Wasn't it the rationale of the environmentalists to shift the dirty manufacturing plants to developing nations in order to reduce pollution and energy use in the United States? Well, they've succeeded. Except that the pollution isn't gone, it's just transferred. And the energy use isn't lessened. It's multiplied many times with the accelerated industrialization of this major population center. Nice work, fellows. I'm sure you know where we can get some extra oil reserves, because the Chinese will be competing for all of the ones we have now.
henderson field wrote: "And the energy use isn't lessened."
VERY good point! What the environmentalists don't understand is this: It takes high technology to reduce pollution and increase efficiency. This high technology is located in advanced countries, like the US and Japan. Third world countries simply don't have the economic or technological means to be environmentally efficient. It's the third world that does the most damage to the ecology. Just look at how much the US has cleaned up its air and water over the last 30 years! No doubt the Chinese are still dumping vast quantities of industrial byproducts into their rivers.