IT IS platitudinous in the capital that the polluted skies clear up for big national events and holidays, as if by miracle. Some of this is (supposedly) due to efforts at controlling the weather, as for the 60th anniversary of the founding of the People's Republic, on Oct 1st 2009. After an overcast early morning, the sky burned so blue for the military parade that it seemed the usual haze and cloud cover had been nuked into oblivion. Other times it is due in part to tighter traffic restrictions (as during the 2008 Olympics) and to the shutting of factories (as for the Olympics, again, and for national holidays, which also see much lighter traffic in Beijing).
One of these measures—tighter traffic restrictions, from February 28th to March 17th—was officially in effect for the recent convening of the National People's Congress, China's rubber-stamp legislature. Its sessions began March 5th and ended March 14th. As it happens, according to the American embassy's air-quality monitor in Beijing, pollution in the capital dropped significantly just after a smoggy March 5th, leading to more than a week of blue skies. Like clockwork, it began to worsen again as the curtain fell on March 14th.
Why so blue? We cannot look to science for all the answers. In the face of this data Beijingers can muster but one plaintive cry: More Communist Party meetings, please.
