User:Carriesu/sandbox

Article Evaluation
The article that I am going to evaluate is environmental policy in China. In general, this Wikipedia page is quite under development and lacks of important updated structure and data. Class Discussion:
 * 1) Everything is related to the article topic but some of the content is confusing for readers because it is just one of minor brunches of the subtitle and is the only brunch that is mentioned. For example, there is the "Protected area" under current law.  The current environmental law consists 20 laws of resource protection and 10 laws of environment protection. "Protected area" corresponds to the law of nature reserve, which is 1 of the 30 laws. The 30 laws are not mentioned and the only one mentioned is not clear about what it is.
 * 2) This article is not neutral. The article not only does not cover the basic structure of current laws but also does not give credit to the current laws. The current environmental laws are criticized to be not well enforced because the local government mainly cares the economic growth. Under current laws, the company try to implement basic environmental measures instead of proactive measures. But the benefit brought by the basic practices still have effects, which is not mentioned in the article.
 * 3) There are viewpoints that are underrepresented. Under the category of current issues, only two environmental issues are included which are water resources and air pollution. Some policy related to these two environmental issues are stated but are still lack of the important policies. Also, there are other issues such as  land pollution, climate change and deforestation etc. Those issues and related policies are not mentioned.
 * 4) Most of the citations website are still accessible. But most of the citations are news and they are very outdated. Citation [8] is archived and could not be found. Citation [25] could not be open and the effective link is https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2013-03-25/chinese-utilities-face-20-billion-costs-due-to-water-bnef-says. Citation [9] does not look like a government website.
 * 5) The fact is not all referenced properly. In the history, it stated that how the State Environmental Protection Administration is formed but it does not give any citation. Other citations are appropriate but outdated. The citations are neutral. They are not from government work report and they are from news report.
 * 6) There are content that are incorrect or outdated. One example is that in the article, there are 12 offices and departments under MEP, all at the si  level in the government ranking system. But according to the MEP website, they have 20 offices now. There are two major parts that are necessary to be improved. The first part is current law. The more appropriate way to describe the current law category is to explain the current law system, the benefit gained by current law system and also the the weakness. The second part is current environmental issues. More issues and their related policies need to be established.
 * 7) There are two talks that are presented and they are about updating citation links.
 * 8) The article is part of the WikiProject China, WikiProject Environment, WikiProject International relations and WikiProject Politics. But they are rated as C-class and low-importance.
 * 9) In class, when we talk about the environmental policy in China, it will be more a problem-based discussion and we usually have analysis on why its outcome is satisfying or not as expected. But the Wikipedia discusses are more of stating the facts and less of analysis.

The way to identify them is to let people in other field read the articles. It is because people who write articles are people who has basic knowledge already. Who writes the Wikipedia matters because people will have bias based on their experience related to the topic.

''' Assignment --- Wikipedia revising. '''

I updated the structure government structure and then updated the link for this information. The paragraph below is the paragraph after my revising.

There are 20 offices and departments under MEP including General Office, Department of Planning and Finance, Department of Policies, Laws and Regulations, Department of Human Resources Management and Institutional Arrangement, Department of Science, Technology and Standards Department of Environmental Impact Assessment, Department of Environmental Monitoring, Department of Water Environment Management, Department of Air Environment Management, Department of Soil Environment Management, Department of Nature and Ecology Conservation, Department of Nuclear Facility Safety Regulation, Department of Nuclear Power Safety Regulation, Department of Radiation Source Safety Regulation Bureau of Environmental Supervision and Inspection, Department of International Cooperation, Department of Education and Communications, The MEP Committee of Communist Party of China, Office of the CPC Central Commission for Discipline Inspection at MEP.[9] All 20 offices are at the si (司) level in the government ranking system. They carry out regulatory tasks in different areas and make sure that the agency is functioning accordingly.

 Assignment -- Choose possible wiki topic  The three topics related to the course that I chose are Environmental governance in China,  Pollution in China and Environmental policy in China. They are related to environmental politics and policy in China. Because of its unique political environment, China’s environmental policy-making process and structure are quite different from other countries. Also, the environment has been polluted severely for the fast development of China’s economy. More importantly, the environmental policy in China will not only influence China itself but also the global environment to a large extent.
 * 1) Topics related to the course

For topic of Environmental governance in China, the law system related to environmental protection could be added to improve this wiki page. Governance is the process of governing which includes constitutional laws and regulations at different level for governance of a country. This wiki topic focuses more on the political structure of environmental governance in China. It does not include what the constitutional law and environmental laws are like in China. This is an important part to analyze the environment politics and policy for a country.

For topic of Pollution in China, impact of pollution could be improved based on a lot of existing research on how China’s environmental issues influence countries and the global environment. In this part, only a little impacts are studied and they are not well organized.

For the topic of Environmental policy in China, the environmental issues could be improved. There are viewpoints that are underrepresented. Under the category of current issues, only two environmental issues are included which are water resources and air pollution. Some policy related to these two environmental issues are stated but are still lack of the important policies. Also, there are other issues such as land pollution, climate change and deforestation etc. Those issues and related policies are not mentioned

2. How to improve: http://www.npc.gov.cn/npc/xinwen/2012-11/23/content_174381 9.htm.
 * For the 1st topic, ,articles below could be used to improve the wiki page:

This articles includes the detailed structure of China’s environmental law system.

http://www.iolaw.org.cn/showArticle.aspx?id=2209

This article reviewed changes for the past 30 years and projected the future of the China’s environmental laws system.

https://www.chinadialogue.net/article/show/single/ch/3831--China-s-green-laws-are-useless-. This is a critical review on why China’s environmental law system failed. https://www.nature.com/scitable/blog/green-science/the_impact_of_asian_air. This article presented the impacts of Asia’s polluted air on global weather, which could be used for the impacts of pollution category.
 * For the 2nd topic, articles below could be used to improve the wiki page:

https://www.bloomberg.com/graphics/2018-china-pollution/. This is a very updated article regarding on the impact of China’s pollution across border. It is published in March 2018 and very detailed on pollution especially PM2.5. It says that China contributes the most PM 2.5 to the global environment.

https://www.cfr.org/backgrounder/chinas-environmental-crisis. This article is published in 2016 and it detailed gave the how bad the China’s environment is. In addition, it discussed what has been done in China to improve the environment. In the environmental issue part, I could include more environmental issues and regulations related.
 * For 3rd topic,  articles below could be used to improve the wiki page:

http://www.ce.cn/xwzx/gnsz/gdxw/201511/20/t20151120_7070381.shtml. This article included the climate change in China and how China has set policy to deal with it.

https://www.brookings.edu/zh-cn/research/%E6%94%BF%E7%AD%96%E7%AE%80%E6%8A%A5%EF%BC%9A%E4%B8%AD%E5%9B%BD%E6%B0%B4%E8%B5%84%E6%BA%90%E9%97%AE%E9%A2%98%E3%80%81%E6%94%BF%E7%AD%96%E5%92%8C%E6%94%BF%E6%B2%BB/

This article included more updated information regarding on the water pollution and regulations to deal with it in China.

http://www.xinhuanet.com/world/2016-12/18/c_1120137660.htm

This article includes how China set regulations to protect biodiversity, which is also an environmental issues.

 Finalize your Wiki topic 

I decided to do the environmental policy in China topic because there are a lot of content that are missing from this topic. I also did the evaluation of this topic. There are content that are incorrect or outdated. One example is that in the article, there are 12 offices and departments under MEP, all at the si level in the government ranking system. But according to the MEP website, they have 20 offices now. There are two major parts that are necessary to be improved. The major part is the sub topic of current environmental issues. More issues and their related policies need to be established. And there are views that are biased. Most of the citations are news and they are very outdated.

So I plan to update the important information about the environmental policy in China. And then I correct the biased views on those policies. I will try to find information on how the outcome is instead of only talking about why it failed. I plan to especially update current issues. For the current issues part, more environmental issues and related policies will be added. Specifically, I will update the water pollution problem and policy. I plan to add more recent policy in different levels especially the environmental policy in the most recent Five Year Plan.

Three links below are some information that I found useful for revising the Wiki page.

- http://www.ce.cn/xwzx/gnsz/gdxw/201511/20/t20151120_7070381.shtml. This article included the climate change in China and how China has set policy to deal with it.

- https://www.brookings.edu/zh-cn/research/%E6%94%BF%E7%AD%96%E7%AE%80%E6%8A%A5%EF%BC%9A%E4%B8%AD%E5%9B%BD%E6%B0%B4%E8%B5%84%E6%BA%90%E9%97%AE%E9%A2%98%E3%80%81%E6%94%BF%E7%AD%96%E5%92%8C%E6%94%BF%E6%B2%BB/

This article included more updated information regarding on the water pollution and regulations to deal with it in China.

- http://www.xinhuanet.com/world/2016-12/18/c_1120137660.htm

This article includes how China set regulations to protect biodiversity, which is also an environmental issues.

https://www.brookings.edu/zh-cn/research/%E6%94%BF%E7%AD%96%E7%AE%80%E6%8A%A5%EF%BC%9A%E4%B8%AD%E5%9B%BD%E6%B0%B4%E8%B5%84%E6%BA%90%E9%97%AE%E9%A2%98%E3%80%81%E6%94%BF%E7%AD%96%E5%92%8C%E6%94%BF%E6%B2%BB/

This article provides information on water pollution and China's policies.

Draft the changes to an existing Wiki article

In total, China has a 5th largest water resource but the water resource per capita of China is less 1/3 of the average of the world. Chinese government implement two fundamental policies to deal with the water shortage problem. The government have been providing funding for South-North Water Diversion Project, which aims to bring 45 billion cubic meter water to Beijing and other northern parts of China. It is estimated to cost 62 billion dollars and it need more than 1 million people to migrate. Secondly, Chinese government is trying to improve the water use efficiency and limit total needs. The Water Resource Act built in 2002 claimed that water resources are belonged to the country and permissions are needed for any cooperation or organization to use water. It also authorized local water resource department to make plan for water use.

In 2010, the Community Party of China and the State Council set "three red line" policy to limit the way of water use and its efficiency. The central government had invested 1.8 trillion yuan to enhance water policies including upgrading agriculture irrigation system and clean water system in rural area. Although theoretically these policies could solve the inequity of water distribution to some extent, they did not solve the conflicts in provinces and they are weakened by complicated relationships between central authority of China and local government at different levels.

 Wiki: Expand your draft 

Except the water shortage, the water quality is a more serious issue which has caused public health crisis and political disputes. According to the report Only less than half of water meets the safe drinking water standards in China. Besides political oppositions between regions, the current government structure for controlling water pollution is a barrier.

The Ministry of Ecology and Environment of the People's Republic of China is a relatively new ministry. It has less power and less employees, which results in its heavy dependence on local environmental protection bureau (EPB). The problem is that local EPBs do not only get controlled by higher EPB but also local governments whose performance is assessed mainly by economic development. So the local governments have actual more liberal policies on companies that producing water pollution. Additionally, the majority of income of EPBs comes from pollution instead of pollution fine, which makes it difficult for the ministry manages local EPBs.

 Edit draft in response to Peer/Wiki Reviews 

Title: change "Water resource" into "Water shortage"

China ranks 5th globally in terms of water resources but the water resource per capita is less than 1/3 the world average. The Chinese government implemented two policies to alleviate the water shortage issues;supporting the South-North Water Diversion Project and improving water use efficiency. The government has provided funding for the South-North Water Diversion Project, which aims to bring 44.8 billion cubic meters of water to Beijing and other northern parts of China. The project will cause disruption to local inhabitants forcing the migration of nearly one million people. The total cost of this project is estimated at $62 billion. In 2010, the Communist Party of China and the State Council set policies to change ways of using water and improve water use efficiency. The central government had invested 1.8 trillion yuan to enable efficient water use by upgrading both agriculture irrigation systems and clean water systems in rural areas. Besides water shortages, water quality is am issue that has influenced public health and led to political disputes. Less than half of all water resources meet the safe drinking water standards in China. In addition to political oppositions between regions, the current government structure is also a barrier for water pollution control.

The Ministry of Ecology and Environment of the People's Republic of China is relatively young. It is assigned relatively little power and few employees compared to other existing ministries, which results in its heavy dependence on local environmental protection bureaus (EPB). The problem is that local EPBs are not only controlled by higher EPBs but also by local governments whose performance is assessed mainly by economic development. Therefore, local governments have loose policies on companies causing water pollution as that could potentially limit economic output. Furthermore, the financial support of EPBs comes from pollution fines instead of the Ministry of Ecology and Environment, which makes it difficult for the ministry to manage local EPBs.