China Watch

Seven years and 40 billion later, the Chinese have had remarkable success on many fronts. Practically every construction project is running ahead of schedule. The Chinese can brag of heroic feats of logistics and engineering: the 8216;8216;bird8217;s nest8217;8217; latticework of the 91,000-seat Olympic Stadium, the shimmering blue skin of the Water Cube aquatics centre, a 70-mile high-speed railway, four new subway lines, an energy-efficient airport terminal.

But Beijing still has not conquered its pollution. Nearly 50 years after Mao Zedong8217;s 8216;8216;war on nature8217;8217; felled trees to make room for steel plants in the administrative capital and reversed rivers to provide irrigation, the Chinese government is finding that undoing the environmental damage and turning Beijing into a green showcase in time for the Olympics is no small task. China has only 16 months before 550,000 overseas visitors pile into a city of more than 15 million.

Air pollution was greatly reduced in the initial years of Beijing8217;s cleanup campaign, and by 2002 the number of 8216;8216;blue sky days8217;8217; nearly doubled, to more than 200. Now, levels of ozone and other pollutants meet international norms. But for the past two years, fine soot in the air has failed to dissipate .

And despite all efforts, recent tests of nearby rivers and lakes showed that many are still badly polluted.

But Chinese environmental officers say they are proud of their progress and that Beijing should be judged not by international standards but by how much it has improved.