Chinadialogue.net

chinadialogue

Type	Non-governmental organization
Founded	July 3, 2006
Location	London, Beijing and San Francisco
Key people	Isabel Hilton, CEO
Area served	People's Republic of China
Focus	Environmentalism
Mission	To promote direct dialogue and the search for solutions to our shared environmental challenges.
Motto	China and the world discuss the environment
Website	chinadialogue.net

Chinadialogue.net (中外对话) is an independent, non-profit organisation based in London, Beijing and San Francisco. It was launched on July 3, 2006. Chinadialogue is funded by a range of institutional supporters, including several major charitable foundations.

It focuses on the environment, especially in China, although it has an interest in environment and sustainability issues around the world.

It features articles by Chinese and non-Chinese authors from a variety of perspectives. These include an interview with former US vice-president Al Gore^[1] and Chinese economist Hu Angang. Other contributors include Pan Yue who was named New Statesman Person of the Year 2007 and a rising figure in Chinese government circles who is championing a green China, and Ma Jun a leading Chinese environmentalist named by Time magazine as one of its 100 most important people in 2006.

It has adopted a web 2.0 approach, which gives user-generated comment a key place in the site, and sees the use of RSS feeds, Creative Commons material, and news briefs and links collected from varied sources across the net.

Its tagline is "China and the world discuss the environment".

BBC Radio 4's Sheena McDonald said on the Talking Politics programme on December 23, 2006, that the site was the only fully bilingual website in English and Chinese focusing on the environment in the world. She interviewed editor Isabel Hilton, who at the time was also editor of openDemocracy, who said that the aim of the site was to foster a dialogue which might otherwise be defeated by language barriers.

It shares a similarity in construction and ethos with China Digital Times, which is run by the China Internet Project at the Graduate School of Journalism at the University of California, Berkeley.

Mission statement

China is growing fast and, as it grows, it is faced with urgent environmental challenges. Environmental costs may account for 10 per cent of China's GDP and the effects of pollution, desertification and climate change are already beginning to be felt within China and outside her borders. Climate change, species loss, pollution, water scarcity and environment damage are not problems confined to one country: they are challenges that concern all the world's citizens, but the rise of China gives them a new urgency. Tackling these challenges will require a common effort and common understanding. Here at chinadialogue we aim to promote that common understanding. By establishing the world's first fully bilingual website devoted to the environment we aim to promote direct dialogue and the search for solutions to our shared environmental challenges.^[2]

Board members

The members of the chinadialogue Editorial Advisory Board are: Professor Mark Elvin, Caspar Henderson, Ma Jun, Professor Pan Jiahua, Lord Patten of Barnes, Professor Orville Schell, Sir Crispin Tickell, Professor Wang Canfa and Professor Wang Ming.

References

1. ^ http://www.chinadialogue.net/article/show/single/en/413--A-challenge-to-our-moral-imagination-
2. ^ http://www.chinadialogue.net/static/about#mission

External links

• chinadialogue 中国与世界，环境危机大家谈
• China Digital Times announces chinadialogue's launch
• Al Gore interview with chinadialogue covered on danwei.org
• 人民网就全球变暖问题采访"中外对话"总编伊莎贝尔 ·希尔顿 Transcript of China Central Television interview with editor Isabel Hilton
• Salon.com covers chinadialogue article
• China water pollution map at the Institute of Public and Environmental Affairs
• Chinadialogue on Time Magazine blog