China to US - Stop Tweeting Air Quality Data from Beijing (WSJ)

From Wall Street Journal

It’s well-known that China’s government isn’t pleased with the U.S. diplomatic mission’s trio of Twitter feeds dedicated to publicizing independent air quality measurements in major Chinese cities. But is the highly popular initiative a violation of the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations?

The answer, according to one top Chinese environmental official, is yes. And not only that, they may be violation of Chinese law as well.

Speaking at a press conference on Tuesday, Wu Xiaoqing, China’s vice minister of environmental protection, said the monitoring and publicizing of air quality data was the sole province of the Chinese government.



“Some foreign embassies and consulates in China are monitoring air quality and publishing the results themselves,” Mr. Wu was quoted by the state-run Xinhua news agency as saying. “It is not in accordance with the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations and Vienna Convention on Consular Relations, and it is also against relevant environmental protection regulations.”

The U.S. Embassy in Beijing has used the @BeijingAir Twitter account to publish hourly air quality readings – based on measurements of air pollution particles less than 2.5 micrometers in diameter, also known as PM2.5, that are considered especially damaging to human health – since 2008.

The U.S. consulate in the southern city of Guangzhou followed suit with @GuangzhouAir in June last year, and the consular mission in Shanghai joined in May with the launch of @CGShanghaiAir.

Twitter has been blocked in China since 2009, but Chinese users have been able to the U.S. data through a handful of third-party mobile apps. In November, several Chinese celebrities cited discrepancies between Chinese and U.S. air quality index readings in launching on online campaign to press Beijing to measure air pollution more accurately.

Two months later, municipal authorities in Beijing began releasing their own PM2.5 data, previously restricted to researchers.

The Chinese government has complained about the Twitter feeds before. In 2009, according to a WikiLeaks cable, China’s Foreign Ministry called a meeting with U.S. diplomatic officials during which Chinese officials complained the U.S. data might “confuse” the Chinese public because it conflicted with China’s own published air quality readings, based on larger pollution particles referred to as PM10. Since then, Chinese officials have complained publicly about the publication of the U.S. data, saying the air monitoring stations, based inside U.S. diplomatic compounds, provide an incomplete picture.

The U.S. embassy has said it maintains the Twitter feeds for the benefit of the American community in China and does not intend the data to be seen as comprehensive.

It wasn’t immediately clear what prompted Mr. Wu’s comments Tuesday, though the timing suggests he may have been responding to the recent launch of the Shanghai monitoring station.

The U.S. Embassy declined to comment on Mr. Wu’s allegations that the air quality monitoring stations were a violation of the Vienna Convention.

Online reaction to the comments on Tuesday afternoon suggested Chinese Internet users didn’t exactly share Mr. Wu’s concerns about diplomatic protocol.

“Can’t the Ministry of Environmental Protection just control the air quality? What’s the point in flapping your gums?” wrote one user of the popular Twitter-like microblogging service Sina Weibo.

“Does that mean we’re interfering in other countries’ internal affairs when we broadcast the global weather forecast?” asked another. “Are we promoting hegemonism?”

China announced in late February that it planned to include PM2.5 readings in national air quality standards and would expand monitoring of the smaller particles to all cities at the prefecture level or above by 2015. Still unclear, however, is how much of that data will be made public.