Beijing’s Smog Diplomacy in Delhi as China Shares Lessons

Spread love

As India battles worsening air pollution, China’s embassy in New Delhi strikes a carefully calibrated note—sharing Beijing’s experience while distancing itself from “exporting” solutions.

By TRH Foreign Affairs Desk

New Delhi, December 19, 2025 — In a rare moment of environmental candour wrapped in diplomatic caution, Chinese Embassy spokesperson in New Delhi Yu Jing has turned air pollution into a platform for strategic reassurance rather than prescription. Writing on X, Yu described smog as a “shared challenge” for both China and India, stressing that Beijing has “no intention of exporting” its model of pollution control.

The messaging is deliberate. Few countries, Yu noted, understand better than China the difficulty faced by “large, populous developing countries with complex conditions” when tackling air pollution. The emphasis, however, was on humility rather than triumphalism. “There is no one-size-fits-all formula,” she wrote, adding that India would inevitably find “its own path to cleaner skies.”

Yet, even while rejecting the idea of a Beijing template, the Chinese envoy laid out in detail how the capital clawed its way back from choking smog—an implicit invitation for India to study, if not replicate, China’s trajectory.

Central to Beijing’s turnaround was a decisive assault on coal. Once the backbone of the city’s energy system, coal combustion was steadily squeezed out through a multi-pronged transition. Over one million rural households and all urban areas were shifted from coal-based heating to electricity or natural gas. Four major coal-fired power plants were shut down and replaced with gas-fired stations. Smaller, inefficient boilers were either upgraded or eliminated altogether.

The campaign went beyond municipal boundaries. Coal-banning policies were enforced across the Beijing–Tianjin–Hebei region to prevent cross-border pollution, while cleaner power was imported from neighbouring provinces. The outcome is striking: by 2025, Beijing’s coal consumption had fallen from more than 21 million tonnes in 2012 to under 600,000 tonnes—less than one per cent of the city’s total energy use.

For India, where coal remains politically sensitive and economically central, the Chinese message is as much about realism as it is about ambition. Beijing’s experience shows that pollution control is not a cosmetic fix but a structural overhaul—costly, disruptive and deeply political.

China’s air-quality diplomacy, carefully stripped of lecturing, serves a dual purpose: projecting responsible global stewardship while subtly reminding New Delhi that cleaner skies demand choices no government can indefinitely postpone.