nsequences. The United States Should PromoteEnvironmental Technology Transfers to China China suffers not only from a lack of capacity and clean sources of energy, but also from high inefficiencies. To remedy this problem, the Chinese government is preparing to spend more heavily on the environment while continuing to seek foreign funds. The Ninth Five-Year Plan calls for boosting environmental investment from 0.8 percent to 1.5 percent of GDP by the year 2000, and a list of some 1,400 priority projects requiring $21.7 billion has been drawn up to complement the plan. However, these ambitious goals will not likely be met. Currently, there exist more than $1.3 billion worth of multilateral agency-funded environmental projects annually in China. Many of these projects call for pollution control equipment, normally procured with hard currency through international competitive bidding. American companies, considered one of the strongest leaders in environmental technology, have been quite successful when they have participated. Currently, environmental assistance from the United States to China totals less than $10 million, compared to Japan which will provide $183 million in soft loans over the 1994-2000 period (Esty 1997). The best prospects for market growth in environmental technology includes clean coal and desulfurization technology, both critical in carbon dioxide mitigation. Other areas of potential growth in technology are environmental monitoring instruments, process controls, sanitary landfill liners, and inexpensive but effective wastewater treatment plants. Given such potential market growth in China, this represents a lucrative opportunity for American businesses as well as an effective avenue for promoting efficient energy use within China. In fact, in April 1996, “the United States and China embarked on a program of environmental cooperation to address problems such as rapid urbanization, pollution from energy ...
