"Under The Dome" - Documentary On China's Air Pollution - Making Waves w/i PRC

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On Youku, a popular Chinese video-sharing site, “Under the Dome” had been played more than 14 million times by Sunday afternoon. The Paper, a Chinese news website, estimated that by Saturday night, the documentary had been opened more than 35 million times across various websites. Many Chinese viewers praised Ms. Chai for forthrightly condemning the skein of industrial interests, energy conglomerates and bureaucratic hurdles that she says have obstructed stronger action against pollution. Despite online censorship, others took aim at China’s state media, lamenting that Ms. Chai was able to make her outcry against pollution only after leaving her job with the state-run China Central Television.

“Support Chai Jing or those like her who stand up like this to speak the truth,” said one of the comments — which exceeded 25,000 by Sunday afternoon — on Youku. “In this messed-up country that’s devoid of law, cold-hearted, numb and arrogant, they’re like an eye-grabbing sign that shocks the soul.” The documentary is part science lecture, part investigative exposé and part memoir, and Ms. Chai’s own story has become a focus of praise and criticism. Ms. Chai and her husband were wealthy and privileged enough for her to have given birth in the United States, according to a flurry of news reports last year, and some comments accused her of hypocrisy. Newspapers have quoted scientists who have challenged Ms. Chai’s suggestion that her daughter’s tumor was caused by smog.

But online, most of the reaction welcomed her initiative in making the documentary with her own funding and putting it online. Indeed, some have wondered how Ms. Chai got away with it. “Under the Dome” is critical of the government’s inability to make big inroads in cutting pollution. And under President Xi Jinping, restrictions on the news media and Internet in China have become tighter than ever. In years past, Ms. Chai notes, the government insisted in public that the pollution was just natural fog.

So far at least, the government has not shut off the documentary, and some officials may welcome the chance to build greater support for cutting pollution. The website of People’s Daily, the ruling Communist Party’s main newspaper, was one of the first to post “Under the Dome.” And the recently appointed minister of environmental protection, Chen Jining, praised the video. He told Sina.com, a Chinese website, that he had watched it and sent a message to Ms. Chai.

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http://sinosphere.blogs.nytimes.com/2015/03/01/documentary-on-air-pollution-in-china-grips-a-nation/?_r=0