PM2.5 unites Asian giants

Top environment officials from China, Japan and South Korea agreed on Monday to enhance trilateral cooperation to combat air pollution, particularly the high concentration of PM 2.5 that has covered vast swathes of China in smog during the past few months.

The cooperation will see the three nations launch the Tripartite Policy Dialogue on Air Pollution to encourage the exchange of information on related policies, technologies and future development, according to a joint communiqué inked during the two-day Tripartite Environment Ministers Meeting in Kitakyushu, Japan.

Through the dialogue, the countries will also collaborate on further utilization of existing regional programs for air quality management, said the communiqué.

"The cooperation is an encouraging development in controlling PM2.5," said Chen Jianmin, executive deputy director of the Department of Environmental Science and Engineering at Fudan University.

"The problem does not pertain to a region or a nation only, it's a global challenge that needs every country's efforts," Chen said, adding that the three governments needed mutual trust for this plan to work.

The annual meeting, held since 1999, invited environment ministers from the three countries to communicate on related policies and technologies and discuss solutions for pollution problems.

"Apart from officials, environment scholars and business owners should all be part of the dialogue," Chen said, adding that attendees have to be willing to engage in cross-border communications, because the three countries have different means in coping with air pollution.

China's Vice Minister of Environmental Protection, Li Ganjie, Japan's Environment Minister Nobuteru Ishihara, and South Korea's Environmental Minister Yoon Keong-kyu are among high-ranking officials attending this year's meeting, which was held amid tensions between China and Japan over the Diaoyu Islands, as well as fury from China and South Korea toward the visit to the Yasukuni Shrine by Japanese Cabinet officials and lawmakers earlier.

Yang Bojiang, a researcher with the Institute of Japanese Studies at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, told the Global Times that bumpy relations are likely to impede top-level talks on environmental protection.

"It's impossible that the political standoff and the tense atmosphere in the region will not transmit to the academic areas," he said, adding that cooperation in environmental protection is likely to ease the political tension to a limited extent.

Ishihara, the Japanese minister, was quoted by Japan's Kyoto News as saying that it is delightful that the meeting could be held despite strained ties between Japan and its two neighbors.

However, experts cited by Kyoto News said Zhou Shengxian, China's environment minister, skipped the meeting due to the political tensions.