Who doesn’t want China’s ‘Inconvenient Truth’ being told?

A documentary about China’s catastrophic air pollution — earning hundreds of millions of views with days of its release last week — has been suddenly taken offline. “Under the Dome,” a documentary privately produced by a former anchor on state broadcaster China Central Television, detailed causes of atmospheric pollution in the country — including slack government supervision and lenient penalties for polluters. The 103-minute film was first uploaded last Saturday, and had been viewed more than 155 million times by the next day.

President Xi Jinping vows to punish, with an iron hand, any violators who destroy ecology or environment, with no exceptions.

Xinhua, the state news agency, posted on Twitter on Friday

It’s surprising that the film was even allowed to be viewed in China, a country which notoriously blocks content that is critical of the government. The documentary set off a firestorm of criticism over the government’s failure to act on the issue in a timely and effective manner. It comes after China’s parliament, the National People’s Congress, held its annual session and vowed to curb pollution.

World China pollution