China missing the point on waste protests

China missing the point on waste protests

Dr Hao Tan of the Newcastle Business School addresses recent protests in China over waste incineration

Recent waste incineration protests in Hangzhou, China have attracted wide international media attention. Newcastle Business School academic Dr Hao Tan has written a piece for the Chinese website of the UK's Financial Times discussing the protests.

In his article Dr Tan points out that the protests were fundamentally due to a number of failures of the project owner (in this case the government) including a lack of consultation and involvement of the local community and a lack of proper compensations (either directly or indirectly) to the affected residents.

Read the full article here (in Chinese)

He argues that 'Not in my backyard' or 'NIMBY', a term which China recently borrowed from western countries, does not really apply to this case; and to label the local protests 'NIMBYs' as the government and many Chinese media attempt to do is unfair, missing the point and unhelpful for finding a solution.

Learn more about Dr Tan at his researcher profile.

Contact: Dr Hao Tan

Phone: (02) 4921 6748

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