In little more than two decades, China has gone from being a poverty-stricken nation to an economic power. This transformation has been made at the expense of its environment, starting with the pollution of its rivers as newly established factories pour chemical waste into the streams that provide drinking and irrigation water. Elizabeth Economy, a member of the Council on Foreign Relations, begins the study of environmental deterioration in China with the death of the Huai River, which is situated in the Huai River Valley, the fertile region that once provided the best crops in eastern China. The region is comprised of Anhui, Jiangsu, Shandong and Henan provinces, and has a population of 150 million. In July 2001, heavy rains flooded the Huai River's tributaries with billions of gallons of highly polluted water that contained garbage, yellow foam and dead fish. The flooding created enormous damage to both humans and the inhabited areas. The cleanup cost was estimated at as high as 100 billion dollars. But the cost will certainly be even higher, because Chinese authorities are diverting water from the Yangtze to the Huai to irrigate the land and for agricultural projects, a plan that will be completed only by 2013. The author predicts that the flooding of the Huai valley will result in long-term economic problems, the spread of illness, and death to many of its inhabitants.

The story of the Huai River Valley is typical of the destruction of the environment in China, a country that for centuries has known flooding, deaths, desertification, water scarcity, and shrinking forests as the population continues to grow. Ms. Economy says China has a legacy of environmental devastation while its political leaders over the centuries have tried to amass power, consolidate territory and develop the economy to feed the growing number of people. Furthermore, she says China lacks the foundation for preserving the environment because it does not have the legislation governing the use of land, forests and water and holding the government accountable if the environment is destroyed. China has been dominated by philosophical ideas that nature should be respected without the means to conserve it.

Under Mao Tse-tung's vision of a powerful China, the country went through rapid population growth, accelerated indiscriminate use of resources in preparation for war, and economic development, all of which resulted in severe environmental devastation and social turmoil. From the beginning of his long reign, Mao envisioned the country's greatness as being centered around a large population. Washington criticized Mao for advocating a large population, but Mao rejected those critics, saying that a large population will be able to find solutions to its problems by itself. China now has 1.3 billion people, or about one-fifth of the world's population.

When Mao died in 1976, the leaders who succeeded him shifted the economy into high gear in order to integrate into the world markets. By doing so, Chinese leaders took the country into even greater exploitation of the environment. Ms. Economy says that China has succeeded in expanding its economy and adapting it to global markets, and that Chinese farmers also have benefited from the economic development. But she points out some glaring destructive behavior. As the economy grows, demands also grow for more water, energy and trees. As a result, the country is facing more desertification, flooding, and species loss because the forests are disappearing. By the middle of 1990s, 25 of the 140 forest bureaus reported they had exhausted their resources, and 61 more reported that trees were being cut down at an unsustainable rate. Environmental pollution increased so much in the capital that former Premier Zhu Rongji was quoted as saying in 1999: "If I worked in your Beijing, I would shorten my life at least five years." The book examines many examples of environmental degradation. Alarmed by the growing problems, Chinese authorities have tried to reconcile the environment with developmental programs, the most typical example being the construction of the Three Gorges Dam on the Yangtze river.

Other countries that are pursuing rapid economic development have encountered similar problems in their environment. But Ms. Economy says China's environmental degradation and pollution dwarf that of most countries.