It may not be the most entertaining book published this year, but in foreign relations it may be among the most useful. “Toxic Politics: China’s Environmental Health Crisis and Its Challenge to the Chinese State,” by Yanzhong Huang, a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, is a deeply researched account of China’s massive pollution problem and the government’s efforts to turn things around.
The unparalleled growth of China under a communist regime that was until recently almost entirely indifferent to the consequences of pollution has brought about an environmental disaster that, despite some competition from India, has no counterpart anywhere in the world. Prodded by local journalists, civic organizations and unrest as pollution’s impact on public health has grown, China’s government has over the past decade begun to take pollution seriously. By some measures it has made progress. But as Mr. Huang shows, cleaning up China will test the Communist Party to its limits.
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