Japan to provide China with assistance in the battle against smog

I agree with you in that China does need to clean up its act, but you have to remember, many of the Japanese goods that you and I enjoy are produced in China. Many of the entire world’s goods are produced in China. I think your analogy would work better if:

You have a chain-smoking neighbor who’s smoke ends up in your apartment, but your chain-smoking neighbor is the one who cuts your grass, cleans your windows, etc.

Does China need to clean up its act? Absolutely. Can China sit back and let Japan do all the legwork? No way. Does Japan need to use military force to make them stop? Well, if Japan’s willing to rebuild all their factories in other countries, then sure. But I think a peaceful solution is the best way, as so much of Japan’s industries rely on China. If Japan continues to advise China how best to handle the situation (assuming that China cooperates fully), then it can not only save the lives of many Japanese and Chinese, but can build relations between the two countries.

Shanghai and Beijing do have a ridiculous amount of cars that are growing at high rates, but I would say that a disproportionally large amount of the pollution that causes the problems is not individuals but rather businesses… more specifically, factories, many of which are either subsidiary to or pumping out products for companies all over the globe, in Japan, the US, everywhere.

I recently saw a study comparing the CO2 emissions by households in China to those in the US, showing in terms of CO2 emissions by households, the dirtiest cities in China are still better than the best cities in the US, and that the US produces 5x the carbon emissions of China per capita (China is fast falling in this category though with all their growth). Now granted this excludes cars and industry, but this just goes to show you that Chinese hygiene and indeed individual Chinese are not the problem.

You also mention railroads and bikes – China is already ahead of you there, dropping something like 80B USD into new high speed rail, and you see electric scooters/mopeds all over the place in Shanghai.

Looking at this, where you need to attack this problem is on an industry and above level – and as much of the industry is producing stuff for non-Chinese companies, outsiders should be able to have some voice. More power to Japan for trying, but I think talking Japanese companies with factories in China into making their voice heard might be more effective.