Western polluters are free riders in China

No US or other Western politician, not even Obama or Kerry, have talked about the sacrifice China and other developing nations have made for Western consumers or how much guilt Western consumers should bear. Instead we have heard a lot about how their multinational corporations should turn the environmental disasters in developing nations into lucrative business opportunities.

There have been occasional reports in the US media that pollution from China has gone across the Pacific Ocean to reach the US west coast, without noting that this was actually just a tiny part of the carbon footprint the US has in China.

However, blaming others won't solve China's environmental crisis. The most populous nation on the planet has to fundamentally change its "pollute first and treat later" mentality and not to repeat the blunder committed by many Western countries decades ago.

China needs to draft tougher and higher-standard environmental laws and implement them earnestly, so the colossal mistakes of the past decades won't become worse. In fact, we have seen many developing nations, whether in Africa or Latin America, are learning from China's bitter environmental lessons in their modernization drive.

That said, it is hypocrisy for the US and other Western leaders to assume the moral high ground and call China a free rider when they themselves prey on developing nations on various fronts.

The author, based in Washington, is deputy editor of China Daily USA. chenweihua@chinadailyusa.com