14 DAY TRIAL // It turns out that the Chinese state media is a firm believer in the old saying that one must always look for the silver lining, regardless of how bad things seem.
Thus, both state-controlled broadcaster CCTV and newspaper Global Times have recently argued that, all things considered, the air pollution crisis that China is currently dealing with is not all that bad.
More precisely, both CCTV and Global Times have pointed out that the smog now hovering over China poses some “major benefits” that become obvious if one finds it in their heart to look at things from a different perspective.
According to Daily Mail, CCTV has argued that the air pollution crisis is working wonders for the Chinese people's sense of humor.
This is because, when faced with all the smog, the country's residents started making up jokes in an attempt to better cope with the situation.
The Global Times, on the other hand, has stated that the smog helps keep the country safe, seeing how guided missiles that China's enemies might want to launch would have trouble hitting their intended targets.
State media has also said that, thanks to the air pollution crisis, people in China are more “unified,” and that the smog has reminded everybody that, rich or poor, they all breathe in the same air.
The smog is also proof that the country's economy is rapidly developing, and “reminds us that China’s status as ‘the world’s factory’ is not without a price,” CCTV and the Global Times think.
Besides, courtesy of the tons of harmful compounds now floating over China, the country's residents have had a chance to learn a great deal about meteorology and geography, and have even added new words such as “haze” and “smog” to their English lexicon.
Needless to say, environmentalists and green groups were quick to argue that CCTV's and the Global Times' arguments in favor of air pollution don't really make sense, and sound very much like something that characters in Lewis Carroll's “Alice in Wonderland” would say.
In response, CCTV and the Global Times have both pulled their pro-smog propaganda from their websites.