China raises a stink over US embassy pollution data

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By Leslie Hook

As diplomatic issues go, the small metal instruments on the roof of the US embassy in Beijing would not appear to present an international relations dilemma.

Yet the air monitoring station at the US embassy – which broadcasts hourly pollution readings to more than half a million Chinese followers on microblog Sina Weibo – has not sat well with China’s leaders.

Yesterday, a senior Chinese official called for the US to stop publishing its embassy’s pollution readings and said that doing so was a violation of the Vienna conventions that govern diplomatic conduct.

Wu Xiaoling, deputy environment minister, said at a press conference that it was illegal for foreign consulates to publish air pollution data and called on diplomats not to “interfere in the internal affairs” of China.

The comments, the first of their kind, underscore the political sensitivities of China’s battle with pollution, as the world’s second-largest economy wrestles with the environmental costs of its rapid growth.

Chinese officials describe the country’s mounting pollution problem as a “threat to growth”, while 750,000 Chinese die prematurely each year from pollution-related causes, according to a World Bank report.

Despite increasingly strict environmental laws, implementation of pollution standards remains lax.

As a result, China’s population suffers from high rates of pollution-related cancers and birth defects, according to government researchers.

The air pollution data gathered by the US embassy in Beijing – as well as by US consulates in Shanghai and Guangzhou – measure small particulate matter that is not routinely reported in Chinese pollution statistics.

Chinese cities are re-quired to release data only for larger particulate matter, which is not as harmful to human health as the smaller particles, and they typically publish aggregate pollution data once a day as opposed to every hour.

But Mr Wu said it was up to Chinese authorities to monitor and publish pollution data. “When various foreign consulates in China independently monitor air quality, and then publish air quality information on the internet, it not only contravenes the spirit of the Vienna conventions . . . but also violates the relevant environmental rules,” Mr Wu said.

The US embassy said the monitor in Shanghai measured the air quality in the area around the consulate’s office. “The monitor is an unofficial resource for the health of the consulate community,’’ said Richard Buangan, embassy spokesman in Beijing.

As a result of reporting differences between the US and Chinese data, the widely followed US numbers sometimes paint a more dire picture of the air quality than the official pollution index.

The data discrepancy sparked a public outcry last year, when a toxic smog engulfed Beijing for days. Official data indicated only moderate pollution, in contrast to the US data, which showed hazardous levels.

After a widespread outcry from Chinese media, the Beijing city government began publishing hourly data for small particles in January, albeit only from a single pilot location in western Beijing.

China’s environment ministry is slowly raising standards for pollution reporting.

Additional reporting by Gwen Chen in Beijing and Associated Press

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