Chinese protesters scored another environmental victory at the weekend when an eastern city abandoned plans for an industrial waste-water pipeline in response to massive opposition, writes Kathrin Hille in Beijing.
The government of Nantong, a city near Shanghai, said it was scrapping construction of a plant that would have discharged water from a paper factory in Qidong – a city on the mouth of the Yangtze river under Nantong’s jurisdiction.
The decision came after thousands of Qidong residents took to the streets and occupied local government offices, voicing concerns that the planned facility, owned by a subsidiary of Oji Paper, a Japanese group, would pollute drinking water.