Wong

Attitudes and Awareness of International Chinese Students

in the United States towards Environmental Issues
Kela Wong

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Introduction
This project aims to understand the level of awareness about
environmental issues of Chinese international students studying abroad in the
United States as well as their attitudes towards these issues. My original
intention was to generally gauge the level of public awareness regarding
environmental issues in China and attempt to find an explanation for my
findings through exploring sources of knowledge in China. However, the data
available for my study was limited to a very small, specific sampleChinese
international students studying abroad at my school, the University of
Washington, which prevented my answering a question so big and broad that
encompassed a group, the Chinese general public, for which I would not be
able to collect data on. I was able to glean some general patterns and
perceptions about Chinas general public from my interviews with UW Chinese
students, but I chose to narrow my inquiry to focus on this demographic, and
the specific nature of Chinese international students attitudes and awareness
towards environmental issues. How does studying abroad in the United States
alter Chinese students attitudes about environmental issues?
Despite the fact that many environmental issues are widely publicized by
the Chinese government or through the growing reach of the internet and
social media, many Chinese people, even those that have spent years studying
and living in the United States that were the subjects of this study, often still
have very little knowledge about many significant environmental issues. I
suggest that the reason for this fragmented knowledge on this subject is that

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there is a collective feeling of hopelessness among Chinese citizens about

changing the system, which is the cause of a general lack of civic participation
in the name of environmental issues. The general sense of resignation with the
existence and structure of the system within which environmental issues in
China are dealt with results in a trend that Chinese people are instead generally
fixated on looking out for own welfare. Shifts in the attitudes of international
Chinese students who study in the United States in regards to environmental
issues indicate the acquirement of a new sense of agency to participate in the
system.

Environmental Consciousness in China and the Effect of the

Government
China is currently not largely known for its environmental activism
movements, but rather is known predominantly in international opinion for its
record of disregard for and destruction of the environment. The chronicle of
Chinas detrimental relationship with the environment can and has been traced
far back into the nations history. Judith Shapiros book, Maos War against
Nature, is one such example of scholarship on this subject. While a less known
field of investigation, other scholars have explored Chinas environmental
movements as well. Michael J. Hathaways book argues that the influences of
globalization is not one-way, from West to East, as many understand it, but
rather revolutionary winds flow from all directions, in all directions. He explores
the presence of environmental winds in China, and how they have and
continue to undergo constant transformation. Although China is certainly not a

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country without its environmental activists, the countrys history of

environmental activism is unimpressive as a result of several geopolitical
factors, and today remains a movement that is still finding its footing and
spreading its reach. Jiang Wenran, whose article explores Chinas development
programs and their effect on relations with Africa due to the need for energy
resources, describes Chinas environmental activity as follows: With such a
domestic environment record and the struggle to find a way ahead, it is not
surprising that China is not a leading power in the global fight for preserving
the ecosystem. Chinese enterprises have little environmental consciousness,
and do not possess much expertise in environmental assessment or
protection.1
Another important dimension to consider is that China is a country whose
society has been heavily shaped by the hand of government in a multitude of
ways. The particular nature of how Chinas government works plays a distinct
role in shaping civil society in China and how citizens individual senses of
agency and aspirations to participate are fashioned.
General views on the role and agency of individual citizens in a country
are shaped by innumerable government structures, methods, and principles,
which manifest in every aspect of everyday lives of the people. Some of the
most well known of these characteristics of the current Chinese government
are its authoritarian nature and strong censorship of information. Andrew B.
Kipnis describes how particular trends in the high levels of educational desire in
contemporary China may be traced to the legacies of what he calls the
1 Jiang, Wenran. Fuelling the Dragon: Chinas Rise and Its Energy and Resources Extraction in
Africa. The China Quarterly 199 (September 2009): 5889. doi:10.1017/S0305741009990117.

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imperial governing complex that originate even farther back in history. He

defines the imperial governing complex as a plethora of potentially interacting
and overlapping social practices and imaginaries that reach from ideals of
self-cultivation to teaching techniques, [] and, above all, from teaching or
education in a narrow formal sense to governingthe conduct of human
conductin the broadest sense of the term.2 Kipnis describes how some have
called this latent authoritarianism in Chinese pedagogy.3 Kipnis articulates
the process through which teaching lead to pressure on a certain proper
comportment of the people that can be traced to Confucian ideals. But
teaching through exemplarity can lend support to authoritarian leadership by
the eliminating the justification for questioning the ways of the teacher. If the
student is to learn by imitating the teacher/leader, then debate and questioning
become irrelevant.4 Kipnis also cites nation building as a central theme in the
history of building Chinas educational ideology: The central Chinese
government has self-consciously viewed the curriculum more and more as a
tool to build a unified, patriotic, and Party-loving national culture.5 Education is
just one sector of life that is shaped broadly both directly and indirectly by
government, and in turn shapes how people regard their own agency and
operate in society.
The impact of governance on educational desire is just one of many
factors that are critical components in understanding the environment within
which collective public opinion and personal views on environmental issues as
2 Kipnis, Andrew B. Governing Educational Desire: Culture, Politics, and Schooling in China.
Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2011, 90.
3 Ibid.
4 Ibid., 91.
5 Ibid., 93.

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well as individual agency are formed and shaped. In this essay I argue that the
particular nature of the political systems and structures that are defined by
government ideology, logic, and methods play a key role in explaining the
forces that shape public awareness and attitudes towards environmental issues
in China.
It is important to acknowledge that China is an extremely large country
rich in diversity that also contains wide variation across provinces in the nature
and scope of the reach of the national government. Widely mixed levels of
education and urbanization are also significant factors in producing varied
perceptions and behavior across the country. In some parts of China, culture
may even be dissimilar enough to engender different attitudes. Thus, it is very
difficult to discuss China in overarching, general terms, and this work does not
claim that these postulations fully encompass Chinese people as a whole. This
essay does however, attempt to unearth and understand some general
patterns of the collective under a single national government.

Methodology
In order to investigate how Chinese international students perceive
environmental issues, I conducted a brief survey followed by an approximately
hour-long semi-structured interview with eleven Chinese international students
who were studying at the University of Washington at the time. Criteria for
interviewee selection were students who were Chinese nationals, and grew up
and received the majority of their primary and secondary education in China. I

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began my search for interviewees first through personal acquaintances at the

UW, and then snowballing after that, asking friends of friends.
All of my respondents are undergraduate students aged 20-24, with
average age of 21.4. The eleven interviewees, seven male and four female,
were in their second to fourth year of studying in a range of programs, from
business to Asian studies to physiology to environmental studies. They also
came from a range of cities in China, many of which have populations well over
one million such as Beijing, Shanghai, Nanjing, Chengdu, Zhenjiang, and
Wuhan, with only a few interviewees coming from relatively smaller hometowns
with populations below one million. The length of time that interviewees had
spent living in the United States ranged from eight months to five years. Most
had come to the U.S. to attend university and had lived in Seattle for two to
four years, with one who had attended part of high school on the east coast.
The data of this study did face some limitations. The demographics of my
interviewees were slightly skewed in that I relied heavily on my classmates in
current coursesabout half of my respondents were fellow students enrolled in
a course on Society and Environment in China. It should be acknowledged
that these students who selected this International Studies and Anthropology
course might have different knowledge or personal perspectives or interests
from the typical Chinese student at UW or students from other majors. A
second limitation comes from the snowballing effect of seeking potential
interviewees through asking friends if they had friends who would let me
interview them. Although I iterated that I was looking for Chinese students from
all different majors, I suspect that when I asked, some chose friends who they

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thought would be more interested in my topic and thus more willing to do an

interview with me. Or on the other hand, I also suspect that some friends may
have put me in contact with friends they though might know more about the
topic and thus be more helpful to me. Although I greatly appreciate the help of
these students in putting me in contact with other interviewees, it should be
recognized that most of the snowball interviewees seemed to have a
personal interest in environment-related issues, reflected in their areas of
study, which may indicate skewed recommendations.
Another interesting trend that I noticed was that several of interviewees
appeared to put forth answers to my questions that had an air to them that
almost felt rehearsed at times. In her article on Chinese doctoral students in a
U.S. research university, Yi Zhang brings up the concept of having face or
saving face that is frequently discussed as an important social value in
Chinese and other Asian cultures and notes that conversations with the
respondents revealed certain cautiousness as being afraid of making mistakes
or being embarrassed.6 My interview included multiple questions7 that aimed
to broadly measure the level of knowledge of the interviewees on various
environmental issues; one question in particular asked participants if they had
heard of and what they knew about several events related to environmental
issues, which may have elicited nervousness about appearing ignorant in some
participants after repeatedly answering no, that they had not heard of most
of the events I inquired about. As in any kind of interview or formal recording of
conversations, especially in todays era of Internet where ones reputation may
6 Zhang, Yi (Leaf). International Students in Transition: Voices of Chinese Doctoral Students in
a U.S. Research University. Journal of International Students 6, no. 1 (January 2016): 187.
7 Interview Question 5 and Question 8.

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both spread like wildfire and be recorded forever, participants are likely to be
conscious and nervous about making mistakes, and hope to come across as
educated to the interviewer. The value of saving face in Chinese culture may
have also played a role in shaping the results of my interviews.

Data Analysis
Gaps in Knowledge on Environmental Issues
The responses provided in these interviews indicate that the knowledge
of Chinese international students in regards to environmental issues, even after
spending years living and studying in the U.S., has gaps. My original line of
inquiry hoped to explore the sources of the peoples knowledge about
environmental issues as well as the origins of the gaps in knowledge; however,
discerning where people had heard of particular facts or events from proved to
be a task that went beyond what was possible through these interviews.8 An
analysis of different sources of data, for example, a comparison of the
presentation of information in news reports vs. social media, might be a more
fruitful approach to the investigation of this question. Rather than evaluating
the causes of Chinese peoples level of knowledge, I was able to draw some
general conclusions about the depth of knowledge of the Chinese international
students I interviewed.
One question that was specifically aimed at getting an idea of how much
interviewees knew about environmental issues asked where they thought
Chinas air pollution came from. I asked about air pollution over one of the
8 When I asked interviewees where they had heard about a particular event or detail from,
many could not remember or could only give vague responses like, friends or TV.

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many other environmental issues because it seems to be one of the most
highly visible, publicized by government and media, and generally talked about
issue in most discussions of Chinas environment; air pollution is often the
emblem of the problems with Chinas environmental and resultant health
concerns.
There were three responses mentioned that stood out, cited by five or
more respondents: factories and industry, cars and transportation, and coal
burning. All interviewees listed at least one of the major sources from these
three. There were many other sources of air pollution mentioned, but very few
interviewees specified sources outside of the three main recurring answers
mentioned above. These other answers included residential heating, burning of
unusable crops in rural areas, home cooking, garbage incineration,
deforestation (and the resulting dust storms), and mining. Jointly, interviewees
hit on most of the main sources of air pollution in China, with the exceptions of
secondary organic aerosol and agricultural chemical dust, which may
understandably be more scientific than the common person might know of.
However, very few interviewees listed these sourcesonly one or two people
out of eleven for each one. One respondent listed as few as two sources that
they thought caused air pollution. Another interviewee also mentioned that he
thinks that air filters are a scam.9
Another pattern that emerged in the interviews and short survey results
was that while all eleven respondents had heard about Chinas air pollution 10
9 Question 1, Interview 4.
10 The preliminary survey asked respondents to indicate which from a list of environmental
issues they had heard of before. Air pollution and climate change were the only two issues that
100% of respondents indicated they had heard of before.

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and indicated that believe it is a serious issue11 and very important to them
personally, it appeared that there was incomplete knowledge on even the
better-known health problems that air pollution causes. Only 64% expressed
that they had heard about the issue of rising cancer rates, one of the serious
health effects that is often cited in discussions on the severity and hazards of
Chinas pollution of air, water, and soil. Interviewees instead talked about air
pollution in more vague descriptions, such as You feel unhealthy just by
breathing it in12 and I think its pretty bad for your body, especially your
lungs.13 When I asked why air pollution was an important issue to them, only
two respondents14 explicitly mentioned disease or health problems as the
reason for their concern. Most said because we breathe air everyday15 or we
cant live without air.16 Although one interviewee said that air pollution is
more discussed in the news, so I know more,17 the apparent lack of detailed
knowledge about the effects of air pollution, such as cancer, may suggest that
although Chinese people claim that air pollution is one of issues they care most
about and think is very serious, they do not know the real level of hazard of air
pollution to human health.

11 The preliminary survey asked respondents to rate a list of environmental issues on how
serious they thought the issue was. Respondents answered on a scale from 1 (not serious) to 5
(very serious). Air pollution was rated as the highest, with an average rating of 4.77. The
second highest issue for seriousness was pollution of drinking water, which scored an average
of 3.8.
12 Question 1, Interview 6.
13 Question 1, Interview 8.
14 Question 1, Interviews 3 and 4.
15 Question 1, Interview 4.
16 Question 1, Interview 1.
17 Question 1, Interview 7.

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Hopelessness about Changing the System

There appears to be a general feeling of hopelessness among Chinese
people about the possibility of changing way the current system that shapes
how environmental issues are understood, approached, and addressed in
China. There were several questions about interviewees opinions on solving
Chinas environmental issues. In response to the question What do you think
would be the best solution to improving Chinas environment? that did not
specifically mention the role of the government (unlike another question), nine
people specifically stated that they thought it should be the Chinese
governments responsibility to deal with environmental issues. When prompted
to explain further, they had various suggestions for the means through which
government should take action: better enforcement of policies, enactment of

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stricter regulations, the setting of standards, promoting environmentally
friendly practices (one interviewee mentioned that they should have a
department for this!18), prioritize environmental issues, inform citizens about
these issues, support the development of new eco-friendly technology, and
protect intellectual property rights to encourage development of technology.
Only three people specifically mentioned that it's the responsibility of the
people to help with environmental problems, and two people declared that
corporations also have a responsibility to help improve Chinas environment.
There were a couple more people who didnt specify who in particular should
hold responsibility.
When asked to evaluate the efforts of the Chinese government regarding
environmental issues, nine out of eleven respondents said that they thought
the Chinese government should be doing more. Additionally, two respondents
said that they think that small acts dont help much in terms of improving
environmental issues.19 All of these responses that reveal a general sense that
there isnt much that the individual can do to help alleviate environmental
issues and that finding a solution is primarily the responsibility of the
government may reflect on the collective attitude in China that citizens are
resigned to the fact that they cant do much to participate in the political
system and contribute to resolving environmental issues.
In response to a question on the broad level of awareness of Chinas
general public about environmental issues, many respondents answered that

18 Question 10, Interview 8. China does have a Ministry of Environmental Protection. This
comment may reflect on the role, clout, and effectiveness of the MEP.
19 Question 11, Interview 8.

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there is a lack of awareness among the Chinese public.20 I also found during my
time studying in China from conversations with Chinese people that although
they were somewhat aware that their own knowledge on many issues was
limited, they had no personal desire to seek out information to fill the holes of
what they didnt know. A couple other interviewees said that they thought that
Chinese people know about these issues but they dont care. They complain
about having really bad air but they still go out and drive their cars. They wont
do anything else, they wont even protest bad air. [] They see the report and
say, oh we live in such a bad environment but they dont do anything.21 One
interviewee noted, [The public] is somewhat aware, its impossible to not [be]
aware [if] the air youre breathing is gray for three weeks.22 Both the
perceptions of interviewees on the lack of awareness that may stem from
disengagement in seeking out information that is not presented to the general
public, and the knowing but not caring of the people about environmental
issues in China seems to support the idea that there is a lack of civil
participation in the public sphere of environmental issues that stems from
disheartenment with the system, which leads to the collective belief that
learning about or acting on environmental issues would be fruitless.
As iterated earlier, this is not to say that all Chinese citizens are inactive
due to the sense of hopelessness about getting involved in improving
environmental issues. China has its environmental activists as well, albeit
possibly a smaller fraction of the general population. There was one such
impassioned activist-minded respondent among my eleven interviewees who
20 Question 12, Interviews 1, 2, 3, 9, and 10.
21 Question 12, Interview 8.
22 Question 12, Interview 11.

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was majoring in Environmental Studies, demonstrating within this study that
there are those whos opinions on their involvement in environmental issues
differ from the general perspective. A couple of the respondents stated that
they thought that Chinese people are very concerned about environmental
issues,23 one even said that he thought that the public is overly worried about
stories that were based in rumor and not backed by real information. In the
analogy that that this interviewee gave to describe how Chinese people react
to flares of sensational news stories that make people start to worry, he also
contends that although they display excessive worry, their worries are
unfounded by a lack of knowledge about the issues:
Its like you felt an electric shock once, and then whenever you see
anything sparking you get terrified. Thats how the Chinese public
responds to these issues. They are just so worried about getting sparked
again, but dont want to know why.24
One respondent describes the situation in China as this: Everyone is
either on one end of the spectrum or the other. No middle.
Several respondents expressed that instead of caring about
environmental issues, people only care about themselves in China, 25 a focus
of the normal lives of Chinese citizens that may be a result of the hopeless
attitudes towards engaging in the civil and political system. This was indeed
exemplified by the answers of two respondents, who said themselves that they
were worried about other things, such as grades in school and finding jobs:
Not necessarily [am I more concerned about the environment now],
because I was always considering other issues. Can I get into my major,

23 Question 12, Interviews 4 and 6.

24 Question 12, Interview 6.
25 Question 12, Interview 1, 3, 7, 8.

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what should I do in the future. Oh, Im so self-centered. Or GPA or
midterm, crap. [I] dont think about environmental issues.26
Most of the interviewees who discussed how Chinese people generally
are more worried about attending to the welfare of themselves and their
families did not explicitly separate themselves from their broad statement
about Chinese people. In some cases interviewees may have felt it was implied
that they considered themselves separate from the general public they were
describing, but it is difficult to distinguish in all responses. However, for this
pool of interviewees too, there is a strong correlation from the results of my
survey between the issues they think are most serious, or care most about, and
the issues that concern them in their daily lives (See Figure 1). It is not only
Chinas public that is generally unaware of the details of environmental issues
that is preoccupied with other issuesdon't we all care about the issues that
affect us most? The sense of hopelessness in taking action to address the state
of the environment that comes from people being resigned to the current
political system thus may explain the focal point of peoples attention on issues
that feel more close to everyday life and more a workable path to pursue.

26 Interview 4.

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Figure 1: Survey Results

A New Sense of Agency

The final questions of my interview aimed to investigate whether the
views of Chinese students on environmental issues were altered by their
experience of studying abroad in the United States. I found that the shifts in
perspectives and knowledge on environmental issues that interviewees
described suggest that these new viewpoints of Chinese international students
indicate a newfound sense of agency to engage participate within the
structures of civil society and engage with environmental issues.
Directly following the question that asked about interviewees thoughts
on the level of public awareness among Chinas general public in which people
answered that there is a general lack of awareness and public engagement

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with regards to environmental issues, I asked: How have your views changed
since coming to the United States? A few people did say that their views on
environmental issues had not changed after living in Seattle, citing the reason
that they had simply always been environmentally minded because of personal
interest, even when they lived in China.27
However, most people responded that their views have changed in some
way. Several interviewees said that after spending time living in Seattle, WA,
they now know more about certain environmental issues themselves, as well as
new possibilities for big ideas and projectssuch as Seattles green Bullitt
Center. Four people explicitly mentioned that they learned about trash
separation,28 and more than one imparted me with an anecdote of the stark
differences between their newly acquired waste separation practices and that
of friends or family after returning back to China.
A number of interviewees said that after living in the United States, they
care more about environmental issues than they did previously. One
respondent even said that they feel more obligated to care and take action
about the environment after living in Seattle.29 However, the strongest pattern
that resurfaced in almost every interview30 was that respondents indicated that
they now know more about solutions and ways to help resolve the worlds
environmental problems. The attitudes and views that interviewees described
seemed to suggest that their new knowledge about eco-friendly lifestyles and
projects also seemed to lead to a higher level of intent to become involved
27
28
29
30

Question
Question
Question
Question

13,
13,
13,
13,

Interviews 4, 5, 9.
Interviews 2, 3, 7, 10.
Interview 1.
Interviews 1, 2, 3, 5, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11.

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themselves, now that they have better ideas of how to help. Some interviewees
described admiringly new technologies they had seen and or projects they had
learned about such as green buildings or less-polluting factory equipment.
Furthermore, interviewees seemed to have a clear awareness of not only
solutions that would be incorporated on a larger, government or corporate
scale, but also better ideas of individual contributions they could make both in
their daily lives in the United States and in China.
I started using this reusable Starbucks cup.31
Yeah, [my lifestyle] changed. I never throw trash on the street now even
if Im in China. Im trying to separate the trash.32
I was really impressed about how most people here care about the
environment they live in. There are a lot of programs in the community
people can get involved in and clean up the streets or help in some way.
Its nice.33
The shifts seen in these interviews in the perspectives of Chinese
students towards a somewhat increased level of knowledge regarding
environmental issues and a heightened sense of individual agency in engaging
with these important problems that China faces today suggest that there may
be a positive impact of studying abroad in the U.S. on Chinese students on
perspectives towards the environment. In acknowledgement of the challenges
that the environment faces in becoming the priority of Chinese leadership due
to the CCPs intense focus on modernization, I conducted this study in the
hopes of discovering features of environmental awareness that may be used to
target a different group: Chinas general public. The results of this study, while
no where comprehensive nor complete, hold promise that increasing efforts in
public awareness may contribute to motivating the general public to become
31 Question 13, Interview 7.
32 Question 13, Interview 10.
33 Question 13, Interview 8.

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more engaged with environmental issues in China and mitigating what longterm effects may still be slowed.

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doi:10.1016/S0301-4215(99)00088-9.

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Appendix I: Survey and Interview Responses
Introductory Survey Responses: Basic Demographics
1. Friend
a. Taiyuan, Shanxi/Guangdong, Yingde
b. Informatics
2. JSIS 406 classmate
a. Taizhou, Zhejiang. Lived in Shanghai, then Beijing.
b. Asian Studies
3. JSIS 406 classmate
a. Taiyuan, Shanxi
b. Asian Studies
4. Friend
a. Nanjing, Jiangsu
b. Business
5. JSIS 406 classmate
a. Born Guangzhou, Guangdong, grew up in Dongguan
b. Environmental Studies
6. JSIS 406 classmate
a. Chengdu, Sichuan
b. Civil and Environmental Engineering
7. Friend
a. Wuhan, Hubei
b. Bioengineering
8. Friend
a. Shaoyang, Hunan, grew up in Changshang
b. Physiology
9. JSIS 406 classmate
a. Taiyuan, Shanxi
b. Medical anthropology
10.Friend of friend
a. Chengshou, Henan
b. Atmospheric sciences
11.JSIS 406 classmate
a. Zhenjiang, Jiangsu
b. International Studies
12.Friend of friend
a. Hong Kong
b. Public Health
(Excludes Hong Kong respondent): 12 total: 7 males, 4 females
Age: 4 juniors, 4 sophomores, 3 seniors
Average: 21.45
Range: 20-24
Length of time spent in the United States: Range from 8 months to 5 years, mostly
came for college
5/45% Very interested, 3/27% Extremely interested, 3/27% Somewhat interested

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Preliminary Questions
Demographics
a. Age:
b. Gender:
c. Where were you born?
d. Where did you grow up?
e. Level of education/Area of
study:
f. When did you come to the
U.S.?
g. Length of time spent outside
of China:
Introductory Survey
1. How interested are you in
environmental issues?
a. Extremely interested
b. Very interested
c. Somewhat interested
d. Not very interested
e. Cant decide
2. Which of these issues have
you heard of? How serious are
these issues? (1 not serious,
5 very serious)
a. Soil pollution
b. Air pollution
c. Pollution of drinking
water
d. Water scarcity and
shortages

e.
f.
g.
h.
i.
j.
k.

Deterioration of lakes
Desertification
Climate change
Resource depletion
Loss of biodiversity
Loss of farmland
Rise in cancer rates/
Cancer villages
l. Population growth
3. On a scale of 1-5, how much
do these environmental issues
concern you in your daily life?
(1 not at all, 5 very much)
a. Soil pollution
b. Air pollution
c. Pollution of drinking
water
d. Water scarcity and
shortages
e. Deterioration of lakes
f. Desertification
g. Climate change
h. Resource depletion
i. Loss of biodiversity
j. Loss of farmland
k. Rise in cancer rates/
Cancer villages
l. Population growth

Interview Questions
1. Which environmental issues are most important to you?
2. Do you think your daily life is impacted by environmental issues? In what
ways?
3. From what sources have you heard about environmental issues? (i.e.
newspapers, TV, social media, friends, parents, school, Internet, etc.)
4. What do you consider to be important global environmental issues?
5. How much do you know about these events? From where?
1. Paris Agreement (2016)
2. Huangpu River dead pigs incident (2013)
3. Songhua River chemical spill (2005)
4. Lead pollution/poisoning at Dongling Lead and Zinc Smelting Plant
(2009)

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5. Collapse of Banqiao Dam (1974)
6. Huai River turns black (1990s)
7. Yellow River doesnt reach the sea (1990s)
6. How do you evaluate the efforts of the Chinese government regarding
environmental issues? (follow up - China does more than enough, about
the right amount, too little)
7. Which do you think is a bigger responsibility for the government
environmental issues or economic development? Why?
8. Do you know where Chinas air pollution comes from?
9. What do you think is the main cause of Chinas environmental issues?
10.
What do you think would be the best solution to improving Chinas
environment?
11.
Do you think there are any small ways you can contribute to
improving environmental issues? (Do you recycle? Do you ride the bus?)
12.
How aware do you think the Chinese public is of these issues?
13.
How have your views changed since coming to the U.S.?