High-level Meeting on Family Planning and Environmental Protection

      The Central Committee of Communist Party held a high-level meeting on family planning and environmental protection on March 15, 1998 in Beijing. President Jiang Zemin chaired the meeting and delivered an important speech. He stressed that that family planning and environmental protection are the national basic policies that relate to the sustainable development of economy and society and the survival and prosperity of future generations, which should be followed for long time. He also emphasized that great efforts should be put in family planning and environmental protection in the last few years before the end of this century as well as into the 21st century, and even in the whole period of primary socialism.

      In 1998, the national economy of China continued to grow stably even faced with the Asian financial crisis and serious flood disasters. The Chinese government made great efforts in environmental protection. There has been continuing progress in the control of total amount of pollutants and industrial pollution sources and the comprehensive urban environmental improvement. The investments in environmental protection increased remarkably. The water pollution prevention and treatment in the Taihu Lake Basin, which is a key project of pollution control in 1998, has been successful during its first phase. The city of Beijing has become a key city for state environmental pollution control. The State Council issued the "National Plan for Ecological Construction" which emphasizes and strengthens natural forest protection, and ecological construction and conservation. However, China continues to face serious environmental challenges. The situation of environmental pollution in many areas remains unchanged, and is even becoming worse in some areas. China's ecological environment is rather fragile. Some ecological problems were relatively outstanding, such as soil erosion, desertification, and forest and grassland degradation while the areas affected by ecological problems are expanding. Some serious natural disasters such as flooding, red tide and sand storms took place in 1998.