By Paul Davies and Andrew Westgate
Earlier this month, during a round of surprise inspections, Deputy Minister of the Ministry of Environmental Protection Zhao Yangmin publicly shamed the city officials of Langfang, a city in Hebei province, for failing to take action after a severe pollution warning was issued on April 2, 2017. Deputy Minister Zhao also ordered a production halt at companies in Langfang which had failed to meet emissions control requirements or had submitted falsified emissions data, blaming “some local governments that do not take emergency response seriously.”
The inspection was part of a 28-city inspection campaign by the Ministry of Environmental Protection, the largest the Ministry has ever undertaken. The inspections involve 5,600 inspectors and will run through March of 2018, focusing on the provinces surrounding Beijing and Tianjin, where some of China’s worst air pollution is found. Officials determined to be lax in their enforcement efforts could receive lower ratings in the personnel evaluation system used by the government; for serious offense, officials could be demoted, fired, or in some cases even subject to criminal charges.