, Columnist
China's Hidden Pollution
As cities expand, industrial waste is getting harder to ignore.
Don't drink.
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Last month, Chinese President Xi Jinping directed his government to build a new city for the "millennium to come." It would rise on rural land about 60 miles south of Beijing, guided by the principles of "ecological protection and green development." And it would become a model for a new kind of urban expansion.
It was an attractive vision. Over the next few weeks, however, reports emerged of vast pollution in and around Xiongan, the area Xi hopes to develop. That's no surprise: China's four-decade economic boom has exacted a punishing price on the environment. But it does present an enormous challenge. Xiongan, intended as the green city of the future, will have to serve as a model for how China can clean up its past.