An accident at a Chinese mineral ore processing plant in northeastern China recently released large quantities of industrial waste into a tributary leading toward a border with Russia. Although Chinese officials immediately informed Russia of the accident, the spill has the potential to revive long-standing Russian fears of a growing Chinese presence near and inside the Russian Far East.
On April 7, Paul Goble, a U.S.-based expert on Eurasia who writes for The Jamestown Foundation in Washington, provided details of what could prove to be one of the biggest industrial accidents in recent Chinese history. Goble said that so far the Chinese have responded in the same way that they did to the coronavirus outbreak in the city of Wuhan. “Officials have downplayed the threat both locally and at the national level, suggesting that they have already contained the problem,” Goble said. The recent spill, which occurred on March 28, involved more than 2.5 million cubic meters of highly poisonous industrial waste.
Yevgeny Simonov, a Russian environmental activist with ties to the international nonprofit group Rivers Without Borders, who is cited by Goble, said that he sees genuine reasons for concern about the spill but that not enough is known about what is happening to justify panic. As the BBC once noted, China has a long history of industrial accidents, ranging from factory explosions and mudslides to mine collapses.
Source: Radio Free Asia
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