A beautiful China must start with clean air

I live close to Beijing's Olympic Village where some posters and billboards with inspirational slogans are still visible on walls or atop buildings, evoking memories of a determined city to make the 2008 Olympic Games a success.

One of the slogans urged people to fight a "decisive battle" as the city went into an overdrive for the Games. Construction laborers worked round the clock to build venues before the deadline, volunteers practiced their most charming smiles until their jaws became sore. Even the feared chengguan, or urban administrators, pledged to fight the battle of their lives to teach people civilized manners.

I have always shrugged off such oaths and pledges as foolish exaggerations for show. But over the last weekend, when I coughed and sneezed in the suffocating, apocalyptic smog that shrouded the city, I wished the collective fervor had persisted longer, and the city's "decisive battle" against air pollution had raged on.

To ensure clear skies, more than 130 local factories were either closed or functioned part-time before and during the Olympics. About 1.5 million cars were garaged as the city authorities banned vehicles with license plates ending in odd or even numbers from the roads on alternate days.

In a people's campaign for more blue-sky days, residents were encouraged to report their neighbors for causing pollution. In 2008, informants were offered cash rewards of up to tens of thousands of yuan for reporting vehicles or smokestacks that spewed black smoke and dusty construction sites.

Under an emergency plan at the urging of the central government, if extremely unfavorable atmospheric conditions hit Beijing, hundreds of other factories were to be closed and more vehicles taken off the roads in Beijing and neighboring Tianjin municipality and Hebei province.

Not everyone was a fan of the Olympics. Some actually resented the inconveniences caused by the many improvised rules and regulations. But people accepted the sacrifices for what they perceived to be common good. Officials involved in the preparations were told that it was a political mission and their jobs could be on the line if they failed to fulfill their assigned tasks.