The worst days are always going to be weather related everywhere, but clam days are really just magnifying the average impact not some weather pattern unique to china.

Perhaps I could give them more credit for real progress, but the root cause is still a disconnect from what's on the books being a long way from what's enforced.

Their smog problems largely relate to cars that would not pass US annual emissions standards from 20 years ago. Similarly coal is never 'clean' but it's not that expensive to dramatically reduce particulate emissions.

And yes, cheap labor etc plays a huge role in some types of manufacturing. But, by subsidizing the inputs and lax enforcement of regulations you see dramatic shifts in many types of production well past their less harmful competitive advantages.