The Beeb is reporting that the Chinese government suppressed a World Bank report’s findings that smog causes hundreds of thousands of premature deaths:
The move followed pressure from Beijing, which believes the material is too sensitive and could lead to social unrest, said the UK’s Financial Times.
The Financial Times said the Bank report, entitled ‘Cost of Pollution in China’, found up to 760,000 people die prematurely each year in China because of air and water pollution.
High levels of air pollution in China’s cities leads to 350,000-400,000 premature deaths, it said. Another 300,000 die because of poor-quality air indoors
Chinese officials feared this news would cause social unrest, and rightly so. Why, the Chinese people would take to the streets if it wasn’t so dangerous to breathe outside.
The obviously don’t call it the people’s republic because of regard for its own people. Or, maybe the only folk that are considered to be people are in “the party”.