China Policy Journal Volume 1, Number 1, Fall 2018 | Page 73

China Policy Journal
Figure 5. Xijiang River Drainage Basin with 20 Surveyed Cities
(the size of the circle signifies the population of the surveyed city)
ly terminates at the southern China Sea
near Macau; it is the largest river system
in southern China. Similar to other regions
in China, the Xijiang River Basin
has experienced trends of increasing
inequality with respect to economic
development over the last 35 years. Uneven
development between regions naturally
leads to considerably different interpretations
by regional governments
about the relationship between the environment
and the economy. Although
a wave of environmental consciousness
has begun to surface in some of the
richest eastern coastal provinces and
cities, several western inland regions
are still willing to endorse environmental
damage in the interest of attracting
investment in productive but polluting
sectors. He, Huang, and Xu (2015a) expected
the uneven economic growth
levels between regions along the Xijiang
River to exacerbate the transboundary
pollution problem because the poor inland
provinces, located upstream from
the Xijiang river basin, remain willing
to sacrifice the environment for growth.
These inland provinces are also rich in
nonferrous metal reserves, whose extraction
practices highly pollute water
resources.
Before the WTP questions, the
survey first provided the respondents
with a general description of the current
water quality for the Xijiang River
in which the potential contribution of
transboundary pollution and the reallocation
tendency of polluting industrial
production toward upstream cities
were explicitly mentioned.
70