Clear sky should be forever

Cleaner air and bluer sky can be expected for the capital and its adjacent areas during the week when the APEC meetings are held. But it is the outcome of cutting half of the motor vehicles on the road in Beijing and seven neighboring cities by rotating plate numbers and suspending the production of many of the factories in these cities; measures reminiscent of those employed to ensure clear skies during the Beijing Olympic Games in 2008.

We have reason to feel proud of the country's ability to achieve temporary air quality improvement in the capital by adopting special measures for such occasions. Such big events certainly require clear skies, and many people are willing to make a sacrifice to ensure that is possible.

Yet, we are also looking forward to the days when it will not be necessary to introduce these special measures to ensure clean air for whatever international events are held in the city, or indeed elsewhere in the country.

This wish of ordinary people in Beijing and other cities is something the nation's leaders, and the local leaders in Beijing and adjacent cities in particular, should make every endeavor to fulfill.

Beijing's neighboring Hebei province harbors the majority of the polluting steel plants in the country and is thus notorious for having the cities with the most serious air pollution in the country. Despite its efforts in the past couple of years to close such plants, this is far from enough for the province to transform its economic development model which is dependent on heavy industry.

As the nation's capital, Beijing also needs to reconsider what kind of city it wants to be and put into practice its sustainable development programs, as it is burdened by its lack of resources and ever-expanding population and size.

Beijing residents will no doubt feel uneasy when the city is once again smothered in smog after the APEC meeting, but they will get used to it as they did before. However, the authorities should not get used to the quick-fix model of using special measures to improve the air quality just for special occasions.

They should never become satisfied or complacent with their ability to wave a magic wand of special measures and, hey presto, they have a blue sky day.

They need to remain aware of the urgency of doing whatever they can to give people the belief that the air quality will improve substantially and permanently in the near future.