My list wasn't about China being evil or "worse than the US". I wish them well but the combination of problems they false has sufficient to make their economy stall. And with a stalled economy, China will have a hard time affording a Clean Air Act, adding to the vicious cycle they are experiencing.

Further, repression also make the equivalent of a Clean Air Act hard. The pattern currently is the central authorities issue a call to protect the environment (usually kind of ad-hoc) but local authorities ignore it and no one can complain because all the authorities are beyond criticism.

Just like the way you have the President start an anti-corruption campaign but the President's cronies exempt.

China boosters for years said these problems didn't matter. Maybe they didn't matter for those years but now, they are here in spades.