Three decades of breakneck industrial growth have fouled China’s air, water and soil, and Premier Wen Jiabao made reducing pollution a centrepiece of government policy in 2007. But vice minister of the State Environmental Protection Administration (SEPA), Pan Yue, said a broader political shift was needed to give citizens a bigger say in reining in big polluters, who are often protected by growth-hungry officials.

“Reducing pollution emissions is not purely a specialised problem,” he said in a statement on SEPA’s Web site (www.sepa.gov.cn). “It’s a problem of adjusting the pattern of interests formed through the traditional pattern of growth.”

Pan, who has nurtured an image as a political reformer using environmental issues to push change, said the transparency rules would encourage citizens to keep a close watch on polluters. …

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