Du Shaozhong, deputy director of the Beijing Municipal Administration of Environmental Protection, took the press-conference stage at the Olympic Media Center yesterday to discuss the city's short-term air-pollution-control plans during the Summer Olympics--including the long-awaited citywide construction stoppage. The dates are now official: from July 20 to September 20, "all construction sites in Beijing will cease work," the English version of the press release said.
Or maybe they'll keep on hanging glass and welding steel. Deep in a particularly confusing Q&A session, Du seemed to contradict the release and say that the ban only addressed excavation and concrete work. That was what the AP decided he was saying, anyway. (The AP also quoted Du as saying that in the event of severe pollution, Beijing would adopt more "strident" measures--actually, Du was speaking Chinese, and the malapropism was uttered by a Western reporter trying to ask him about the "stringent measures" in the press release.)
Even less epistemological progress was made on the part where Du explained that any projects unable to finish digging, pouring, and landscaping before July 20 would not be approved. Not only do the Chinese control the weather, they HAVE A TIME MACHINE!
In the meantime, the digging across the street continues.
