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President Xi’s ‘APEC blue’ comments reflect hope for China’s environment
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A NEW term to describe something ephemeral is “APEC blue.”
The neologism was coined by Chinese Internet users to refer to the rare blue skies over Beijing during the APEC summit held in the Chinese capital.
Many, while appreciating the respite from the usual smoggy air in this season, also remarked wryly that the blue skies — achieved at the cost of limited traffic, halted factory operations and construction work, and a six-day break for many Beijing residents —will become gray again once the APEC summit is over.
The supposedly short-lived “APEC blue” has generated such buzz in cyberspace that even China’s top leadership has felt the need to respond to it.
In President Xi Jinping’s remarks delivered at the state banquet held on Monday to fete attending guests, he surprisingly dwelled on the issue of air quality. “These days, the first thing I do after waking up every morning is to check on the air quality in Beijing. Hopefully, the smog will be less intense, so that all our guests from afar can feel a little more comfortable during their stay in Beijing,” said Xi.
He also credited those behind the better air and the APEC, which he said “nudged us toward greater resolution to protect the environment,” and which would “be encouragement to do a better job in environmental protection.”
The most promising message that many picked up from Xi’s speech came when the president entertained concerns that “Beijing’s blue skies are ‘APEC blue,’ beautiful yet fleeting.”
“I’m hopeful and confident that with strenuous (environmental) efforts, the ‘APEC blue’ will stay,” said Xi.
That air quality figured prominently in Xi’s remarks indicated a genuine wish and confidence to battle the smog, at least at the top level of government.
Although it’s true that the smog won’t be wished away overnight, our confidence can be buoyed by several facts.
Judging from the dramatically better air, it’s obvious that China’s government is capable of initiating a top-down crackdown on pollution.
While some local governments are often reluctant to shut down polluting businesses — which are big taxpayers — we can expect them to be strong-armed into action if the top leadership’s desire for change is strong enough.
More crucial is a change of mindset. We need to embrace a new healthy idolatry to replace the old worship of GDP. We get a glimpse of what it is from the choice of the summit’s venue, Huairou District, a hilly and picturesque part of suburban Beijing famous for its lakes, lush vegetation and a section of the Great Wall.
Embodiment of harmony
According to diplomacy experts quoted by Xinhua, the selection of watery Huairou owes to the mild and pliant nature of water, an embodiment of harmony. There’s probably more to this interpretation than meets the eye. Admiration for shanshui, or mountains and water, is in keeping with the Chinese traditional concepts of harmony with nature.
After years of ecological degradation, healing the environment should be a new pursuit of Chinese.
In retrospect, President Xi’s “APEC blue” talks are not that surprising, given his track record of ecological protection as Party chief of Zhejiang Province in the early 2000s.
His famous metaphor then about the symbiotic relationship between “gold mountains and green mountains” — gold mountain is a byword for wealth — is the primitive form of the idea of sustainable development.
We do hanker for a landscape of “green mountains” with the prospect of “gold mountains,” but it will be an uphill quest as we face obstacles such as local official patronage on polluters, overhauling of industrial policy, and the economic repercussions thereof. These may all hinder our conversion to the new humanistic cult of a better landscape.
But again, President Xi offered a ray of hope by saying, “We are sparing no efforts to tackle pollution, on a scale that is without precedent. I hope, in Beijing, and all of China for that matter, blue skies, green mountains and clear water will stay, and our children can live in a good ecological environment. This is part and parcel of the Chinese Dream.”
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