Reading 3 Flashcards
what do handan and ruhr valley have in common
These two steel towns have an unusual kinship, spanning 5,000 miles and a decade of
economic upheaval. They have shared the same hulking blast furnace, dismantled and
shipped piece by piece from Germany’s old industrial heartland to Hebei Province, China’s
new Ruhr Valley.
what did the transfer of the steel mill from germany to china result in
The transfer, one of dozens since the late 1990s, contributed to a burst in China’s steel
production, which now exceeds that of Germany, Japan and the United States combined. It
left Germany with lost jobs and a bad case of postindustrial angst.
the transfer left germany with…
lost jobs and a bad case of postindustrial angst.
In its rush to re-create the industrial revolution that made the West rich, China has
absorbed most of the major industries that once made the West dirty.
Spurred by strong
state support, Chinese companies have
become the dominant makers of steel, coke,
China Grabs Westʼs Smoke-Spewing Factories
aluminum, cement, chemicals, leather, paper and other goods that faced high costs,
including tougher environmental rules, in other parts of the world. China has become the
world’s factory, but also its smokestack.
The Ruhr Valley city of Dortmund, where ThyssenKrupp once made steel, still suffers from
high unemployment because
of the loss of jobs to lower-cost countries like China.
But
Germans can buy Chinese-made iPods, washing machines and cargo ships at prices that,
because of lax pollution controls, do not…
reflect the toll on the environment. And the
outsourcing of polluting industries has given them cleaner air and water.
There are few signs, however, that Chinese officials have real regrets about becoming the
world’s hub of heavy industry. Investment in new plants and equipment for steel, aluminum
and cement has risen sharply even as central planners warn that the sector will get less
state support. China’s steel exports to the European Union are expected to
double this year
from the record set in 2006.
what was the solution to transform the steel mill in china
The answer came from Europe, especially from the Ruhr Valley. The Ruhr had been the
engine room of German industry since the mid-19th century. It was rich in coal and Prussian
zeal.
But by the 1960s, Germany’s industrial golden age had begun to wane. - explain
Miners had to dig
deeper to extract coal, which became uneconomical. Taxes and labor costs rose, while
reunification subjected West German companies to subsidized competition from the East.
Steel mills also came under heavy government pressure to install the latest environmental
and efficiency controls.
why did the dortmund steel mills continue
That is, until Hangang got word that it could buy a relatively sophisticated German blast
furnace for a small fraction of what a new one would cost.
what did the company (in hangang) do about production facilities and pollution
facilities, it has installed pollution-control equipment and
improved the area’s environment.
what kind of chemicals were found in the air around handan
Government officials in Handan also declined to discuss the plant. But a 2006 study by the
city and Tianjin University found abnormally high levels of chemicals of the benzene family
attached to coal dust particulates around Handan.
Dortmund and other Ruhr cities never fully recovered jobs lost to China’s new titans of steel.
The unemployment rate in the city still hovers around
50 percent higher than the
national average.
The Ruhr is coming to grips with another legacy of its polluted past:
the Emscher, a 52-mile
long river that suffered the indignity of being turned into an industrial waste canal at the
end of the 19th century. Germany now plans to spend $7 billion to bring it back to life.
Subterranean pipes will ferry wastewater to treatment plants, returning the river to a
natural state. It will be flanked by parkland, the spine of a 248-mile Industrial Heritage Trail
for tourists.
