Fog of Growth

James Fallows notes a minor glitch in the PRC's censorship efforts, as International Olympic Commission chief Jacques Rogge's statement that, in Jim's paraphrase,"the air in Beijing was so bad that some events (like, the ones where athletes have to breathe) might have to be postponed" slips through the cracks.

China's apparent inability to get the situation under control on a sustainable basis is going to lead them to try out some experiments in authoritarian environmental protection like "ordering half of Beijing's cars off the road for a few days, to see how much difference it makes in pollution" to see if that can take care of their Olympic problems.

Photo by Flickr user Kevin Dooley used under a Creative Commons license

Comments

In 2005, the Chinese Congress was meeting in Beijing while I was there. I only knew about it because the air went from quite poor to Springtime in Ireland in a week as the authorities, I later found out, turned off a bunch of factories in Beijing and neighboring Hebei province. The air is quite bad, but one of the privileges of authoritarianism (errr..."Chinese special characteristics") is you can shut down the factories and no one will stop you.

Posted by cure | August 10, 2007 9:17 AM

It's funny (in the way that Catch-22 or Slaughterhouse Five are humorous, at least) to see how a massive, monolithic, authoritarian society like China handles its problems. America? Compromise, pass incremental laws, regulate with varying degrees of enforcement, and in the end fail to prevent the problem but buy enough time for most people in the areas hit really hard to learn to use a gondola or something. China: no cars allowed for a week on pain of 10 years in prison, just to see if it helps!

Posted by Cyrus | August 10, 2007 10:50 AM

You have to admire the scientific method in action.

Al Gore for dictator!

Posted by Carl | August 10, 2007 1:10 PM

After spending a summer in Beijing I have no idea how marathon runners will survive the event. It's amazingly bad.

Posted by eriks | August 10, 2007 2:15 PM

For all our problems with the environment, I have to say that the air would have never been allowed to get this bad if China adopted Taiwan's form of government instead of maintaining its brutal dictatorship.

When environmental problems get really bad in democracies, opposing parties run for office on the issue. Incumbent parties do something about it in order to stay in office. And those dynamics tend to check against the natural desire of those in power to say that there is nothing wrong and certainly not to offend moneyed interests who may be sharing some of their money with the people in power.

And China's response is, in fact, comical. They have a growth policy that almost guarantees air pollution. Their regulatory apparatus is hopelessly corrupt, because people at the very top of the regime are getting very rich of the business deals and don't want there to be any real regulation. So, they tell individuals not to drive, without engaging in any cogitation as to what an effective anti-pollution public policy would actually look like.

Posted by Dilan Esper | August 10, 2007 2:30 PM

In 2001 I visited Beijing and met a high-up person close to the top Communist Party officials. He told me that when the IOC came on its principle fact-finding visit to the city, during the selection process for a host for the 2008 games, the government just shut down more than half of the coal-fired power plants around town to clear the air. Major institutions like hospitals and universities either closed or drastically cut back their operations for the two or three days the IOC people were there.

Not really a strategy they'll be able to pursue during the Olympics, when they will actually need hospitals, hotels, etc...

Posted by gc | August 10, 2007 3:06 PM

Moving the cars out won't change much.

The little two stroke bikes, and the coal burning power plants put out most of this crap.

Posted by Matthew Saroff | August 10, 2007 4:09 PM

Remember, democracy is just the best of a bad lot of government types, and in certain instances, a little authoritarianism can go a long way. The problem with fascistic government isn't that it's implicitly bad, but that when it does get bad, there's no stopping it.

Posted by Gordon Lightfoot | August 12, 2007 4:03 AM