Beijing Floods Highlight City’s Broader Water Problems

Welcome to Foreign policyChina’s summary.

The most prominent events this week: Floods A quick group evacuation in Beijing, viral video for bullying Sparks protests and another The deadline trade The horizon on the United States and China is looming.

Floods Beijing Rock

More than 80,000 people were evacuated from the areas exposed to floods in Beijing, as the capital is preparing for additional heavy rains after destroyed rain storms killed at least 44 people in late last month.

The city seems to escape from the last developing storm, and today, officials raised the harsh weather. But the ongoing catastrophe highlights how twice the capital of China in weather events, especially as climate change accelerates.

During summer storms, Beijing streets often become rivers – or more common, open sewers.

This can be fatal. In the storm of 2012, at least 79 people died in heavy rains, some of whom drown in their cars trapped in discontent, while others are collaborated in the lower floating floor apartments or underground homes. The death toll is likely to be in death, as the most weak population of Beijing – migrant workers – are also at least tracked.

One of Beijing’s paradoxes is that although there is a serious problem in the floods, it simultaneously has a severe water shortage.

In Beijing there is 150 cubic meters of fresh water for the individual available annually from local sources, which is less than 500 cubic meters per person – the global standard of “absolute” scarcity. This also uses the official number of about 23 million people, which may be less than its estimation, as the Chinese capital is stimulated to motivate their citizens.

Because of its size and location, the choice of Beijing as a capital in China does not have much environmental meaning compared to other Chinese historical capitals, such as Xi’an or Nanjing. But it was by the conquerors in Beijing, most notably the Mongol Empire Yuan (1271-1368), because of its proximity to their homelands. After the fall of Yuan, the Chinese Empire Han Ming, the capital, eventually transferred to Beijing in 1421 as a challenge to the nearby steps.

But historically, Beijing’s population was much smaller than today, as about a million people were hovering until he saw the basis of the People’s Republic of China growing to the day. With a small part of today’s population, there was a lot of water to wrap.

Nowadays, other northern cities that trample water such as Hohot, the internal capital of Mongolia, impose restrictions on the use of water regularly on citizens.

But Beijing does not, mainly because many important and powerful people live there. Despite the best efforts of the authorities, illegal wells are common, especially for their use by intense water resorts. Such excessive exploitation of the groundwater layer, legal or otherwise, causes lower levels of groundwater.

Instead of restricting use, Beijing uses its political power to extract water from other places in China, the most prominent of which is through the continuous north water transport project that was launched in 2003. The project has kept life to its constantly increasing residents, but in turn destroyed rural societies to the south that forced to abandon its waters.

Sometimes Beijing is also a lot of water. Nearly 70 percent of rainfall in summer capital, especially in July. Agricultural changes and irrigation, over the centuries of Beijing, left unusually exposed to the summer floods, with the destruction of many lakes and new crops, which led to the removal of the preventive vegetation.

Although Beijing has expanded its green area in recent years, the huge urban extension over the past four decades has eaten rural areas, which paves the way for fields that once absorb water.

This is exacerbated by the early drainage system in Beijing, which is designed a lot according to the weak -quality Soviet standards and has not been replaced since the 1980s, despite initiatives from top to bottom to update infrastructure. Officials tend to prefer high conference centers, high -tech, high -speed railway and skyscrapers over intangible and insecure action of sewage reform.

Climate change, at the same time, last month scale storms changed once in age to regular disasters.

Beijing is far from the only region in China with serious water problems. Floods have become a regular danger in the south, while urban expansion and the loss of groundwater cause many cities slowly on the ground.

Chinese President Xi Jinping has strengthened the development of “sponge cities” and adopting practices that better allow landscapes to absorb, store and release rain water. But despite the victory of the population of advocates of protecting the Western environment and urban planners, the “sponge” cities have largely failed to prevent floods in China.

What we are following

Bullet protests. He has become a 14 -year -old video of her classmate in China, which prompted protests in the city of Jiangio, where the event occurred, and the demonstrators were arrested. The police also claim that they arrested the fatwas.

Buga is common in Chinese schools, especially from the poorest or lower -class students. (I played this role in anger here, due to rumors – the police claim to be wrong – that the fatwas in the video are the girls of a police officer and a lawyer.) This thugal incident raised more concerns about education between parents – intense ready to consider the cost of raising children and huge wealth within the China education system.

These factors, among other things, are increasingly concerned about the authorities about the rate of collapsed births. A new government policy provides modest support for children’s care for parents to help compensate for costs, but it is unlikely to move the needle, given that China is still a medium -income country and the second expensive in the world to raise children.

Snitches. Chinese students in the UK are facing increasing pressure to inform their classmates because of the lack of disposal of the party and the preparation of academics who take a position on human rights issues, according to a new report of transparency in the United Kingdom of China, a research reservoir that focuses on the influence of Beijing in Britain.

I heard similar stories from both the mainland students and academics in the United States, where clashes played between students on Taiwan and Hong Kong sometimes violently. But China has more cards it plays in the UK, as the filling universities are financially relying on Chinese students who pay the full price for their grades.

Read the most read this week

Technology and business

The deadline trade. The 90 -day mutual tariff between the United States and China is scheduled to end on August 12. But it seems unlikely that US President Donald Trump’s appetite will have to go face to face against China again, as administration officials already indicate another extension and Trump Trump wanders around.

Of course, the irregular president may increase the gears at any moment, but Beijing also reminded Washington with his dome on critical minerals, and continued to reduce its flow to American defense and security companies.

If another diplomatic clash comes between the United States and China, it may stem from China’s proximity to Russia, with Beijing challenges the recent demands of the United States that China will stop buying Russian oil.

EV price wars. Beijing is trying to stop the electrical price war (EV) that has prompted prices to record the lowest future and display the future of manufacturers, who are produced in a loss, and suppliers, who are decorated even by the largest companies.

The organizers said they will hand over and disgrace companies participating in price wars. Eleven times warned several times in the last weeks of “engagement” (NiganThe word famous tons adopted by the party last year indicates the self -defeated competition and contraction inward.

Neijuan is part of the increasingly common argument of Shi and others that the investment has become very limited, mainly focuses on EVS and artificial intelligence. Chinese investors are more likely to graze more than their American counterparts, as they flow to the sectors that are seen as a party adoption.