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CEF Director Jennifer Turner Quoted in a VICE Sports’ Article on the Golf Clamp Down in China

In China, golfers pay more than $50,000 annually to enjoy what has long been a wealthy person's sport. Now, many club members across the world's most populous nation are probably clamoring to get their money back, because the Party’s aims to fight corruption and preserve the environment.

CEF Director Jennifer Turner Quoted in a VICE Sports’ Article on the Golf Clamp Down in China

In China, golfers pay more than $50,000 annually to enjoy what has long been a wealthy person's sport. Now, many club members across the world's most populous nation are probably clamoring to get their money back, because the Party’s aims to fight corruption and preserve the environment.

Golf courses, though they can sometimes be a boon for a local economy, require large amounts of freshwater to be maintained, and reduce the amount of land available for farming.

Officially, China banned the construction of new courses in 2004. Over the past ten years, however, more than 600 courses were built throughout the country, the most in the world during that period. Although the rapid development of golf since 2004 shows the central government's weakness to enforce its own land laws, that decentralization is pervasive in other industries as well—and, to an extent, has been deliberate, allowing many provinces to thrive economically.

"A great part of China's success was by decentralizing its government," Jennifer Turner, the director of the China Environment Forum at the Woodrow Wilson Center said. "Now you have issues of environmental degradation and abuse of power."

For the full article, click here. 

Photo Credit: Zach Bergson

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