For clean air, we need concerted efforts

President Xi Jinping has reiterated the importance of combating air pollution, and emphasized that a blue sky also brings happiness. To improve the quality of air we breathe, emission control technologies have to be improved to target the source of pollutants, for which more financial input is needed. Also, there is an urgent need to strike a balance between environmental protection and economic development.

Since China's economy was a planned economy for decades before the reform and opening-up policy was implemented in the late 1970s, the country needs a longer time to coordinate its environmental policy with the market economy system, whose requirements are varied and ever changing.

In other words, China has to have in place both short-term and long-term environmental policies which will also take economic development into consideration, in order to improve the air quality. Of course, the main focus of those policies should be long-term environmental governance.