Air pollution can be deadly.
It kills more than a million people every year in China.
And officials can’t cover it up,
even though they might try.
Welcome back to China Uncensored.
I’m Chris Chappell.
In a lot of places in the world,
air pollution has reached dangerously high levels.
According to the World Health Organization,
91% of the world’s population is exposed
to levels of air pollution that are harmful.
Good thing I live in New York City,
where we actually don’t have much air pollution.
Of course, we have water pollution.
And noise pollution.
And rat pollution.
But the air here is pretty good.
But in China, there are a lot of cities
where the air quality is so bad,
it’s deadly.
In fact, air pollution claims an estimated
1.8 million lives in China each year.
According to the most recent data from AirVisual,
a crowdsourced air quality insight platform,
China has the worst air in East Asia.
China has 53 major cities where the average air quality
is considered “Unhealthy” by WHO guidelines,
that is, where the Air Quality Index is above 150.
But not every city can be a winner.
So on this episode,
we’ll take a look only at the top 10
most air polluted cities in China.
Number 10
Wujiaqu.
Wujiaqu is a tiny city of just 100,000 people
in the northern part of Xinjiang.
That’s China’s western region that’s home
mainly to a Turkic ethnic minority known as the Uighurs.
It’s also home to some of that delightful soviet-style architecture.
It’s *also* home to some pretty bad air pollution:
157 on the Air Quality Index, which the WHO dubs “Unhealthy.”
But during the winter months,
it can be as high as 250,
which is a lot more unhealthy.
Wujiaqu also happens to be less than 100 miles
from the least fun place in Xinjiang,
this reeducation camp in Dabancheng.
In concentration camps like this across Xinjiang,
more than 1 million Uighurs are being detained
by the Chinese Communist Party.
So on the plus side,
air quality is not their number one concern.
Number 9
Linfen
Linfen is in China's Shanxi province.
Today, Linfen is only a moderately polluted city.
But a decade ago it was known as the world's most polluted city.
With an average 2018 air quality index of 158,
residents now report being able to see the sun...sometimes.
What makes the air in Linfen so bad?
They love coal.
They love to truck it,
they love to shovel it,
and they love to burn it.
Just nobody really likes to breathe it.
Number 8
Baoding
Baoding is in China's Hebei province.
With a population of around 11 million,
it’s a...medium sized city for China.
Its Air Quality index comes in at 159.
China is the biggest energy consumer in the world,
and its main source of electricity is coal.
Burn too much of that, though,
and the air turns black as soot.
Makes for nice sunsets, though.
Number 7
Anyang
Anyang is a city of around 5 million in Henan province.
It made headlines in February when it won
China’s unofficial contest for most polluted city of the month.
Congratulations!
At one point during the month,
the air quality index in Anyang reached more than 500.
How much more?
We don’t know,
because the indexing stops at 500.
It was literally off the charts.
Besides astronomical air pollution,
Anyang's other claim to fame is ancient archeological digs.
It’s the burial place of the legendary Chinese general Cao Cao—
whom you might know of from the book Romance of the Three Kingdoms.
No?
OK, how about from the game Total War: Three Kingdoms?
That’s what I thought.
Number 6
Handan
Located in China's northern Hebei province,
Handan is known as the birthplace of Yang-style Tai Chi.
Though with an air quality index of 161,
you might want to put a mask on before you go out to practice.
On some days, the smog is so bad it swallows buildings.
One “solution” they've come up with is this giant cannon.
It was designed to blast out a mist of water
to fight smog and clean the air.
Didn’t do much for smog, but it sure looks fun.
Number 5
Aksu
Aksu doesn’t sound like a very Chinese name...
because it’s not.
It’s another Uighur city
in China’s Xinjiang Totally Not Autonomous region.
With an average 2018 air quality of 161,
Aksu is no place to breathe deep.
It’s also no place to get a whiff of freedom.
In Aksu, the authorities are forcing local Uighur people
to register any tools that could potentially be used as weapons,
like kitchen knives.
It’s so that the owner can be traced in the event of a crime.
Unless the crime is committed
by a member of China’s military police—
in which case it wasn’t a crime,
it was a security measure.
Number 4
Shijiazhuang
Shijiazhuang is the capital of Hebei province.
It’s about 160 miles southwest of Beijing.
It’s a busy industrial base,
especially for steel and chemical production.
Last year's figures put the Air Quality Index there at 162.
Shijiazhuang made headlines five years ago
when a resident became the first person in China
to sue the government over dangerously high levels of smog.
Plaintiff Li Guixin sued the local government for about $1,500.
It was to compensate for what he spent
to counter the effects of pollution,
including buying facemasks and an air purifier.
Li told the BBC,
"The reason that I'm proposing administrative compensation
is to let every citizen see that amid this haze,
we're the real victims."
Did he win his lawsuit against Chinese authorities?
I’ll let you guess.
Number 3
Xingtai
Xingtai is another city in Hebei province,
and also a major center for China's steel industry.
And that's fuelled by smokey coal.
It’s currently in third place among Chinese cities,
with an air quality level of 162.
A bronze medal ranking is nothing to sneeze at,
but there was once a time Xingtai won gold
in the contest for China’s most polluted city.
A study published in 2013 suggested that
“an arbitrary Chinese policy” had massively increased air pollution,
causing “500 million residents of Northern China
to lose more than 2.5 billion life years of life expectancy."
That arbitrary policy is the Huai River Policy.
Since the 1950s, it’s provided subsidized coal for indoor heating.
Yes, cheap coal for the masses!
Another well-thought-out central policy with absolutely no downside.
Number 2
Kashgar
Kashgar is often considered the cultural heart of Xinjiang.
But not the cultural lungs.
In 2018, Kashgar had air quality index of 172.
Back in 2016, Kashgar made headlines
for briefly achieving the top spot
on China's most polluted cities list.
Now it's making headlines as a place
where the Chinese Communist Party
has taken to closing and bulldozing mosques
in its fight against religion.
Nothing says “Allah is number one,”
like worshipping the atheist Chinese Communist Party.
Don’t worry,
a lot of the mosques in Kashgar are getting torn down,
to make way for the things the locals really want,
like shopping malls.
If you build it, they will come, right?
Maybe not.
And the Number 1 most air polluted city in China:
Hotan
Hotan is also a city in Xinjiang,
and it’s located within the giant Taklimakan Desert.
Hotan’s average air quality index last year was 182,
with a spike in April of 358.
But what makes Hotan’s air so bad
is not just regular air pollution caused by heavy industry.
It’s also the frequent sandstorms.
As the storms kick up sand,
the air pollution readings can go up dramatically.
You know what else kicks up sand?
The construction of concentration camps
where the Chinese regime is locking up Uighurs.
Have I mentioned the concentration camps?
Look how happy everyone there is,
listening to speeches while being “protected”
by barbed wire fences and armed guards.
Honestly, sandstorms don’t seem that bad by comparison.
Now if the air pollution in China seems pretty bad...well, it is.
Although according to official data,
China is not as bad as India,
which seems to have out-polluted China in recent years.
But that’s the problem:
China’s official data.
Even state-run media has had to admit that
a lot of the environmental data is being faked,
as local officials try to make their cities look better.
This is not a one-off thing.
As of last year,
“more than 1,000 officials have been punished
for failing to fulfill their environmental protection duties”
after a “nationwide comprehensive environmental inspection.”
For example, in Linfen,
the Chinese city ranked number nine,
“former bureau chief Zhang Wenqing and 11 others
were found to have altered air quality monitoring data
during days of heavy pollution.
The monitoring machine was blocked
and sprayed with water to improve the data
and Zhang was also found to have paid another person
to make sure the sabotage was not captured by surveillance camera.”
Seriously?
There are some things you just can’t cover up.
Specifically, the things that cover everything else up.
So what do you think about China's air pollution?
Leave your comments below.
Once again, I’m Chris Chappell.
See you next time.