China Strategically Evaluates Five Environmental Regions details the recent decision to classify the Bohai Region, Taiwan Straight, Beibu Bay, Chengdu, and Chongqing as Strategic Environmental Regions

If you have been to Bohai Region (Tianjin) or Chongqing, then you may be scratching your head, but it appears that this is a measure to improve things vs. grant them an award:

All regions are important to the petrochemical, energy, metallurgy, and equipment manufacturing industries.

The project will evaluate potential environmental impacts of economic development and make macro-control policies for both industrial development and environmental protection.

To make sure this new policy is complete, it will take training up inspectors and making sure they enforce the laws. With so many fresh graduates coming out of school without job offers, I cannot think of a better time to train 100,000 eco-cops to run around and document proof, write tickets, and apply corks were appropriate.