To attract Oji’s investment in Nantong, the Nantong municipal government offered a proposal to construct a facility in Nantong that discharges industry-standard wastewater into the sea in order to facilitate the emission of wastewater from Oji Paper. The feasibility study of this wastewater discharge facility started even earlier than the paper mill by Hohai University.[5] In 2007, the Oji Paper Company began construction of a paper mill in the city of Nantong, Jiangsu, located approximately 100 km inland from the coast. The planned 104-kilometer-long pipeline would have six kilometers in marine area, with approximately 2.2 kilometers going through mud flats and the remaining 3.8 kilometers extending to the Yellow Sea. The outlet of the pipeline would be located in the waters within Qidong City, while designed capacity of the pipeline is to transport approximately 150,000 tons of waste water per day from Nantong to the coast off Qidong.[6]

However, residents in Qidong, who depend on the sea for their livelihood, strongly opposed the project. With 203 kilometers of shoreline, 660,000 mu (1 mu= 0.0667 hectares) of mud flats, and the Lüsi Fishing Port known as one of the country's four major fishing ports, Qidong has formed a highly efficient fishing industrial chain. A large number of fishermen earn their livings in Qidong's coastal zone. The drainage pipeline would impact the local fish breeding and fishing industries. The construction at the bottom of the sea would damage fish spawn, fish larvae, and juvenile fish; once the pipeline is up and running, based on the forecast that during the first stage of the project, 65,000 tons of waste would be discharged into the sea through the pipeline every day, an area of 0.065-0.84 square kilometers near the outlet would become a wastewater mixing zone unsuitable for breeding fish. [4] There were also concerns that the discharge from the paper mill could pollute Shanghai's Qingcaosha Reservoir at the mouth of the Yangtze River, from where most Shanghai residents receive their water.[7]

Initially, the proposed project met strong opposition from several deputy members of Qidong Municipal People’s Congress. During the 14th session of Qidong Municipal People’s Congress in 2005, 21 deputies jointly submitted “a motion for the Nantong project that discharges industry-standard wastewater into the sea” and 20 other deputies submitted “a motion that raises resolute opposition to waste-water discharge from Japan’s Oji Paper factory into the sea”. Both motions stated the deputies’ concerns about the risks and legality of the proposed project. The proposers of both motions held that the proposed project would seriously pollute Qidong’s marine environment, with adverse effects on Qidong’s marine fisheries and residents’ health. Nonetheless, the deputies’ opposition did not effectively halt the project from proceeding. On 13 October 2008, Jiangsu’s Environment Protection Bureau approved the environmental impact assessment (EIA) report for the inland section of the planned project. On 17 December 2008, the Jiangsu Ocean and Fishery Bureau approved the EIA report of the planned project on marine environment. On 2 February 2009, Jiangsu Development and Reform Commission approved the feasibility study report for the planned project.[8]

Since 2007, some local netizens in Qidong also began to post on a local online forum called Qi Wu Dong Jiang[9], voicing their opposition to the proposed project, but their actions did not attract much attention. It was not until mid-2009 that the forum’s posts protesting the proposed project aroused widespread concerns. Meanwhile, the opposition had spilled over from online to offline. After connecting through online communities such as QQ groups (popular instant chat software), a number of local activists began to conduct a series of offline mobilization activities, such as distributing leaflets, go-green bags with slogans, and collecting signatures downtown and along the coastal areas in Qidong, to register strong objection to the proposed project. Local activists also voiced their concerns about the risks to Qidong’s marine environment and the residents’ health by petitioning the governments and media, and by filing an administrative lawsuit in the Nanjing Intermediate People’s Court and Jiangsu Provincial High Court. The local citizens’ collective actions were successful in suspending the construction of the proposed project. [8]

However, in late May 2012, the local activists were informed that the construction of the pipeline project would restart, so they decided to resume their collective actions, which had come to a halt. On 18 June 2012, Nantong government officials went to Qidong to engage in a dialogue with local citizens including the activists, deputy members of Qidong’s Municipal People’s Congress, fishermen and retired cadres of Qidong. Unfortunately, there was no consensus reached by all of the parties. Meanwhile, the mass mobilization escalated in Qidong with the activists calling out to the public to oppose the proposed project in urban parks, residential areas, and coastal towns and villages. On 6 July, two activists submitted an application to the local authority for a demonstration to be held on 28–30 July. Although the application was rejected by the officials, and the local government sent text messages to residents and storekeepers on before 28 July asking them not to participate in the demonstration, thousands of citizens decided to go ahead with the demonstration and the details were quickly spread throughout the city via the internet and offline mobilization efforts. [8]

On the morning of 28 July, despite the local government’s preventative efforts, including halting public transport services, issuing a public letter to citizens, announcing possible penalty measures for joining, and deploying a large number of police along the proposed demonstration route, the protest still occurred. Sina Weibo, the Chinese social network, even spoke of up to 100,000 demonstrators. [7]

Thousands of people stormed the Qidong municipal government compound and several protesters entered the city government’s main building where they smashed computers, overturned desks and threw documents out the windows to loud cheers from the crowd, at least one police car was turned on its side at the protest. According to Reuters, at least two police officers were dragged into the crowd at the government office and punched and beaten enough to make them bleed.[10] Some images showed police being assaulted and a man described as the municipal party secretary surrounded by a crowd and stripped of his shirt.[11] The clash was quelled in the afternoon when Ding Dawei, Party Secretary of Nantong City, announced through a loudspeaker that the project would be "permanently halted."[12]

Nationalist comments were mixed with lingering calls for further protest on Sina Corp.’s Weibo microblogging service, showing yet again the anti-Japanese sentiment still to be found in China. Weibo users expressed their emotional feelings such as, “How can a Japanese paper factory come and damage Chinese people’s health and our environment? How can we with our 1.3-billion population be afraid of that little Japan?” “The whole nation should boycott Japanese products,” “Little Japan, get out of my country!” Online users also called for continued efforts against Oji paper itself. A search for the phrase “boycott Nepia” – the brand name of a tissue that Oji sells in China – turned up more than 100,000 posts on 30th July. This pipeline project triggered online opposition beyond Qidong. A Weibo account named “We Are All in Shanghai” called for Shanghai residents to protect their drinking water from being polluted by this project. “It does not mean that we hate Japan. We just target its blind development based on damaging our environment”.[13]

Since the Nantong government decided to halt the project, Jiangsu Oji Paper has no choice but to continue releasing its waste into the Yangtze River, a practice that has lasted for more than a year since the factory opened in 2011. The Yangtze River already has an obvious pollution belt in the coastal waters along the lower reaches of the river, where numerous chemical factories rest along both banks. Research shows that 50 to 80 percent of the water sources in cities along the Yangtze River are at risk of being polluted. [4]

After receiving approval from local authorities for a method of cleaning the wastewater using membrane technology and reusing it[14], Oji Paper started its full-scale operations at an integrated pulp and paper plant in their Jiangsu plant that had been delayed by opposition from local residents in 2012. The test operations of the pulp facilities began in June 2014. The Nantong plant was in the red due to rising production costs because it was unable to procure pulp in-house before the integration.[15]

Founded in 1873, Oji is Japan’s second largest papermaker after Nippon Paper Group (“NPPNF”), operating more than 20 mills throughout Japan that produce a variety of paper products, including printing and writing papers, corrugated board and boxboard. OJI has approximately 120 subsidiaries and affiliates worldwide, including operations in the Americas, the Asia/Pacific region, and Europe.