Skies in Beijing were suspiciously blue on Monday on the eve of a National People’s Congress that will confirm Xi Jinping as China’s president. The authorities are adept at turning pollution on and off, often by the simple expedient of ordering factories to suspend production. Under Mr Xi, however, Beijing will have to move beyond the cosmetic. Pollution, of both air and water, risks becoming a grave political crisis as a better-informed public wakes up to the environmental catastrophe around it.
周一,十二屆全國人大一次會議召開前夕,北京的天空藍得出奇。在這次會議上,習近平將被確立為中國國家主席。臨時性排除污染對中國當局而言是小菜一碟,他們往往采取簡單的權益之計——命令一些工廠暫時停工。不過,在習近平領導下,中國政府不能繼續只做表面文章。隨著資訊的發達,民眾對發生在自己周圍的環境災難日益敏感,因此,空氣和水體污染可能引發嚴重的政治危機。