2015-03-02
The skyline of Qingdao, in east China’s Shandong province, is pictured on a hazy day, Feb. 25, 2015.
Citizenside
A documentary film by a former government broadcaster highlighting China’s “airpocalypse” smog problem has gone viral on the country’s tightly controlled Internet, clocking tens of millions of views in the first two days of its release.
Former China Central Television (CCTV) anchor Chai Jing released the self-funded film, titled “Under the Dome,” online on Saturday in the style of a public lecturer addressing a live audience.
Chai said she was driven to make the 104-minute feature-length documentary after her baby daughter was born with a lung disease.
“This wasn’t a planned project,” Chai told the People’s Daily Online in an interview.
“My baby was sick, and after I resigned I planned to spend some time taking care of her.”
“During that time, I realized that the smog problem was getting worse and worse, to the extent that everything in life was influenced by it,” Chai said.
“My professional training, as well as my role as a mother, meant that I thought I should be able to answer the questions of what smog is, where does it come from, and what should we do about it,” she said.
“That’s why I carried out this investigation.”
An acceptable price?
Chai’s film draws on news photos and footage, scientific research, and interviews with researchers and officials to highlight the causes of smog, in particular laying the blame on the country’s dependence on fossil fuels.
The film, which refers to the Chinese slang-word “dome” to refer to air pollution over major cities, ends with a call to action, especially on the part of the ruling Chinese Communist Party.
Co-released by the Chinese video-sharing site Youku and party mouthpiece the People’s Daily Online, the film is likely to spark further debate over the huge social and economic costs of environmental pollution as the country’s parliament begins its annual session in Beijing.
However, sources told the U.S.-based China Digital Times that propaganda officials are already directing websites and media outlets to carefully monitor and control all public discussion of the film.
Many comments were highly critical of the government for allowing huge swathes of smog, containing emissions and particulate matter many times over legal limits, to regularly engulf northern and eastern China.
U.S.-based author and economist He Qinglian said via Twitter: “This film brings home in a very direct way the bloodstained vested interests linking officials, mine bosses, and all coal consumers, right down to forced child laborers at the lowest rung of society.”
