Guangzhou

The Chinese side of the border, Shumchun, is a long building—a combination reception house, customs office, and dining facility. We were guided down corridors, past dining rooms crowded with businessmen noisily enjoying lunch before the train for Guangzhou pulled out.

As a result, decisions to clean up the environment are routinely—and inaccurately—described as hurtful to prosperity. For example, in Guangzhou, China, the vice director of the city’s planning agency felt forced to defend a decision to limit automobile traffic as a means of reducing dangerous levels of air pollution by saying, “Of course from the government’s point of view, we give up some growth, but to achieve better health for all citizens, it’s worth it.”

In a post on Chinese social media site Weibo, the woman, who remains unnamed, recounted how subway security in the southern city of Guangzhou had stopped her from travelling because of her heavy eye make-up and dark lipstick.

Ten officials from Guangzhou have been disciplined after thousands of banyan trees, a mainstay of the southern Chinese city’s landscape, were cut down. The decision, announced over the weekend, was likely to have been approved by President Xi Jinping, who made an unusual intervention to signal his displeasure, experts said. Li Xi, the Communist Party chief in Guangdong, the province in which Guangzhou is located, told state media Sunday that the tree removal “gravely damaged the city’s natural ecological environment” and “hurt the public’s fond memories and feelings.” Li added that local officials should realize that Xi paid significant attention to Guangzhou and recognize the severity of the problem.