March 20, 2015
Tom Jay
It has been a dizzying few weeks for “Under the Dome,” the TED-like documentary about China’s overwhelming air pollution crisis produced and narrated by Chai Jing, a former investigative reporter at CCTV, China’s national television network. On Saturday, Feb. 28, the People’s Daily website and other outlets posted the film, along with an interview with Ms. Chai. The next day, the newly appointed minister of environmental protection, Chen Jining, praised the video as China’s “Silent Spring” moment and declared, “Chai Jing deserves our respect for drawing the public’s attention to the environment from a unique public health perspective.”
Then, two days later, the Shanghai Propaganda Department issued these instructions: “Media and websites of all types and levels … must absolutely discontinue coverage of the documentary ‘Under the Dome’ and its creator.”
But even as the fate of Ms. Chai’s environmental exposé was beginning to shift, Premier Li Keqiang would tell the National People’s Congress on March 5, “Environmental pollution is a blight on people’s quality of life and a trouble that weighs on their hearts. We must fight it with all our might.”
Then the next day, Beijing ratcheted up its earlier order: “Video websites are to delete ‘Under the Dome.’ Take care to control related commentary.”
The very same day, President Xi Jinping, wanting to be emphatically clear about his stalwart commitment to the environment, said, “We are going to punish, with an iron hand, any violators who destroy ecology or the environment, with no exceptions.”
Confused? Why all the flip-flopping? In part, it shows that, contrary to what many outsiders assume, some in Beijing recognize that pollution has become a crisis of widespread popular concern and must be addressed. But, in the end, behind all the contradictory messages lies this reality: Party leaders fear the political consequences should environmentalism blossom into an organized national movement.
“Under the Dome” is powerful. For 104 minutes Chai Jing walks to and fro in front of a large screen, weaving graphs, statistics, vivid photographs, interviews and personal stories into an arresting narrative of China’s pollution crisis.
As others have noted, the documentary offers little in the way of new information. The audience hears that: Coal and cars are the main sources of pollution, at least 500,000 Chinese people die prematurely from cardiovascular and cardiorespiratory disease, the country has environmental regulations in abundance but enforcement is weak to nonexistent, the Ministry of Environmental Protection is sorely under-staffed and under-resourced, local officials throughout the country often turn a blind eye to polluting industries, and the powerful oil and gas industries — mostly state-owned — resist raising fuel standards as the higher costs of production, they fear, will fall on them.
But Ms. Chai is careful not to let the main issue get lost in a profusion of data; she gives the documentary a deeply personal twist, tying the story of China’s polluted air to the story of her own daughter’s health. It is a video that tugs at parental heartstrings.
By Monday, March 2, it had been viewed more than 100 million times on video portals like Youku and Tencent. And it was generating considerable chatter on social media sites as well; there were 280 million posts on Sina Weibo alone. Before it was taken down from Internet sites, more than 200 million Chinese had viewed it (out of approximately 600 million with Internet access). People were watching and talking.
This is not an adventure flick, sci-fi or porn. So why does a fact-based documentary on air pollution go viral? Some analysts have characterized “Under the Dome” as the beginning of China’s national conversation on pollution. But this misses the point: The public has already awakened. Events of the past two years have conspired to raise awareness of the pollution problem and its catastrophic effects on their health. When “Under the Dome” was posted online it found a ready audience.
