Jottings from the Granite Studio

• One of THE BEST blogs currently in the Chinese blogosphere is China Dialogue. Its excellent collection of Chinese and English articles (with translations) on environmental topics make it the very definition of a must-read blog. In today’s edition, Jiang Gaoming, professor of Botany at the Chinese Academy of Science and vice secretary-general of the UNESCO China-MAB (Man and the Biosphere) Committee, explores the connection between environmental protection and economic development. (”Fighting poverty and saving the environment“/”既要脱贫又需保护生态环境“) Professor Jiang argues:

Poverty has become a kind of resource. There is no shortage of money from national poverty alleviation funds, environmental management funds, disaster relief funds, money for education and for irrigation – not to mention money from NGOs, businesses and individual donations. But the poor themselves have no voice in how the money is spent, and many problems have arisen as a result. A change in the basic methods of poverty relief is needed; it must be questioned how the nation’s money can best be spent.

Future poverty relief projects must include the active participation of the poor; they should not simply be implemented by government. The poor need to have a stake in the land, the environment and any projects that are launched in their name. Poverty alleviation policy should be designed to transform what are now passive recipients into stakeholders. This is the only way in which poverty relief can be effective, and the environment in poor areas can be saved from unfettered exploitation.

• Keeping on the topic of the environment for the moment, The Economist has an article on tigers in South China. Stephen O’Brien, head of genetics at the National Cancer Institute in Maryland, argues that the Chinese tigers are genetically indistinguishable from tiger populations throughout Southeast Asia. Chinese scientists disagree, arguing that Chinese tigers are “special” and are extinct in the wild. (Thanks in part to Mao Zedong’s listing of this magnificent animal as one of the “5 Pests” to be eliminated.) Now, conservationists wish to introduce new blood from Indonesian tigers into the inbred Chinese captive breeding stock. Chinese officials balk at such a notion. The Economist writes: “Leading officers from the State Forestry Administration (SFA) on a census of wild South China tigers, he declared that none was left. Many Chinese will take no less kindly to being told the tiger is an undistinguished mongrel, and that miscegenation is the way forward.”

• Finally, from the files of the CIA (and via HNN) comes the fascinating story of CIA officers John T. Downey and Richard G. Fecteau who were captured and imprisoned by Chinese authorities in 1952. Both remained in China’s jails until their release in the early 1970s. It’s an “official” publication so the CIA is put in the best possible light, but the story itself reads like an excerpt from Tom Clancy and is a fascinating look into the spy-vs-tèwu (特務) game between the intelligence agencies of the USA and the PRC. The picture of the giant sling-shot like contraption that was the preferred “aerial extraction” tool for agents behind the lines alone is well worth a look.