cjm,
Good point.

The Chinese actually have a lot of plans to reduce air and water pollution with better technology over the next 20 years.
They have some very ambitious plans to replace coal-fired power plants with nuclear plants. They have been very interested in re-foresting parts of the country. The land to the west of Beijing had been reduced almost to a dustbowl. and they are very interested in exploiting wind power.
But it (China) is still a pitiably poor country in many ways, and reducing air and water pollution is expensive in terms of productivity and in use of capital. Someday, just not today.
Maybe with the profits of buying out GE and GM and Ford in the next six months with that 2 trillion dollars?