Rich Chinese cities suffocates poor

Copyright © HT Digital Streams Limit all rights reserved. Economist, The Economist 3 min read 26 Aug 2025, 12:25 pm is an employee in a business center folders that the Chinese national flag is being lifted, in Beijing, China (Reuters) ‘s summary in the fight against smog in Beijing was once so thick that a local brewery started selling a bitter beer. Fewer people are doing a discount these days. Last year, Beijing saw only two days of very serious smog, according to the government’s method of measuring-from 58 in 2013. The appearance of a particularly dangerous class of pollutants called PM2.5, which consists of dust and as small enough to get through the lungs by the lungs, fell by two parts during a decade. Although the levels are still far beyond what the World Health Organization considers safe, city officials are proud of the progress they have made. Still, a new front in the “War on Pollution” is open: China’s poorer backland. While the country’s average air quality is getting better, improvements in rich eastern cities are driven, but pollution in many cities in the south and west of the country has gradually become worse. In the first quarter of this year, the levels of PM2.5 in ten Chinese provinces rose from the same period in 2024 (see map), according to a recent study by the Center for Research on Energy and Clean Air (Crea), a thinking tank in Finland. The five most serious air pollution that took place in the country in April all took place in western China. Sand storms caused by unfavorable weather carry some responsibility for this murk. But human factors matter more. Countries in Europe and North America have been watching their own air for decades when dirty manufacturing companies moved to cheap industrial hubs in eastern China. Now, something quite similar is happening within China itself, and the coastal settlements that are doing push their ominous smokers further inland. Beijing’s last steel factory was closed in 2010 and has since become a leafy park. The city has ordered 11,000 polluting firms to close since 2013. Yet factories sprout in China’s backland, where soil, labor and energy are much cheaper. The production of pork iron and steel, to name two examples, accelerates in the west of China, even if it delays in the east. Xinjiang, a large western region, becomes a pivot for China’s chemical industry. Officials in poorer cities have much less incentive than their rich neighbors to turn green. The middle-class chinese are a glimpse of the dangers of air pollution and become angry as air quality. In the case of Beijing, it undoubtedly helped the leaders of China – and their children – give the same air. But none of this pressure applies to cities in the backland of China. Officials in these places tend to be very desperate to increase economic growth, even when it comes at a tremendous cost of public health. And those who do want to monitor or punish polluters have far fewer resources to do so. Indeed, there are reasons to think that the next phase of China’s war on pollution in both Eastern and Western provinces will be more of a slogan than the first. One reason for optimism is the rise of exhaustless electric vehicles, which accounted for about half of all cars sold in China last year. On the other hand, the tightening of political control means that there is far less room for complaints about dirty air, says Huang Yanzhong of the Foreign Relations Council, a thinking tank in America. State media once regularly drove stories about the dangers of smog; Nowadays, they mainly publish praise for China’s achievements. Activists used to attract attention to the problem (in 2015, an artist in Beijing wandered around and waved a vacuum cleaner to suck up the smog). The authorities have since cracked such activities, for fear that they may have dissatisfaction. They forced some NGOs in the area to close their doors. If China faltered, it would be a great missed opportunity. Air pollution is related to all kinds of problems-from lung cancer to heart disease-that China’s cracking healthcare system is already struggling to treat. In 2019, the pollution of PM2.5 was responsible for approximately 1.4 million premature deaths in the country, according to a study by researchers at the University of Washington, in America. Meanwhile, the levels of ozone gas, which can cause breathing problems, have increased in China over the past year. Officials are currently deciding the targets for pollution reduction for China’s next five -year plan, which will last from 2026 to 2030. Bluer skies in Beijing is no reason to relieve. Subscribers can report to the drum tower, our new weekly newsletter, to understand what the world of China is doing – and what China makes of the world. Catch all the business news, market news, news reports and latest news updates on Live Mint. Download the Mint News app to get daily market updates. More Topics #Air Pollution Read Next Story