Despite the pandemic lockdowns and economic difficulties, China has ordered a nationwide production cut and factory shutdowns in a bid to implement its environmental control policy set for the upcoming Winter Olympic Games. The goal of China’s latest environmental campaign is to improve air quality and create a “blue sky” over Beijing, the host city of the Games. The neighboring city of Tianjin and northern provinces with heavy industries—including Hebei, Shanxi, and Shandong—were ordered by authorities to reduce the number of days of heavy pollution and decrease the average PM2.5 concentrations from Oct. 1 to March 31, 2022, according to an Oct. 29 document from China’s Ministry of Ecology and Environment. “[The] production has been halted, work has been suspended, and salaries have been reduced,” Wang Chuan (pseudonym), a Chinese worker from one of the northern industrial provinces, told the Chinese publication of The Epoch Times. He added that most of the …
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