The Environmental Implications of Political and Economic Reform in Communist China

Within the last decade, much of the world has seen an increase in the amount of concern for the Chinese economy and its freight train like behavior. With the rapid democratization of said economy, many people are also becoming more and more aware of the state of their environment as well (and the relationship between the two). Is this a cause for concern? In short, yes, as in a country which bolsters almost a quarter of the world's population, speedy, large scale, and often unregulated development will obviously have dire consequences for their natural environment. However, recent econ…