Home » Opinion » Chinese Views
Officials in bed with enemy robber barons
By Ni Tao |
June 16, 2011, Thursday
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Print Edition
Print Edition
FEW people would dispute that decency is a vanishing creed in China's business world, where many established companies have been discredited over flawed products and scandalous cover-ups.
This sorry state of affairs became even more dismal when a reputable firm was recently discovered to be a far cry from the paragon of virtue it claimed to be.
Harbin Pharmaceutical Group, the first Chinese pharmaceutical conglomerate to have two subsidiaries listed on the Shanghai bourse, used to be portrayed as a good corporate citizen committed to delivering value to society - or so it asserts in its flashy TV commercials.
The company's reputation took a drubbing over the last week after a media fire storm over its lackadaisical - or criminally feckless, as some might say - handling of the severe pollution leak over a decade from its plant in Harbin, Heilongjiang Province.
According to reports, it has discharged sewage and toxic gases like hydrogen sulfide and ammonia - by-products of chemical synthesis- into the air, soil and waterways without properly treating them.
Long unaccountable
The gases gave off a stench that forced nearby residents to keep their windows shut all year long and even wear masks in summer.
To their great relief, the stench will one day disperse -- or merely waft elsewhere - now that the embattled firm had signed a contract on Tuesday to move its operations to a new factory in Harbin, where it is to "overhaul production to eradicate pollution."
Meanwhile, it was ordered to meet the sewage treatment standard by yesterday by senior local officials who inspected its workshop on Sunday.
Such official determination to address environmental concerns is long overdue. Past efforts to hold the company to account for its appalling waste disposal mysteriously came to nothing. As recently as 2009, some local political advisers petitioned for a probe into the polluting business, citing worrisome air-quality test results. The levels of hydrogen sulfide in air samples taken from its environs were 1,150 times the allowable limit, while those of ammonia were 20 times too high.
Despite long-running complaints of the residents and efforts of some to scrutinize the company, it has outmaneuvered critics using subtle and not-so-subtle tactics.
For years the company has purchased prime-time advertising slots on CCTV, the august national broadcaster, in which it played up the now ludicrous company motto, "Be a man of integrity, manufacture the best medicine, put quality first and pursue good health of mankind." This media blitz was a calculated move to earn the firm as much visibility and credibility as possible, since adverts on CCTV is the best endorsement for its products.
Although the previously intransigent company finally buckled under pressure on Sunday, with two of its executives bowing publicly in Beijing to apologize for the pollution, it remained defiant in the face of accusations that its advert outlays last year were 27 times its expenditure on environmental protection, for instance, upgrading its inferior waste disposal facilities.
Disingenuousness
The company argued that its advertising bills last year amounted to 1.75 million yuan (US$256,600), a tiny fraction of what it has spent on environmental protection over the past few years. But this statement smacked of disingenuousness as that sum was solely the amount incurred by the conglomerate's manufacturing arm - while its parent and another major subsidiary actually splurged a combined 1 billion yuan on commercials, its earnings report shows.
The TV commercials controversy aside, the firm behaved arrogantly at the initial stage of the expose. All it could do to stop the pollution, it said, was to relocate the factory elsewhere and this required "government policy support on all fronts." It refused to budge even when confronted with public opprobrium and orders from the local environmental watchdog to change its abhorrent ways. Only when an ultimatum was issued by the Ministry of Environmental Protection that threatened to shut it down did the company begin to temper its hubris. All the stumbling and stonewalling by a business that swears by its "good conscience."
Here again, we get a glimpse into the insidious maneuvering between mammoth taxpaying enterprises and a government blindfolded and hijacked by the mandate of growth. The pharmaceutical giant paid 7 billion yuan in taxes out of 18 billion yuan revenues last year, enough to buy official connivance at its wrongdoing.
Xinhua said in a commentary yesterday that there had been a coverup and authorities had responded to citizens' complaints by saying that the polluting company was in compliance with air and water quality regulations.
However, unconditional condoning of the mischief caused by the company, and by other unscrupulous businesses for that matter, will considerably undermine trust in the government as a guardian of public interests. Perhaps it's no coincidence that some of the firms responsible for recent high-profile environmental fiascoes happened to be big, well-connected employers.
It's high time the authorities realized how misguided and politically suicidal their coddling of robber barons is, before the public turns its anger on the perceived accomplice.
This sorry state of affairs became even more dismal when a reputable firm was recently discovered to be a far cry from the paragon of virtue it claimed to be.
Harbin Pharmaceutical Group, the first Chinese pharmaceutical conglomerate to have two subsidiaries listed on the Shanghai bourse, used to be portrayed as a good corporate citizen committed to delivering value to society - or so it asserts in its flashy TV commercials.
The company's reputation took a drubbing over the last week after a media fire storm over its lackadaisical - or criminally feckless, as some might say - handling of the severe pollution leak over a decade from its plant in Harbin, Heilongjiang Province.
According to reports, it has discharged sewage and toxic gases like hydrogen sulfide and ammonia - by-products of chemical synthesis- into the air, soil and waterways without properly treating them.
Long unaccountable
The gases gave off a stench that forced nearby residents to keep their windows shut all year long and even wear masks in summer.
To their great relief, the stench will one day disperse -- or merely waft elsewhere - now that the embattled firm had signed a contract on Tuesday to move its operations to a new factory in Harbin, where it is to "overhaul production to eradicate pollution."
Meanwhile, it was ordered to meet the sewage treatment standard by yesterday by senior local officials who inspected its workshop on Sunday.
Such official determination to address environmental concerns is long overdue. Past efforts to hold the company to account for its appalling waste disposal mysteriously came to nothing. As recently as 2009, some local political advisers petitioned for a probe into the polluting business, citing worrisome air-quality test results. The levels of hydrogen sulfide in air samples taken from its environs were 1,150 times the allowable limit, while those of ammonia were 20 times too high.
Despite long-running complaints of the residents and efforts of some to scrutinize the company, it has outmaneuvered critics using subtle and not-so-subtle tactics.
For years the company has purchased prime-time advertising slots on CCTV, the august national broadcaster, in which it played up the now ludicrous company motto, "Be a man of integrity, manufacture the best medicine, put quality first and pursue good health of mankind." This media blitz was a calculated move to earn the firm as much visibility and credibility as possible, since adverts on CCTV is the best endorsement for its products.
Although the previously intransigent company finally buckled under pressure on Sunday, with two of its executives bowing publicly in Beijing to apologize for the pollution, it remained defiant in the face of accusations that its advert outlays last year were 27 times its expenditure on environmental protection, for instance, upgrading its inferior waste disposal facilities.
Disingenuousness
The company argued that its advertising bills last year amounted to 1.75 million yuan (US$256,600), a tiny fraction of what it has spent on environmental protection over the past few years. But this statement smacked of disingenuousness as that sum was solely the amount incurred by the conglomerate's manufacturing arm - while its parent and another major subsidiary actually splurged a combined 1 billion yuan on commercials, its earnings report shows.
The TV commercials controversy aside, the firm behaved arrogantly at the initial stage of the expose. All it could do to stop the pollution, it said, was to relocate the factory elsewhere and this required "government policy support on all fronts." It refused to budge even when confronted with public opprobrium and orders from the local environmental watchdog to change its abhorrent ways. Only when an ultimatum was issued by the Ministry of Environmental Protection that threatened to shut it down did the company begin to temper its hubris. All the stumbling and stonewalling by a business that swears by its "good conscience."
Here again, we get a glimpse into the insidious maneuvering between mammoth taxpaying enterprises and a government blindfolded and hijacked by the mandate of growth. The pharmaceutical giant paid 7 billion yuan in taxes out of 18 billion yuan revenues last year, enough to buy official connivance at its wrongdoing.
Xinhua said in a commentary yesterday that there had been a coverup and authorities had responded to citizens' complaints by saying that the polluting company was in compliance with air and water quality regulations.
However, unconditional condoning of the mischief caused by the company, and by other unscrupulous businesses for that matter, will considerably undermine trust in the government as a guardian of public interests. Perhaps it's no coincidence that some of the firms responsible for recent high-profile environmental fiascoes happened to be big, well-connected employers.
It's high time the authorities realized how misguided and politically suicidal their coddling of robber barons is, before the public turns its anger on the perceived accomplice.
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