Surprising weakness of the Central Government  

From my first trip to China I have been rather shocked at the weakness of the Chinese Central Government authorities in dealing with environmental disputes. While such authority is being robustly challenged in the US, for over 40 years it has been recognized that civil courts and local authority in general are not up to the task to defend people and the environment from hugely powerful polluting entities. Local governments naturally engage in a "race to the bottom" to encourage new industry to expand the tax base and as long as cleaning up pollution costs money and therefore reduce profits, those economic incentives will always trump local efforts to control pollution. Pollution damages innocent citizens in order to achieve profit in the same way that bank robbery damages account holders and society to the benefit of the criminal. This ethical equivalence must be recognized and pollution attacked as a criminal matter by a competent central authority that will enforce laws purely protective of citizens and the environment and thereby defeat the tendency for local governments to invite polluters in order to enhance tax revenues.