A change of rules means foreign journalists can now travel in China without seeking permission

Bian Shao Dong, the village chief, was surprised to see us. Foreign journalists often visit Xiditou, the charmless settlement for which he is responsible, to investigate the alarmingly high incidence of cancer among residents, but they rarely seek him out. Rather, if he heard they were sniffing around, he might call the police to run them out of town, and send officials to intimidate villagers who had made the mistake of telling the foreigners their problems.

Xiditou and the neighbouring village of Liu kuaizhuang, near China's huge north-eastern port city of Tianjin, are notorious. Paint and chemical factories discharge effluent into the Yongding River, which runs parallel to Xiditou's main street. According to the Tianjin health authority, the cancer rate is 30 times the national average, so the central government, suspecting a link to the factories, ordered a clean-up several years ago. Some factories closed. Others just hid their pipes underground. Villagers fall sick and run up huge medical bills; many die young. But the courts - which come under local party control - have refused to accept any lawsuits against the companies. Local officials were not in the habit of explaining themselves to visiting journalists, because they didn't have to.

On 1 January, something changed. A new government directive says that foreign journalists no longer have to seek permission from China's foreign ministry before travelling outside the capital, and that local officials should accommodate their needs.

Hence our arrival at the Xiditou Village Government and Communist Party headquarters, a slatted wooden building unexpectedly reminiscent of a Dutch church. The chief was a plump man in his early forties, dressed in jeans, with something of a swagger. He said he would love to give us an interview and even to talk about the Hong Gua paint factory, which he himself owns, but we would have to ask permission from the propaganda secretary.

Murmuring officials crammed into the bleak, smoke-filled room, eyeing us with suspicion. They told us to report to the county headquarters across the road, where we were ushered into a conference room.

The propaganda chief poked his head around the door. "Have you called the police?" he asked the man who had been tasked with guarding us. He reappeared a few minutes later with a baffled expression on his previously impassive features.

"I'm told the rules have changed," he said. "The village chief should give you an interview."

We trooped back across the road to break the news, which was met with stunned horror.

"But I don't want to give an interview! I'm too shy to be on television."

Our producer, Bessie, said that the foreigners would think very badly of the Chinese if he backed out now, and eventually cajoled Bian in front of the camera. "You're famous now," joked one of his colleagues.

"So was Saddam Hussein," he said.

Having never undergone media training, Bian found it hard to keep on message.

"It's impossible that the cancer rate should be so high," he said. "I don't know how they got those figures. Anyway, the fact that people are sick has nothing to do with the environment. People get cancer in places where there are no chemical plants."

We asked about the water, black with pollution in some places and red in others. "The water is not unsafe!" he said. "We all grew up with it. Look how well I am."

Indeed, he did look healthy, but, like other leaders, he no longer lives in the village. Ah, well, he had moved so that he could send his children to better schools. In the end, he announced, this cancer business was all a mystery: "Some things just don't have explanations."

One interview with a foreign journalist does not make for full accountability, but at least Bian felt he had to comply with the new regu lations. Earlier this month, Pan Yue, the deputy director of China's environment agency, raged against provincial and local officials who ignore environmental directives from Beijing. He singled out the city of Tangshan, where 80 new plants - mainly small, inefficient and heavily polluting steel factories - were built in 2006, contravening all instructions from Beijing.

We visited on a fogbound day last week. A straggly flock of sooty sheep wandered along the rutted road between the belching factories. A local farmer, Li Zuo Zhi, has collected statistics on the people's health. In a community of 3,000, more than 70 have suffered strokes in the past ten years. Many were under the age of 40. Medical studies show that stroke is associated with air pollution.

Li introduced us to his neighbours, several of whom are disabled and semi-paralysed, and showed us the garbage dumps where the factories discard their waste. Environmental directives from Beijing? The local officials just ignore them, he said.

This year, for the first time, the Chinese government will use environmental as well as economic criteria to judge local officials for promotion and punishment. The problem is that many of them make so much money from factories in their area, their government job comes second.

As for those suffering from cancer or stroke, they struggle to pay their medical bills and hold out little hope for getting compensation from either the government or factory-owners.

"People need to rely on themselves," explained Bian, the village chief of Xiditou. "China has a large population and it's not possible for everyone to lie on their back and not work. Anyway, there's no more pollution around here."

Lindsey Hilsum is the Channel 4 News China correspondent

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