United Daily News:

We have noticed that the action plan mentions strengthening international cooperation. In recent years, while the mainland has been continuing to tackle air pollution, due to factors like northeast monsoons, smog has affected not only the Chinese mainland but also neighboring regions in Asia. How do you plan to further enhance regional cooperation to jointly address air pollution in the future? Thank you. 

Liu Bingjiang:

Air pollution knows no borders. Under certain climatic conditions, air pollution can cross national borders and even continents. Each country falls victim to air pollution, and should start by reducing its own emissions, thus contributing to the improvement of regional air quality.

China is the country with the quickest improvements in air pollution reduction, contributing to improving regional air quality. Besides this, China has also actively participated in bilateral and multilateral environmental cooperation initiatives which have yield fruitful results, including those with Japan, South Korea and other countries in Northeast Asia and East Asia. Since 2019, China and South Korea have begun a cooperation program to protect the blue sky, signing and implementing lists of projects and major work arrangements under the program for five consecutive years. The two countries annually have exchanges on atmospheric environment policies and technologies, yielding practical results each year. The China-Korea Environmental Cooperation Center and the China-Korea joint environmental research laboratory have been launched, establishing platforms for both sides to cooperate on air pollution control. Under the framework of the Tripartite Environment Ministers Meeting among China, Japan and South Korea, air policy dialogues and a sandstorm joint research working group were established, providing platforms for the three countries to conduct atmospheric environmental management and scientific research. Each year, we participate in the meeting. As far as I know, South Korea has drawn on our pollution prevention and control measures for autumn and winter. Going forward, we will continue to perform well in reducing emissions and will let our experience be known through enhancing international cooperation, so as to make greater contribution to regional air quality improvements. Thank you.