The China Teaching Web

Whatever happened to China’s ability to bring nature under its control? After all, the CCP has been able to harness the Yangtze River with the Three Gorges Dam, build a train route to Lhasa that many said was impossible, and make rain fall from the sky on cue. So what is going on in Beijing? Why is the government having such a hard time hiding the pollution? Ridding the streets of homeless people was not so hard was it? What about all of those cats that were sent to “camps” outside the city? How many years has the government had to get rid of this smog problem or at least find some way to “shove it under the rug” during August? Excuse me? What’s that? Oh, it’s not smog; it’s a special kind of fog. The kind that lasts all day sometimes in the middle of an otherwise sunny day. That is what Beijing would have us to believe, at least.

“Sometimes it looks like it’s a foggy day, but the air quality is actually good,” said Sun Weide, a spokesman for the Beijing Olympic Organising Committee, according to the AFP. Really? Do we have to take your word for that? Tell that to Haile Gebrselassie, an Ethiopian marathon record-holder, who according to the article, “has already pulled out of the Beijing race over fears the pollution could affect his asthma.”  The fact is, unless Beijing can “work some magic,” the government may be in for a major embarrassment in August. if the smog does manage to shame the Chinese government, I wonder how many “heads will roll” after the Olympic Games have finished. After all, someone in the CCP should know how to make smog vanish should they not? Oops. I did it again. I meant to say fog. And if it is just fog, then why is Beijing forcing millions of cars off the road and closing factories? Hmmm. A good question for which I have no answer.