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- Reporting & Opinion
- Environment
Where Does Beijing’s Pollution Come From?
- SOHU BUSINESS, TEA LEAF NATION, DAVID WERTIME
- 02.03.13
In January alone, a stifling and noxious haze twice enveloped the Chinese capital of Beijing, pushing air quality indexes literally off the charts and inciting widespread outrage both on-line and off. Pollution—and the outcry surrounding it—has gotten so severe that, according to The New York Times, Beijing has taken emergency measures which “include temporarily shutting down more than 100 factories and ordering one-third of government vehicles off the streets.”
But China’s Web users continue to search for answers. Sohu Business recently released an infographic which seeks to explain the origin of Beijing’s airborne pollutants, on Sina Weibo, a Chinese micro-blogging platform. Tea Leaf Nation translates.
Although the image’s inclusion of Taiwan and the Senkaku/Diaoyu Islands in China’s territory are sure to rankle some readers, its core insight is a powerful one. It points a finger squarely at China’s state-run oil companies, in particular their failure to invest in desulphurization. The graphic has been shared by more than 10,000 Weibo users since its January 29 release—and on February 2, oil giant Sinopec announced plans to upgrade twelve of its refining facilities by the end of 2013.








Sohu Business is a division of Sohu.com Inc., a Chinese Internet company based in Beijing. Sohu was ranked as the world’s 3rd and 12th fastest-growing company by Fortune in 2009...
MoreTea Leaf Nation is an e-magazine founded in 2011 whose editors aspire to make it a must-read source for China experts of all stripes—journalists, diplomats, academics, analysts...
MoreDavid Wertime is the co-founder and co-editor of Tea Leaf Nation, an English-language online magazine that synthesizes and analyzes Chinese social media. Tea Leaf Nation is a...
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