, known as PX. The chemical is an important building block in the production of plastics and other products. Xinhua reported the facility in nearby Anning will produce 500,000 tons of paraxylene annually. But high levels of exposure can irritate the eyes and cause respiratory discomfort, according to U.S. government and industry reports.
"Anning refinery, do not turn our home into hell," read one protester's sign, according to Xinhua. Photos on Weibo showed demonstrators wearing face masks in symbolic protest.
The new facilities near Kunming and Chengdu are both being planned by state oil giant China National Petroleum Corp., which has attempted to allay public concern in recent days. A statement dated Thursday by CNPC subsidiary Sichuan Petrochemical said that as a state-owned enterprise, the company had an obligation to complete the project in a socially responsible way. CNPC's planned refinery in Pengzhou, 20 miles north of Chengdu, will be able to process around 200,000 barrels of oil a day when completed.
The project, according to the company statement, would "genuinely and sincerely serve the Sichuan people." Separately, in an interview posted Saturday to a website controlled by the Sichuan government, an unnamed CNPC official defended the Sichuan project and said the company was using advanced technologies to ensure clean refining and petrochemicals production.
—Kersten Zhang contributed to this article.

 

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