Sinosphere
In Beijing, Complaints About Smog Grow Louder and Retaliation Grows Swifter
February 26, 2014
Nearly a week into northern China’s latest
airpocalypse, the skies over Beijing are murky and acrid with a heavy
smog that shrouds the sun. On social media sites, the yellow, choking
air has become something of a meme, as residents post depressing photos
of their blackened air purifier filters and hazy urban vistas with
comments like #nuclearwinter.
Amid the latest round of
smog, anger is rising over the Chinese government’s inability to protect
the nation from a pollution crisis that has made places like Beijing
“unsuitable for human habitation,” as a prominent state-backed think
tank stated in a study released this month that was swiftly censored.
Last week, the official Sina Weibo microblog
account of the state-run China Central Television Finance Channel posted
two scathing indictments of the Chinese government’s environmental
failures. “Does anyone still care about Beijing’s smog?” began one,
noting that although the “pollution index is off the charts,” no
measures had been taken to mitigate the environmental emergency. A few
minutes later came the second post, “Beijing municipal government, don’t
hide behind the thick smog,” which warned that “the people have grown
numb,” but the channel was “issuing a wake-up call: the government can’t
act blind.” It must “protect its territory and not act ignorant.”
Both posts were quickly deleted.
On Friday, after days of a growing outcry, the Beijing government for the first time raised the air pollution alert
on its recently established color-coded system to orange, the
second-highest level out of four, prompting schools to cancel outdoor
activities and some factories to close. But those measures and similar
ones taken across the region have failed to alleviate the smog. In
Beijing by Tuesday evening, the United States Embassy air quality index
meter read 500, nearly 20 times the level of particulate air matter
deemed safe by the World Health Organization.
Even as the government
insisted it was working overtime to address the crisis, officials were
busy retaliating against CCTV. According to employees, an editor at the
Finance Channel was fired for posting the offending microblog posts and
CCTV was banned from all reporting on Beijing’s epic smog, because, they
said, the posts infuriated the city’s mayor, Wang Anshun. Oddly, CCTV
is still allowed to report on the air pollution hovering just outside
the city’s borders in the surrounding province of Hebei.
Reached by phone, the director of the CCTV Finance Channel, Guo Zhenxi, said he was too busy to comment and hung up.
Censorship, however, is not
preventing other Chinese in the polluted region from taking matters
into their own hands. Last week, Li Guixin, a resident of Shijiazhuang,
the provincial capital of Hebei, walked into the district court and
filed a lawsuit against the city’s environmental protection bureau for
failing to curb the increasingly horrendous smog. The lawsuit seeks
10,000 renminbi, or about $1,600, as compensation for the money he has
spent on protecting himself against the foul air.
“Since last December, the smog in Shijiazhuang started to get worse,” Mr. Li told Yanzhao Metropolis Daily, a local newspaper. “I had to spend money on masks, an air purifier and a treadmill” for exercising indoors.
Mr. Li’s lawyer, Wu Yufen,
said in a telephone interview that the lawsuit — the first of its kind
in China — was rejected by both the provincial and the municipal courts.
He is still waiting to hear from the district court, but vowed to
pursue all legal recourse. “Air quality is a very important issue in our
lives,” Mr. Wu said. “When the air is bad, there is no quality of life
to speak of. You can’t even go outside.”
Back in Beijing, the
authorities are taking a zero-tolerance approach to public expressions
of environmental discontent. According to a Sina Weibo post published
Tuesday morning, an artist named Du Xia was taken away by the police in
central Beijing after he protested against the smog.
A few hours later, the post had disappeared, but the smog remained.
Mia Li contributed research.北京嚴重污染，政府刪除微博批評聲音
2014年02月26日
Kim Kyung-Hoon/Reuters
北京霧霾天，景山公園的遊客。
中國北部最近一次「空氣末日」
(airpocalypse)持續已近一周，這些日子裡，北京天空中黑暗和刺鼻的濃重霧霾遮蔽了太陽。在社交媒體上，「黃色嗆人的空氣」已成為一種可稱為
彌母(meme)的文化基因，一些居民上傳了家中空氣凈化器的黑乎乎濾紙的照片以及被濃霧掩蓋的城市景觀照，還用「核冬天」
(#nuclearwinter)這樣的話題加以評論。
在最近這次霧霾天氣期間，人們對中國政府的憤怒不斷增長，他們指責政府保護環境不力，讓北京等地的污染達到了「不適合人類居住」的程度，正如一個受國家資助的著名智囊機構在本月發佈的一項研究報告中所說的。
上周，官辦中央電視台財經頻道在其新浪微博上兩次發帖，譴
責中國政府環保失敗。「還有人管北京的霧霾嗎？」一篇帖子開門見山地問道。帖子指出，雖然「污染指數爆表」，但沒有採取任何措施來減輕環境的緊急狀況。第
二個帖子發在幾分鐘之後：「北京政府，別趁着大霧裝瞎！」。這篇帖子警告說，「民眾自然就會麻木，社會也會熟視無睹，但央視財經提醒的是，政府不能當瞎
子，它必須要肩負起自己的責任，守土要有責，莫無知！」
但這兩篇帖子很快就被刪除了。
周五，在人們憤怒地呼籲了數日之後，北京市政府首次把最近設立的以色彩表示的大氣污染預警升
為橙色，這是四個警級中第二高的，導致了學校取消室外活動，一些工廠停產。但是這些措施、以及該地區實施的其他類似措施，並沒能減輕霧霾狀況。到北京時間
周二晚，美國大使館測量到的該市空氣污染指數為500，空氣中的顆粒物含量幾乎達到世界衛生組織建議的安全水平的20倍。
就在政府稱正竭盡全力解決這一危機的同時，官員們卻在對央
視進行打擊報復。據員工說，央視財經頻道一名編輯因發佈惹怒官方的微博帖子已被開除。他們說，央視被禁止報道北京這次史詩般的霧霾，因為這些帖子惹怒了北
京市市長王安順。奇怪的是，該台仍可報道籠罩在北京外圍河北省上空的空氣污染狀況。
央視財經頻道總監郭振璽在接到採訪電話後，說太忙沒有時間發表評論，然後就掛了電話。
然而，審查制度並沒有阻止住在污染區的其他中國人自己採取行動。上周，河北省省會石家莊市居民李貴欣走進當地的區法院，狀告該市環保局沒能遏止不斷惡化的霧霾。他索要1萬元人民幣的賠償金，作為他個人防污染開支的賠償。
李貴欣在接受當地報紙《燕趙都市報》採訪時說，「去年進入12月份，石家莊的霧霾就開始嚴重。我買了防霾口罩，還專門買了台空氣凈化器和一台跑步機。」
李貴欣的律師吳玉芬在電話採訪中說，這是中國首次此類訴訟案件，但已被省高級法院和市中級法院拒絕受理。他仍在等待區法院的消息，他發誓說要採取一切法律手段。「空氣質量對我們的生活來說很重要。空氣不好，任何生活質量都談不上。人甚至都不能出門，」他說。
回到北京來看，當局正在對環境不滿的公開表達採取零容忍的態度。新浪微博周二上午有人發帖稱，藝術家杜峽在北京市中心抗議霧霾之後被警察帶走。
幾小時後，這則帖子消失了，而霧霾仍在持續。
Mia Li對本文有研究貢獻。
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