China Policy Journal Volume 1, Number 1, Fall 2018 | Page 160

Chronic Noncompliance and Ineffective Enforcement in Guangzhou
Figure 4. The number of public complaints on pollution in Guangzhou and the
proportion of resolved cases (2007–2015) (Guangzhou EPB 2008–2016)
(Data for 2014 and 2015 are not completely available)
(Wang 2014). Actually, the local EPB
involved in the case did respond to the
citizens’ reports of air pollution by fining
and suspending production of some
of the polluters. However, these sanctions
were too weak to deter the environmental
offenses and the continuing
illegal air pollution was causing numerous
respiratory symptoms among the
students and teachers near these polluting
plants. It was not until the frustrated
petitioners brought the cases directly
to the Ministry Education (and not the
MEP) and attracted media attention in
2014, that tougher enforcement actions
were implemented.
Compared with citizen reporting,
which is usually individual-based,
post facto and lack of systemic data,
the monitoring of industrial pollution
conducted by NGOs is relatively more
organized and preemptive and has
more impacts on EPB actions and policy
change. A representative example of
such social initiatives in environmental
enforcement is a nationwide pollution
monitoring campaign led by IPE, a Beijing-based
ENGO focusing on production
chain environmental performance
supervision. IPE uses the monitoring
data of the SMSs disclosed by the EPBs
at various levels to create Green Audit
reports of the suppliers of multinational
corporations in China and it has developed
interactive web maps to encourage
ordinary citizens to monitor pollution
sources and report illegal discharges.
Due to its success in facilitating public
participation in environmental law enforcement
by applying information and
communication technologies (ICTs),
IPE was in 2015 invited by the environmental
authorities to participate in
mobilizing citizen monitoring over wa-
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