What a nonsense claim! is this better than their middle class?
The red river in Wenzhou is just one example of the water pollution that has been running rampant in China for years.
A child in a polluted reservoir in Pingba, southwest China's Guizhou province, in 2006.REUTERS/China Daily
More than half of China's population doesn't have access to safe drinking water. Almost two-thirds of China's rural population use water contaminated by human and industrial waste.
A child drinking water near a stream in Fuyuan county, Yunnan province, in 2009.REUTERS/Stringer
China is home to 20% of the world's population and contains about 7% of the world's freshwater.
A villager with two bottles of water, one from a white polluted stream and the other with normal mineral water, in the Dongchuan district of Kunming, Yunnan province, in 2013.Stringer/Reuters
Source: The New York Times
Pollution of the water and air has short- and far-reaching effects. The pollution is so bad that it even affects the animals in the water. Fish, an important source of food for many, are also at risk.
Workers cleaning up dead fish on the banks of the polluted Fuhe river in Wuhan, Hubei province, in 2013.Stinger/Reuters
Environmentalist Ma Jun told Voice of America: "I think the next 20 years will be quite critical. The government needs to make efforts to reduce pollution to provide a safe and healthy environment for this generation."
China's economy is the second largest in the world, and it's getting larger. With that growth comes more factories, where most of the pollution comes from.
Villagers washing clothes in the garbage-filled Shenling River, in Yuexi county, Anhui province, in 2015.William Hong/Reuters
With that increase in industrialization comes pollution both in the form of runoff or contamination, but also in major accidents, such as large leaks or spills. Here, workers try to clean up after an oil spill in Dalian Port, Liaoning province, in 2010.
In 2015, the Chinese Ministry of Environmental Protection issued a report that said two-thirds of groundwater and one-third of surface water was unsafe for human contact.
A fisherman in Chaohu Lake, covered in blue-green algae, in Chaohu city, Anhui province, in 2013.REUTERS/China Daily
Source: IB Times
A report from 2007 indicated that 278 of China’s roughly 600 cities do not have any sewage treatment facilities.