A SENIOR American official has raised serious concerns about pollution in China, suggesting it could have major implications for the region as the mainland races ahead with industrial reforms.
US Under-secretary of State for Global Affairs, Timothy Wirth, who was in Beijing last week on an official visit, said what happened in China had consequences that reach far beyond its own borders.
The United States is particularly concerned about China's reliance on what he called 'very dirty brown coal' for an estimated 75 per cent of its energy needs.
'As the Chinese are generating electricity for heat here in China, they are also generating greenhouse-forcing gasses, and we all get warm together,' he said. 'When China sneezes most of the rest of the world could potentially catch cold.' While the long-term build-up of such gases threatens to cause climatic changes on a global and potentially cataclysmic scale, Hong Kong faces a more immediate hazard: China's plan to build a coal-fired power station on the eastern shore of Mirs Bay.
The proposed 2,460-megawatt Eastern Shenzhen power station is being backed by a subsidiary of Gordon Wu Ying-sheung's Hopewell Holdings, which says it has already received preliminary approval from China's State Planning Commission.
But it is not yet clear what pollution-control standards the plant will employ to limit its discharge of noxious sulphur dioxide.
Experts say that for six months each year, the prevailing wind will carry any pollution produced at the site directly towards Hong Kong.