DURING THE 1970s, popular reporting, numerous China travelogues, and, unfortunately, not a few papers in scholarly journals have created a two-fold impression of the Chinese environment in North American minds. One was of pre-1949 China-dirty and desolate, with barren hills and spreading deforestation, poor farming practices, low crop yields and widespread soil erosion, congested cities and primitive, polluting industries. The other was a Maoist miracle, clean and cheerful, with green hills and massive afforestation, ever-improving farming techniques and rising yields, soil erosion well under control, cities brightened by broad, tree-lined boulevards and industries carefully preserving pure air and water. And there was more to the marvel: pests controlled by biological methods rather than by injurious synthetic chemicals; ecologically sound aquaculture greatly expanded; assorted industrial wastes thoroughly recycled; and much advanced planning devoted to the prevention of pollution.1 Chinese policies, we were assured, "seem to have been successful in protecting and even improving the natural environment."2 As often happens with Communist-run societies, foreign enthusiasts, admirers, fellow-travellers, and naive visitors were let down by those whom they adulated so assiduously: for a variety of reasons the oldnew Beijing leadership decided to admit some of the truth about the country's state of affairs, and the resulting image of China's environ-