Lau Kai Tao
With the serious air pollution in Hebei province, Mr Li Guixin of Shijiazhuang is the person to submit
his complaint to a district court and wants to sue the Chinese government as they are not doing
a good job in managing the air pollution here in Shijiazhuang, hence, he is seeking 10,000 yuan
(S$2,000) in economic losses.
Hebei is a region with major industrial activities happening and has some of the most polluted
cities in China. Shijiazhuang has been having serious air pollution for 7 days straight and is posing
health risks to the people. Beijing in an effort to reduce air pollution has suspended 147 industrial
companies and for Hebei province, no actions were implemented yet.
Standing from the point of a Singapore citizen, it is sad to see that the government has not taken any
appropriate actions to curb the air pollution in the Hebei province. Being part of the industrialised
region, pollution is very common as smoke is produced from the factories it will cause the air quality
to worsen. However, this means that the respective authorities should take action to perhaps solve
the problem or make it such that the citizens can live a normal life without being affected severely
by the weather. Despite the deterioration of the air quality in Hebei province which has been going
on for a few days already, the respective authorities has not done anything to curb the air pollution
even though they said they have taken steps to do so. It is also that the government is reluctant
to close down some of industries companies as they rely quite heavily on the taxes that these
companies pay them. As a result, the government is having a difficult time to decide.
As compared to Singapore, our society is much more urbanised and developed. We live in a country
that is small and has limited space, hence, allocation of resources have to be carefully planned out
by the government. In Singapore, most of our profits come from the tertiary sector, followed by the
secondary sector and we have a small percentage of it coming from the primary sector. We do have
some industries in Singapore and the government has implemented policies to reduce the amount
of pollution that these industries produce. As a result, it is very rare for Singapore to have air
pollution. Unfortunately, we do get haze due to the forest fires happening in neighbouring countries
such as Indonesia and the monsoon winds bring it along to Singapore. However, our government is
quite efficient and has already prepared for future air pollution if it happens again.
14A03 GP Blog 