Chinese Smog Chokes Japan

China’s great smog cloud is now poisoning Japan, causing pollution levels in parts of Japan to far exceed government limits and causing major health concerns.

Japan’s westernmost cities – Fukuoka especially – have had to issue health advisories and warn children to remain indoors and citizens to refrain from strenuous outdoor activities, as China’s vast cloud of deadly smog drifts over it.

Recent photographs show Fukuoka is now starting to resemble one of China’s smog enshrouded nightmare cities:

In addition to the relatively new threat of “PM 2.5” drift, the long-standing poison laden dust storms (“yellow sands” in Japanese, aptly describing the colour they occasionally turn Japanese skies) which blow over China and into Japan are also expected to be more severe than ever, with Tokyo set to receive one on the 9th.

China’s cities are now truly a sight to behold – though probably not the sort most would ever want to see:

Japan experienced China-levels of pollution during its post-war boom in the sixties and seventies, but widespread industrial diseases resulted in intense lawsuits, press censure, and political pressure, all eventually culminating in strict pollution standards – although without rule of law, a free press or democratic institutions it seems unlikely China will be able to rely on the same outcome.

Japan’s response to China dumping its poisons on it has been typically non-confrontational – rather than directly tell China to clean up its act, Japan has instead attempted to provide more of its own anti-pollution technology to China, although given the scope of Chinese hacking and espionage it seems likely that was such technology of any interest they would already have obtained it…