Choking China

For many people in China, the most visible problem isn’t the country’s slowing economy, corruption or social harmony. It’s dirty air. Pollution is shortening lives in the world’s most populous nation and, by some accounts, has been the main cause of social unrest in recent years. After Beijing’s “airpocalypse” in 2014, President Xi Jinping pledged to protect the environment with an “iron hand.” As economic growth slowed however, the government loosened some curbs to keep factories running, and winter skies got grayer. It’s a reminder of the trade-offs at the heart of China’s transition from developing country into prosperous, modern nation, forcing the Communist Party to balance the rush for growth against the threats to life and health. Can China clear the air?

Progress has been erratic. In 2013, levels of PM2.5, airborne particles that pose the greatest threat to human health, peaked in Beijing at 35 times the World Health Organization’s recommended limit. The capital’s 21 million residents donned face masks, kept their kids indoors and complained vociferously on social networks. Premier Li Keqiang declared a “war on pollution,” while warning it would take time. In 2015 Beijing issued its first red alert — the highest of four levels — as an ash cloud bigger than Spain settled over northern China. More alerts followed but air quality has generally improved as authorities tightened environmental regulations, scrapped some coal-fired power plants and switched millions of homes and businesses from coal to cleaner-burning natural gas. There have been setbacks. In the four months ending Jan. 31, 2019, average PM2.5 concentrations in the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region — home to more than 100 million people — jumped 6.7 percent from a year earlier. The capital was under an orange smog alert in early March as delegates arrived for the National People’s Congress. Health studies have raised alarm bells. One report said pollution may be cutting lives in northern China short by five years; the WHO estimates more than 1 million Chinese died from dirty air in 2016; another study put the tally at 4,000 deaths a day. Other research links pollution and lung cancer.