Japan and China have put in motion a joint program aimed at arresting environmental degradation in three of China's key industrial cities.
The "model city" scheme, financed by Japanese government loans totaling 40.5 billion yen, seeks to curb air and water pollution in Dalian, Chongqing and Guiyang by upgrading antipollution facilities at steel mills and chemical plants and trying to shift their main energy source from coal to natural gas.
During a visit to Japan in late June to discuss details of the program, Sun Guoqiang, mayor of Guiyang in Guizhou Province, said, "The air pollution situation in my city is still far from satisfactory by international standards, although it has been improving gradually."
He said the city hopes to cut back on total emissions of air pollutants by improving the dust collectors installed at cement kilns and encouraging those and other industrial facilities to burn natural gas rather than coal.
Guiyang, Dalian and Chongqing have been selected as model cities to host between them eight projects under the bilateral program.
Sun said that Guiyang, the provincial capital with a population of 3.1 million, depends on high-sulfur coal for over 90 percent of its energy supply.
A recent study by a Japanese environmental research laboratory has revealed that sulfuric acids generated by coal of this type cause air pollution that travels to Japan via China and the Korean Peninsula in the winter, often bringing acid rain and snow in coastal areas along the Sea of Japan.
Of the Japanese loans, 6.266 billion yen will be spent on installing desulfurizers and dust collectors at steel mills, power stations and cement factories in Guiyang. Another project in the city will be improvement of the quality of river water, which has been polluted with mercury discharged by an organic chemical plant.