In reality, weak enforcement of pollution control laws means that even the newly-enacted laws of the government often have very little effect. Under past state regulations, businesses that failed to meet waste discharge standards were required to pay a fine. But one often found that over half the fine was later returned to the business by the government. The Linmu County Government in Shandong admitted that in one case in the past it had returned about 70 percent of a fine it had collected. In that way some businesses managed to stay in operation even while they were regularly polluting the environment.
Some government officials throw up their hands in defeat.
Xia Guang of the State Bureau of Environmental Protection says that by the year 2000 the government expects that over 50 percent of businesses may still be heavy polluters, even though the government's plan calls for reducing polluters to only 10 percent of all businesses. The present situation can be seen as an equation with countless variables. The change in any one variable affects all of the others. The government is one variable, businesses are another, and the individuals connected with pollution represent still another variable. Lingering problems from the past meet new concerns raised in the present.