China Environmental Law

First, apologies for my light posting record recently.  I’ve been really swamped, but things are easing up a little now.

You may recall a post earlier this month with the subheading “One Bad Apple?“  That question has now been answered, there are at least two (alleged) bad apples and there may be more; things are getting pretty hot for some very high officials in the Ministry of Environmental Protection (MEP). 

It started with Wang Panpu, the former secretary-general and legal representative of the China Environmental Culture Promotion Association (CECPA) who is alleged to have had his hand in the cookie jar.

Now the South China Morning Post  (SCMP) (pay site, so link will only work if you have a subscription) is reporting today (via Caijing Magazine) that

Li Jianxin - former personnel chief at the State Environmental Protection Administration, which was elevated into a full ministry early this year - will soon be charged with corruption.

Both Wang and Li “allegedly took bribes in exchange for help in acquiring the mandatory environmental impact assessment approval.”

The corruption investigation is ongoing. 

Mistakes and irregularities have been found, as many assessment agencies closely connected with green authorities were allowed to profit from the approval process, the NPC review said. Complaints about the poor quality of environmental impact assessments have surged this year, it said.

We ended our previous post with these lines “Watch this one folks.  There may be bigger fish caught in this net.”  At the time we didn’t want to name any names, but the SCMP is ready to connect the dots.  They lead to MEP’s shrinking violet, Vice Minister Pan Yue.

Wang is the general secretary of the China Environmental Culture Promotion Association and is second only to Mr Pan, who heads the ministry-owned organisation.

Wang is a journalist with extensive experience in mainland media who work under Mr Pan when the latter was deputy director of the state-owned assets administration authority in the 1990s.

Speculation has been rife about Mr Pan’s possible involvement in Wang’s corruption case. Ministry sources [and CELB] said the outspoken Mr Pan had kept a low profile recently.

Sit tight.  It’s going to get interesting.