China in 2011

  
 After 30 years of extraordinary economic growth, China is the world's second-largest economy and a major global power.
First, the era of cheap labour and low value-added production is coming to an end as the economy becomes increasingly sophisticated.
Second, China has acquired a panoply of global interests that require its foreign policy, presently based on keeping itself to itself, to be rethought.
 Third, the enormous growth in social inequality, combined with mounting corruption, has fostered a sense of grievance that, if unchecked, could threaten the country's stability.
And fourth, major political reform must be instituted.



China's use of coal, oil, wind and other sources of power more than doubled in the past decade, according to the International Energy Agency. Part of the reason is the spectacular urbanisation seen in this night-time satellite image of the country’s north-east, where the illuminated cities of Beijing (population 12 million) and Tianjin (7 million)  form giant man-made stars.In July 2011,China was declared the world’s biggest power consumer.

 Flooding in China this year 2011(from June to September 2011)in central and southern parts of China that inundated portions of 12 provinces affecting a total of over 36 million people and has killed 701 people, left 347 missing and caused direct economic losses of nearly US$6.5 billion. in damage. Three-quarters of China's provinces were hit by flooding and 25 rivers have seen record high water levels, causing the worst death toll in a decade
Guizhou Province Floods

Bulacan Province Floods Aerial View

Lanxi Province Floods

Fisherman scoop up oil sludge on the coast of Dalian after a pipeline explosion led to China's largest reported oil spill. Maritime officials mobilised 800 fishing boats and 40 specialist vessels in a crude clear-up operation as the spill spread over an area of 430 square kilometres

 


Chinese trucks queue up for diesel near a gas station in Dingxi city, Gansu province, as forced power cuts prompt factories and homes to provide their own fuel for electricity. The use of diesel generators surged in the final six months of the year when several local governments imposed rolling blackouts and factory Shutdowns to meet their energy efficiency targets

Turbines harvest the breeze at the Dabancheng power plant in Xinjiang as China surged past Germany and the United States to lead the world in wind-power generating capacity

China is the world's biggest CO2 emitter and notorious for building the equivalent of a 400MW Coal -fired power station every three days, it is also erecting 36 wind turbines a day and building a robust new electricity grid to send this power thousands of miles across the countr.It is part of a long-term plan to supply 15% of the country's energy from renewable sources by 2020.Carbon dioxide emissions have more than doubled in the past 10 years, taking China past the US as the world's No 1 source of greenhouse gases.Four in five major cities are unlikely to reach the government's relatively low standards for air quality.

Breakneck economic development has come at vast social and environmental cost.