I am pretty sure the whole thing is just OP up to his usual antics, which is trolling.
To be fair, as China develops and people looks for higher standards of living, environmental issues do become more and more important, but western medias are also far from impartial. Take Beijing for example, this entire soil contamination thing actually doesn't apply to Beijing because Beijing's pollution is only about air pollution from motor vehicles and mostly caused by its unique geographical location. Since Beijing has relatively little industry and farmland, there is very little soil contamination. Many of the soil contaminated cities are situated on open plain, so it doesn't actually trap smog in winter time like Beijing (which is surrounded on three sides by mountains) and consequently isn't that high on the PM2.5 and PM 10 department. However, that doesn't stop media from trying to mingling the issues together.
It is my personal opinion, however, that western media's target isn't really China itself. I mean, what exactly is CNN or BBC going to do to the Chinese government? Nothing. They are foreign medias and while they do influence some opinions, they are far away from affecting the main stream opinions in Chinese society. The real target of western media is their respective native readers. Take CNN for example, if CNN published an article on Chinese manufacturing causes pollution, its purpose is not to affect how Chinese does manufacturing, but to tell its US readers "hey, China did more manufacturing than us and has better economic growth than us, but since they are polluting while doing so, we have nothing to worry about". These are the articles that sells and bring profit and that's what private media will run.
