Under the dome: an unexpected donnybrook

Under the Dome, a self-financed Chinese documentary made by Chaijing, a former renowned investigative journalist of China's national televison-CCTV, has undexpectedly provoked a donnybrook that has involved in a variety of interest groups such as the governents, state-owned enterprises, experts, envrionmental activists, and ordinary citizens.

Chai started the idea of making the documentary when her as yet unborn daughter was diagnosed a tumor in the womb, which had to be removed very soon after her birth. Chai blames air pollution for the tumour. Given she has long had a journalistic enquiry into the deteriorating environment in China, she spent more than one year to film the documentary which combines footage of a TED-like lecture with interviews and factory visits. It was a huge success in that it was viewed millions of times on various video platforms very shortly after its release. The documentary even has been compared with Al Gore's An Inconvenient Truth in both its style and likely social impact.

The film boldly and openly criticises the state-owned energy companies, steel and coal factories, as well as showing the inability of the Ministry of Envrionmental Protection to act against the big culprits due to its subaltern administrative power under the governments that craves for GDP and therefore prioritises economic development. Despite this crticising stance, the Chinese governent did not censor the film at first. Instead, the Party's mouthpiece- People's Daily reposted the film alongside with an interview with Chai Jing. The film also provoked a great repercussion among the delegates who were attending the concurrent "Two sessions" (NPC & CPPCC). The recently appointed minister for environment protection, Chen Jining, even sent Chai a message personally apraising her efforts in awakening Chinese people's awareness of the severity of environmental pollution in China.

The documentary even jolted the stock market. On 2 March, the first weekday after its release, the stocks of several environmental companies which involve in pollutant treatment, air quality monitoring and green technology traded up to ten percent higher whereas the stocks of PetroChina and Sinopec which were criticised as big state-owned polluters dropped.

However, the story took a dramatic turn within a week. The Party's publicity department confidentially ordered the film to be halted and removed. An employee of China Business News was suspended for leaking the order. Floods of controversies and criticisms followed on social media as well.

Some experts pointed out the logic fallacies and fabricated data quoted in the documentary which somewhat exagerated the reality and only turned out to create scoial tensions and an unfalsifiable environmental terrorism. Chai was criticised for being a tool of hostile foreign forces after travelling to the US for the birth of her child, advoating privatisation or Chinese-style lobbying. People questioned her life style (e.g. smoking) and doubted about the link between air pollution and her child's tumour. Questions were also asked about her dubious sources of fund which might affect the independence and validity of her research, though she claimed to use her own remuneration from authoring books.

From Chai's experience, I sniff out some scent of Stephen King's same name novel- Under the Dome which describes the caculation, fights, trust and betrayal going on among residents trapped inside. Apparently Chai as a former investigative journalist has made this documentary out of good will. Whatever problems it has in terms of data, standpoints, screen techniques and narrative styles, and whatever intention the producer has for it, the film has succussfully completed the mission of raising citizens' concerns about air pollution and triggering a nationwide discussion, in particular when the smog has already become an urgent social problem in China. This is also the most notable significance of the film.

What is ironic is, such documentary with consciencious humanistic concern should have been produced by large television stations/media rather than a resigned journalist on her own expense. But it was not, which in fact implied the abnormality of the media environment in China. The ban of it has provided a further proof that the political environment in China is so bleak with severer "smog" than that in its air.

#ChaiJing #airpollution #China