For those of you who saw the story in the Times yesterday about 20 protesters killed in China by paramilitary police -- the largest use of force on civilians since Tianamen Sqare -- I offer the following reflections from a friend of mine currently living in Beijing and connected to the Chinese environmental movement. The balance between state-mandated development and popular discontent at the environmental and social side-effects is critical for China's (and our) future.

"The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has watched the "color revolutions" in Georgia (rose), the Ukraine (orange), Azerbaijan (rose/orange), and elsewhere with great trepidation.  But if such an event were to happen here it is unlikely to come in the warm hues favored in the former Soviet bloc, and it would certainly not be red like the revolution of 50 years ago.  No, the revolution the CCP is increasingly worried about is green.

Consider the three biggest China-related stories in the foreign press over the last two weeks.  A petrochemical explosion north of the city of Harbin left millions without water for several days.  At least three separate coalmine accidents left over 200 workers dead.  And police and paramilitary forces shot and killed up to 20 people in Guangzhou after residents of the village of Shanwei protested the construction of a power plant on their land--the largest (known) use of anti-demonstration violence since Tiananmen. The first two incidents have been widely discussed in the Chinese media; the last has been predictably suppressed.

These stories have several important similarities.  

Read more »