Red has been considered the colour of prosperity and good fortune in China for centuries, and it is also the colour of the Communist Party. But this week, it took on a darker meaning here, as it began to symbolise the failure of the party to rein in toxic smog that regularly endangers the health of hundreds of millions of people in the country's north.
The Beijing government sounded its first-ever air pollution red alert on Monday night, prompting many of the city's 22 million residents to take precautions through Thursday, when strong winds blew the smog away. The emergency measures ended at noon.
The alert was another of the touchstone moments that have occurred regularly since 2012, when the party began relaxing its tight control over information on air quality. Since then, crucial decisions made every few months by senior Chinese officials have broadened the public's understanding of the environmental degradation afflicting the nation, and they have given people more tools to gauge methods for protecting themselves. But those decisions have also raised questions about whether the party is up to the herculean challenge of cleaning up China's environment.
On no other issue are President Xi Jinping and other Chinese leaders forced to walk such a fine line, between controlling information that has the potential to undermine their legitimacy and doling it out to increasingly anxious citizens who consider such disclosures essential. And as awareness of their toxic environment grows, people are demanding fundamental solutions, not just periods of high alert that lead to inconveniences like school closings.
The emergency measures did not even achieve what they were intended to do: Despite factory shutdowns and strict traffic controls, the smog remained severe in Beijing until the strong winds blew it away. That in turn led to millions south of the capital suffering from even more polluted air.
"I don't care for the alert system," said Kan Tingting, a cafe manager who had stayed at home with her three-year-old daughter on Tuesday. "It's rather pointless, if you ask me, because it doesn't solve any real problems. No real progress is made until all the factories move away and the odd-even license plate number restriction becomes permanent."
Kan was referring to the driving limitations imposed as part of the emergency measures, which were supposed to keep about half of Beijing's five million cars off the streets. While some motorists complained about, and even violated, the rule, others like Kan said they wanted it to be made permanent, to reduce pollution levels and free up Beijing's clogged roads.
Scholars and environmental campaigners echoed Kan's sentiments, saying that while the party's progress in environmental transparency had benefited ordinary Chinese, the real test was whether it could tackle the roots of the problem, which, in the case of air pollution, is industrial coal use, a crucial component of the nation's rapid economic growth. Vehicle emissions are another big source of pollutants.
"The alert system is just a stopgap measure - giving the public the ability to protect themselves from pollution and taking emergency measures to quickly reduce pollution," said Alex Wang, a law professor at the University of California, Los Angeles, who studies China's environmental policy. "More extensive changes in the regulatory system - some already underway - are needed to fix the problem for good."
Wang said the positive moves by officials regarding transparency and the reporting of pollution data were necessary to the evolution of the regulatory system.
"China greatly expanded its disclosure of air quality data a few years ago in response to public outrage at extreme pollution levels in many cities," he said. "This raised public awareness and made 'PM 2.5' a household word in China. In the long term, accurate monitoring data is the foundation of regulatory changes needed to reduce pollution and protect human health."
PM 2.5 refers to fine, deadly particulate matter that can enter the bloodstream through the lungs. Beijing began releasing real-time data on PM 2.5 to the public in 2012, after years of pressure from prominent residents who used online platforms to get their message across. One crucial figure in that push was Pan Shiyi, a real estate mogul, who repeatedly asked in public why the Chinese government was keeping its citizens in the dark on PM 2.5 while the United States Embassy in Beijing shared such data hourly on a Twitter feed.
In January 2013, when a thick haze smothered northern China and the word "airpocalypse" was coined, the outcry was so loud that officials began allowing state news media to report more widely on air pollution. Another official calibration came in February, when Chai Jing, a former investigative reporter for the state-run China Central Television, posted online a searing documentary about toxic air that she had made with some former journalist colleagues. The video, which was made with the cooperation of some officials, got hundreds of millions of views within days, and it was praised by the new environmental minister - before censors had it taken offline.
Beijing's air quality in the first half of this year improved from the same period in 2014, with average PM 2.5 levels dropping 15 per cent, according to the state news agency Xinhua.
This week's red alert was the latest step seeking to loosen up discussion of environmental hazards and to allow citizens to vent their frustration. Beijing officials have even thanked the city's residents for their response, writing in an open letter on Thursday, "The dedication and full support of the people of Beijing touched us deeply."
Officials raised the alert just one week after being widely criticised for inaction during a multi-day spell of foul air that descended on northern China as Xi met other leaders in Paris for climate change talks.
People question whether the Beijing government will continue to raise the red alert in accordance with an air crisis policy announced in 2013 and revised this year. The policy requires officials to do so whenever the air quality index is forecast to rise above 200 for 72 straight hours. If officials had declared code red every time since 2013 that the index met that criterion, they would have done so eight times, for a total of 36 days, according to data analysis by the local makers of a popular air quality phone app.
©2015 The New York Times News Service
