China Policy Journal Volume 1, Number 1, Fall 2018 | Page 152

Chronic Noncompliance and Ineffective Enforcement in Guangzhou
spections and surprise field inspections
or inspection sweeps. Regular inspections
are conducted by the EPBs at municipal
and district levels to confirm
real-time monitoring information, locate
key pollution sources, and spot environmental
violations. The municipal
EPB has been responsible for inspecting
the centrally supervised SMSs and
the prioritized pollution sources at the
municipal level. The EPBs in various
districts mainly inspect small factories
within their jurisdictions.
Surprise field inspections are
randomly conducted and often prompted
by enforcement campaigns, environmental
disasters, and citizen reporting.
Inspections associated with enforcement
campaigns are more likely to
lead to tougher punishments such as
suspension of production, temporary
or even permanent closure, relocation,
or detention of the owners of the polluting
firms. For instance, in 2012, the
municipal EPB coordinated several interagency
field inspections targeting industrial
pollution along the Liuxi River,
an important drinking water source of
the city suffering from serious environmental
deterioration. Official statistics
show that in 2012, 905 factories were
penalized after these inspection operations,
including 14 cases of permanent
closures and six cases of forced relocation
(Guangzhou EPB; Guangzhou
BODI 2008–2016).
However, there are deep-rooted
problems that have affected the effectiveness
of the inspections such as weak
regulatory capacity of the enforcement
authorities, and political pressures from
the pro-development sectors of local
governments. Inspection requires substantial
inputs of financial resources
and manpower to ensure the effective
detection of noncompliant behavior.
Even in the relatively more affluent regions,
like the PRD, local EPBs are still
handicapped by persistent shortage
of funding and personnel to carry out
necessary inspections. According to the
information we collected from the interviews,
a typical district-level EPB in
Guangzhou (with no more than 70 fulltime
staff) is responsible for monitoring
more than 10,000 plants, most of which
are small private firms. Because many
small factories exhibit polluting activities
irregularly or evade inspections,
it is extremely challenging for the undermanned
law enforcers to detect and
catch these small offenders.
The second persistent challenge
for effective inspections stems from the
pressures from the local governments
that prioritize economic development
over environmental protection. According
to the interviews we conducted
with district-level environmental
protection officers on August 14, 2015,
too frequent and too strict inspections
might be considered as “interfering”
with the enterprises’ operation and
not conducive for “building business
friendly environment.”
4.2. Administrative Penalties on
Noncomplying Polluting Firms
We have identified two major types of
penalties on noncompliance. The first
type utilizes administrative laws and
mainly targets the corporate interests of
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