Harbin Chemical Spill: One More Cost of Low Prices

China's "phenomenal growth has been accompanied by a ravaging of the rural resource base, declining peasant access to basic social services, public health and education, and a profound and rapidly growing gap between urban and rural areas, and between a wealthy minority and poor majority...Such matters may seem distant. Their concrete manifestations, however, appear on the shelves of the local Wal-Mart and Ikea. Rural China, its environment and its people are on the bottom of a global commodity chain tied to China's emergence as the industrial platform of choice for global corporations."