During the past centuries, society has experienced a profound revolution. While the rapid economic growth and the related societal developments achieved impressive progress in many aspects, these achievements also play a significant role in the creation of the current global environmental crises. As a result, we encounter the frequent occurrence of industrial environmental disasters around the world. The Bhopal disaster, the Exxon Valdez oil leak and the Mexican Gulf oil spill, became unprecedented in their nature, scale and speed at which they took place. In this context, there is a practical need to provide some basic insights into these societal developments.

Since China’s economic reform in 1978, China has experienced historical transformations in various aspects. From the economic perspective, China has achieved the historical shift from a centrally planned economy to a more market-based economy, also well known as the ‘socialist market economy’. In this process, China’s economic growth, industrialization, and urbanization have achieved remarkable progress. Today China has become one of the world’s fast growing and the largest major economies. Although the Chinese economy has taken a great leap forward during the past thirty years, there still exist many challenges before we can speak of a sustainable development in China. These challenges are related to a range of issues, such as deteriorating environmental pollution, rising income inequity, and administrative corruption. Particularly, China’s rapid economic growth comes at the expense of excessive resource consumption and severe environmental deterioration. The negative effects of China’s extensive economic growth pattern have become more evident in recent years. According to a report from the Ministry of Environmental Protection of China (MEP), a total number of 471 pollution emergencies occurred in 2014, including three very severe incidents. China’s overall environmental situation therefore is and is expected to remain worrisome. The deteriorating environmental situation in China shows that the current development is far from sustainable from several aspects.