Environmental regulation, Chinese style

Even casual readers of news from China (I'm one) are familiar with the difficulty the central government experiences in trying to enforce environmental regulations in the provinces, where local officials respond to legitimate and illegitimate incentives to juice the local economy -- often by winking at illegal or noncompliant mines and factories.

Today's FT reports on a crackdown in China against the illegal mining of antinomy, a rare metal used in fire retardants, of which China produces 90% of the world's supply. The story nicely illustrates both the effects of weak regulation and the Chinese style of getting tough.

First, the status quo as it's played out in Lengshuijiang, an antimony-producing region of Hunan province: