China will learn “precious lessons” from its move to clear up Beijing’s smog-ridden skies ahead of an international summit, state media said yesterday, as Internet users coined the derisive term “APEC blue.”
Beijing has pulled out all the stops in its effort to greet visitors with blue skies for the APEC forum, when Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) will host representatives and leaders from Taiwan, the US, Russia and Japan among others.
Beijing has imposed tight limits on car use, ordered factories to close, and is giving public employees a six-day holiday, with some neighboring areas also setting restrictions.
The move led to dazzling clear skies in Beijing on Thursday, with levels of PM2.5 particulates, the smallest and most dangerous, falling to four micrograms per cubic meter — down from more than 400 during part of last month.
By yesterday, the reading had risen back to 60, with white skies again clouding the capital.
The government-led effort has triggered an unexpected backlash among the nation’s social media users, many of whom have taken to Weibo and WeChat to ridicule the push that has abruptly cleared the capital’s skies.
A message circulating widely on the Chinese mobile messaging app WeChat this week defined the new phrase “APEC blue” as “something that is beautiful, but fleeting and ultimately inauthentic.”
One Sina Weibo user yesterday wrote: “Many plants in polluting industries have halted production without any hesitation in order to save face for Beijing during APEC, when leaders of other nations visit.”
“What does this mean?” the user asked. “Pollution is not an uncontrollable problem; the key is that the health of ordinary people is not as important as saving the government’s face!”
State media outlets responded with commentaries yesterday that addressed the issue, but seemed to offer conflicting advice regarding China’s longer-term problem.
“North China will learn precious lessons from these current smog reduction efforts and the result, which can be used effectively later,” the state-run Global Times wrote in an editorial.
However, it added: “How China can sustain a blue sky will be one of the tougher challenges it faces in the post-APEC period.”
A named commentary in the Chinese Communist Party’s People’s Daily said that “it may be difficult to retain the ‘APEC blue.’”
It said, however, that it is “absolutely necessary for us to retain the serious attitude, firm determination and coordinated mechanisms behind it.”
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