Under the Dome (film)


Under the Dome is a 2015 self-financed Chinese documentary by Chai Jing, a former China Central Television journalist, concerning air pollution in China. It was viewed over 150 million times on Tencent within three days of its release, and had been viewed a further 150 million times by the time it was taken offline four days later.
Chai Jing started making the documentary when her as yet unborn daughter developed a tumor in the womb, which had to be removed very soon after her birth. Chai blames China's air pollution for the tumor. The film, which combines footage of a lecture with interviews and factory visits, has been compared with Al Gore's An Inconvenient Truth in both its style and potential impact. The film openly criticizes state-owned energy companies, steel producers and coal factories, as well as showing the inability of the Ministry of Environmental Protection to act against the big polluters.
Despite demonstrating the failure of China's regulations on pollution, the Chinese government at first did not censor the film. Instead, the People's Daily reposted the film alongside an interview with Chai, while Chen Jining, the recently appointed minister for environmental protection, praised the film, expressing in a text message his gratitude. However, within a week, the Communist Party’s publicity department confidentially ordered the film to be removed. An employee of China Business News was suspended for leaking the order.

Synopsis

The documentary is narrated by Chai, who presents the results of her year-long research mostly in the form of a lecture, reminiscent of Al Gore's An Inconvenient Truth. The Great Smog of 1952 in London served as historical evidence Chai in creating her film. She reveals footage and data from factory visits and interviews with government officials, environmental experts and business owners. She also speaks with officials from London and Los Angeles on how their respective cities have managed to deal with historic issues of pollution. She says she has a personal grudge against smog, and sets out to answer three questions: What is smog? Where does it come from? And what can we do about it? For the rest of this 104 min-long ‘Ted Talk-style’ film, she answers these questions, using animations, charts, interviews, historical clips, and site visits.
Within the documentary, Chai features two child figures, one being her baby daughter in Beijing, and the other a six-year old in Shanxi, both victims of air pollution. Chai begins with the story of her daughter's tumor in utero and its removal shortly after her birth. Chai claims the tumor was caused by air pollution. She must keep her daughter inside "like a prisoner" on days where the air quality is particularly bad, which Chai's measurements indicated were about half of the days in 2014. In her interview with the six-year old, Chai asks, "Have you ever seen a real star?" The child responds, "No." “What about blue sky?” Chai asks. The girl says, “I’ve seen one that’s a little blue." “What about white clouds?” Chai asks. “No, I haven’t,” the child replies.
The film shows that China is losing its "war on pollution,” which was officially launched by Premier Li Keqiang on March 5, 2014.. She advocates cleaning up dirty energy in China to current US standards, by washing coal, using better quality oil, installing filters, and other clean-up technology. She advocates replacing coal, the dirtiest energy source, with natural gas and oil. The targets of her film include state-owned oil companies such as China National Petroleum Corporation, which has also been the subject of the government's anti-corruption crackdown. Chai also critics PetroChina and Sinopec. These companies set their own production standards and the Ministry of Environmental Protection is largely powerless to respond. Steel producers and coal plants also ignore regulations to maximize profits. Chai visits a steel producer in Hebei province with a government inspector to measure levels of pollutants. Months later, it has yet to pay its fines but a provincial official tells her that it is not possible to shut down such factories and sacrifice employment for the sake of the environment.
Towards the end of the film, Chai urges individuals to take responsibility. She convinces a restaurant to use more environmentally sound equipment. She says: "This is how history is made. With thousands of ordinary people one day saying, 'No, I'm not satisfied, I don't want to wait. I want to stand up and do a little something.'"

Release and ban

Release
Under the Dome was released online 28 February 2015, on the Saturday preceding the meetings of the National People's Congress and Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference. The documentary was initially streamed on three major internet platforms, including Tencent, Youku, and the People's Daily Online, which is the online version of the official newspaper of the Communist Party of China. The People's Daily Online also posted an editorial interview ‘People Do Things for Love’ for Chai Jing and the documentary. The documentary was viewed more than 150 million times on Tencent within three days of its release, and received abundant discussion online. Many mainstream online platforms including Sohu, NetEase, and Sina, also posted reviews about the documentary soon after its release. Traditional newspapers, however, did not respond to the documentary, with the Beijing Youth Daily posted a review of the documentary 'Chai Jing: My Personal Battle with Smog' as its headline on March 1, 2015, being the only exception.
Ban
By the end of March 1, 2015, all reports and reviews about the documentary Under the Dome were withdrawn from online websites including the People’s Daily Online and other mainstream platforms. The documentary was banned on March 7, 2015, in mainland China, by the Publicity Department of the Communist Party of China. The reason of banning was said to be the pressure of public perception of smog and the fear of collective action of the people. The advocation for grassroots movements from everyday people, as witnessed at the end of the film, instead of obeying the top-down hierarchal system in place in China was probably another factor that contributed to the ban. The documentary featured blatant environmental violations by factories and frank speech by authoritative figures, reasoning that punishments would likely do more harm by hurting the economy and people's livelihoods. This inconspicuous acknowledgment of purposeful rule-breaking was less than flattering to the Communist Party as well.
However, the fact that the film was first lauded by the Communist Party official, but then subsequently banned, illustrates the internal debate within the Chinese government over tacking the country’s dire pollution problems. The banning of the film in China evoked considerable criticism from within China. Zhan Jiang, a professor of journalism and media studies in Beijing, declared, “It’s been spirited away by gremlins.”

Impact

Public Opinion
After viewing Under the Dome after its release, a large number of Internet viewers expressed their support towards the documentary as well as opinions on smog in China online. In fact, phone calls to the Ministry of Environmental Protections hotline number increased 240% after the film was released online. More than 80% of viewers said that they are deeply concerned about air pollution in China. Around 70% of viewers said that they changed their view of smog and developed a better comprehension of the problem. Over 75% expressed a willingness to restrict car and air conditioner usage and take public transportation. Moreover, viewers believed that official bureaus, heavy-industry emitters, and legislatures should be accountable for the smog problem.
The film resonated with parents, who had for years been expressing fears about the negative impact that air pollution was having on the health of their children, with many parents keeping their children inside as mush as possible to lessen the negative impacts of pollutant levels that were forty times higher than the recommended exposure limits. After the documentary was released, people saw the importance of ensuring they breath clean air, but this also revealed a large barrier in society that comes with taking the necessary health precautions. Although a select, lucky few in the middle class could buy the right tools to filter their air, the families most affected by pollution, like the ones living next to a polluting coal plant, were also the least equipped to deal with bad air. A home air purifier was out of the question in terms of money for most families, but even a N95 mask, which is very cheaply produced and sold, could not be afforded.
While receiving many positive responses, criticism on the documentary also emerged among public. Some people doubted that the scientific numeric data on emission of air pollutant and the impacts on human health caused by smog were accurate and reliable; some believed that these data were forged by Chai Jing. Some argued that Chai Jing, through her celebrity social status, was speaking for the well-off middle-class elites instead of for the welfare of ordinary citizens and the low-income groups, because the latter have less capacity to adapt to air pollution. Some held doubts on the credibility of Chai Jing’s maternal position that relates the air pollution with her baby’s medical operation.
Governmental reactions
Under the Dome being aired via the People’s Daily Online–the flagship website of the Communist Party of China–indicated that the documentary may have received official support, and been facilitating government environmental policy or speaking for official interests. As a former China Central Television anchorwoman and investigative journalist, Chai Jing had access to resources and gained support from both official web-channels and experts from the Ministry of Environmental Protection and the National Energy Administration. After the release, government officials also held positive attitude towards the documentary. China's environmental protection minister, Chen Jining, praised that the documentary as "worthy of admiration" just after the release. He compared it with Rachel Carson's book of 1962, Silent Spring, which is said to have given impetus to the environmental movement in the United States. He also declared, “I think this work has an important role in promoting public awareness of environmental health issues, so I’m particularly pleased about this event.”
However, four days after the release, Under the Dome was censored and taken down from social media by the Publicity Department of the Communist Party of China, the same media hierarchy which supported the production of the documentary. It was said that this abrupt ban was because that the central government was faced with the pressure of public perception seeing smog as an urgent and serious problem, and fear of collective reaction online that asked for major changes in relevant legislation. The documentary also cast former leader of the Communist Party of China, Jiang Zemin, in a negative light, prioritizing national GDP-increasing policies that damaged the environment. State-owned enterprises such as PetroChina and Sinopec, who are both guilty of environmental destruction, both greatly prospered under those ill economic policies, which were addressed in this film.
Industry and business
On 2 March, the first weekday after the documentary's release, the stocks of several environmental companies traded up to ten percent higher. The stocks were in companies involved in pollutant treatment, air quality monitoring and green technology, including Sail Hero, Top Resource Conservation Engineering, LongKing Environmental and Create Technology & Science. In Hong Kong, the shares of BYD Company, a maker of electric vehicles, rose nearly seven percent.

Social Media and Censorship in China

The contradictory actions of the government on Under the Dome-from supportive to against-implies that social media and censorship under China’s current conditions appear paradoxical and competitive in a political fashion.
Online social media provides a terrain where multimedia works can be publicized and spread at an unprecedented level of speed; where officials and netizens can negotiate and dispute; where a ‘green public sphere’, which is supposed to foster political debate and affect policy-making can be facilitated. In Chai Jing's case, virtual online space and social media channels are open to voices of opinion, but closed down at the prospect of potential action. As King says:" The purpose of the censorship program is not to suppress criticism of the state or the Communist Party, but rather to reduce the probability of collective action by clipping social ties whenever any collective movements are in evidence or expected". In China, the government still manipulates the contents and the flow of information on the Internet. The socio-political constraint stopped the viral spread of Under the Dome and eradicated potential collective actions of the public.