BEIJING (China Daily Show) — Leaded water, an absence of wildlife and thick, syrupy air are all healthy signs of a flourishing economy, China’s Minister of Environmental Protection told an open-air audience at the Renmin University Center for Conservation and Sustainability on Monday.
“Heavy fog is a sign of strength,” Wang announced from inside a Bosch hermetic eco-chamber, considered standard issue for top-level urban cadres. “To paraphrase our late Supreme Leader: to pollute is indeed glorious.
“It doesn’t matter if the air if black or white – as long as you can breathe it,” he added to laughter.
The World Bank has estimated that, annually, some three-quarters of a million Chinese die prematurely due to pollution, while birth defects and surging cancer rates are common.
OK, to be fair, this isn’t journalistic reporting, it is political satire — see “To Pollute Is Glorious” — yet it’s darn difficult to keep reporting and satire apart in this country.
April 2 update: according to today’s New York Times, 1.2 million people die every year in China because of pollution. We better get out of here before we become a statistic!