Seattle Post-Intelligencer: Beijing clears air about smog problem

This is an old article I came across that suggests how China will clear the air for the 2008 Olympics. I've heard that Capital Iron and Steel has largely been moved out of the city and will be completely moved by 2008.

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Beijing clears air about smog problem

Wednesday, September 1, 1999

By JOSEPH ALBRIGHT and MARCIA KUNSTEL
COX NEWS SERVICE


BEIJING -- Authorities yesterday revealed a sooty secret long suspected by residents of this heavily polluted capital: that for vital state occasions, the Beijing government can switch off the smog.

Beijing officials promised to use that power to the hilt next month "to ensure a successful celebration" of the 50th anniversary of the communist takeover of China on Oct. 1, state media reported.

"About 25 large enterprises in Beijing that produce a lot of pollution every day . . . have been ordered to reduce production and stop using equipment burning fuel and coal from Sept. 21 to Oct. 1," the official state-run China Daily disclosed.

Among the enterprises instructed to cease burning coal before the revolutionary celebration was Beijing's most notorious polluter, Capital Iron and Steel Corp., which has been blamed for generating about 20 percent of the eye-stinging fumes that turned Beijing's sky into a gray curtain of smog on 256 days in 1997. Comparable figures since then are not available.

This is the first time anyone can remember that Chinese authorities openly acknowledged that they can close down the sources of pollution for political reasons.

When President Clinton visited Beijing in June 1998, China's Environment Minister Xie Zhenhua dismissed talk that Beijing would order a shutdown of smoke-spewing factories for the occasion.

Xie told a press conference that a factory shutdown would do little good. Then, no doubt by coincidence, Beijing was blessed with a rare run of sky-blue weather during the Clinton visit.

Five years earlier, some factories and hospitals were ordered to turn off their coal-burning heating plants to reduce smog at nearby sports complexes during a visit to Beijing by an Olympics inspection team.

This time around, the Beijing Public Security and Traffic Administration left no doubt about its determination to control the smog for the Oct. 1 celebration. "These measures are expected to improve the quality and visibility of the air above Beijing in a short period of time," China Daily reported.

Besides shuttering coal-burning factories, municipal authorities also prohibited all "large freight trucks, diesel locomotives and motorcycles using mixed fuels" from entering the city for 10 days before the celebration.

China Daily cited a painful episode five years ago: "In the last military review on the 45th anniversary of the People's Republic of China, Beijingers were unable to view the fighter planes flying in the sky because of low visibility of the heavily polluted air."

Another Beijing newspaper, Shopping Guide, reported that most radio transmitters supporting telephone pagers will be closed on Oct. 1 "to guarantee an absolutely unblocked radio system in the air above Beijing for the flight formation of the Air Force, which will fly over Tiananmen Square that day."