其他摘要：China's spectacular economic growth has been one of the most dramatic developments in the global economy over the past quarter century. Between 1978 and 2004 the Chinese economy expanded at an annual rate of 9.4 per cent. However, China's economic growth has taken place at an enormous social and environmental price. A rapid increase in social and economic inequality, environmental degradation, mounting rural crisis, growing urban unemployment and poverty, pervasive government corruption, deteriorating public services (especially in basic education and health care), as well as escalating social unrest, have grown to dangerous levels and could potentially lead to an explosive situation. We focus in this essay on the environmental impact of accumulation and profit-oriented development in China. Given its enormous population and its growing importance in the global economy, the implications of China's environmental crisis go far beyond China itself. It has become an important and growing element in the developing global environmental crisis. It is unlikely that either the Chinese environmental crisis, or the global crisis, can be effectively addressed within the existing institutional framework. To build an environmentally sustainable society the economic system has to be fundamentally transformed so that production and consumption activities are oriented towards meeting the basic needs of the general population rather than the pursuit of profit and wealth accumulation.
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